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Images, pictures, links etc... from our past
Lifestyles : Sunday, March 19, 2000
The places we'll remember
Erik Lacitis / Times Staff Columnist
We've arrived at a crossroads here.
That nice couple who moved in next door, you know, the ones who came by way of Atlanta-Fresno-Chicago-and-a-couple-of-other-stops, they don't know why the summer fireworks are named after that guy Ivar.
There is a good chance that the high-school kid who grew up here, and loves rock 'n' roll, couldn't tell you the name of Garfield High School's most famous guitarist. Of course, I know you know it was Jimi Hendrix. But for that kid growing up in the Kent hills, Mom and Dad working two jobs, everybody busy, history is whether it was two or three years ago that Blockbuster Video came to the shopping center.
That's why today I'm going to ask for your help, both you newcomers and those of you who've been here a while.
This is about The Seattle You Don't Know, although Seattle in this case includes all those communities surrounding it.
If we don't know much about the place where we live, if there are no anecdotes and legends to associate with a building, a place, a neighborhood, then it all becomes generic. You might as well live in Lynwood, Calif., as in Lynnwood, Wash.
I'm looking for your suggestions about two kinds of places: the ones that exist in your memories, and the ones here now that in a decade or two will become landmarks. To get you started, I'll tell you about two music joints - the Spanish Castle and the Black and Tan - that give some meaning to this town.
Did you know that Hendrix composed a tune called "Spanish Castle Magic"? It was about a club, the roofline built in a castle motif, that was near the intersection of Pacific Highway South and Kent-Des Moines Road.
"Every Friday night was a festival, with 1,000 to 2,000 kids having a great time." Pat O'Day, the legendary Seattle Top-40 disc jockey, is remembering the years in the early 1960s. The Castle was the place to be and be seen. It was a teenage scene, back when girls had to wear skirts or dresses to be allowed into the dance. Please, no jeans or pedal pushers.
"It was a different world back then," O'Day said. Moms and dads would drive their kids to the Spanish Castle around 7 p.m., and by midnight pick them up.
O'Day was booking local, and sometimes national, acts such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison to play for dances there. Cover charge was $1.50 to maybe .
The teenage Hendrix owned a Gibson amplifier, which he kept in his car. The deal he made with O'Day was that if a local band blew out an amp, they could borrow Jimi's if they let him play with them. It happened once or twice, and the memory was strong enough for Hendrix that he wrote that tune.
One of the local bands that played the Castle was The Wailers - later called The Fabulous Wailers to distinguish them from the reggae group of the same name. "Tall Cool One" was their national hit single, and on summer nights their music blasted onto the parking lot.
Buck Ormsby, bassist for the band, remembered what security was like back then. A cop in the parking lot, one at the door, no trouble from the kids as they danced and bounced on the trampoline-like wood dance floor. The stage was about 4 feet high, and the kids would press right up.
The '60s kids were only the latest of 35 years' worth of Spanish Castle generations. The Castle opened in 1931 and featured ballroom dancing, a place "a lady can go without an escort." During the World War II years there were swing-shift dances, for those getting off work, from 2:30 to 6 a.m.
By 1968, the Castle was history, torn down as business slowed. A few years earlier, five teenagers had been killed crossing the highway, and parents began keeping their teens away. A Texaco Mini-Mart and Meal Time Burger now mark the spot.
When the Castle was torn down, Buck Ormsby showed up and picked up a chunk of the dance floor. He still has it.
"The Spanish Castle?" he said. "Teenage love in the car."
In the International District, at the intersection of South Jackson Street and 12th Avenue South, there are four small shopping plazas facing each other. On the southeast corner, where now there is the An Dong Co. Grocery & Chinese Herbs, is the building where Seattle jazz was born. There's a boarded-up door that leads to a vacant downstairs hall.
That's where the Black and Tan nightclub used to be until it closed in 1966. And, yes, Jimi Hendrix hung out there, too.
In his book "Jackson Street After Hours," this paper's jazz critic, Paul de Barros, writes, "Every kid who grew up in Seattle in the '50s and '60s knew the Black and Tan as the hub of Seattle soul music." And before that, jazz legends from Duke Ellington to Louis Jordan played there.
The Black and Tan wasn't a fancy room, holding maybe 150 people. It was the music, and the action, that drew customers.
The club's name, supposedly, was a reference to its clientele - made up of blacks and whites. It had been started in the 1920s by a famous black Seattle character named E. Russell "Noodles" Smith. The nickname referred to his habit: No matter how much he gambled, he always set aside enough money for a bowl of noodles before bedtime.
"One great gambling hell" was how the national magazine McClure's described Seattle.
In the de Barros book, pianist Gerald Wiggins said: "Seattle was a hot town then. Believe me, you could get anything you wanted. It didn't make any difference. They had a guy, he'd come by your home and take your order. You want Johnnie Walker or Seagram's. You tell him. Half-pint, fifth, quart. He'd bring it to you. The music was good and the money was like dirt. It was everywhere. Talk about high rollers. You couldn't believe it. You know, boom time - shipyards and all this. Guys didn't know what to do with their paychecks. They did everything but go home."
That's what I mean about finding a little meaning. Next time you drive by that Texaco on Pacific Highway South, imagine those teen kids on that summer night. Next time you go to the International District, imagine a wide-open town and going to the Black and Tan to hear great jazz.
Suddenly, it's not so generic, is it?
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The Spanish Castle ballroom in the 1930s
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Busch's Restaurant
The 1950s were cruising years for teenagers in everywhere USA. Carhops delivered burgers and cokes on trays that attached to rolled-down car windows. Cruising was car hopping -- teenagers met friends and wannabe friends at these 1950s social gathering places. In Tacoma, Busch's Drive-In restaurant was the place to be on Saturday nights. Bill and Thelma Busch bought the former Triple XXX Barrel Restaurant in 1943 and it remains today as Busch's Restaurant, 3505 South Tacoma Way. From the Tacoma Public Library Photography Archive.
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