This post is part of a series of profiles of Central District residents, part of the “People of the Central Area” project developed and written by Madeline Crowley.

So, you grew up in the Central District?

Let me tell you one story about growing up here. When I came home from school my Dad sent me to get some milk from Poppa’s Grocery (where the Urban League is now). I’m hearing music coming down the street. It sounded really good so I kept walking over there. The music was going, everybody was swinging and clapping; it was wild, wild, wild. There was no air conditioning so the door was thrown open. I just stood there and watched ‘til the song ended thinking, ‘That’s what I want to do with my life!’ Then, this guy came out bumping against the door, stumbled to a car and drove away like he was drunk. I stood there waiting for the music to start up again but there was no music – then people started leaving.

So, the stumbling guy was the music?

That’s right. That was Mike Taylor, a great piano player even now. After a few minutes I peek into the room. Billy Tolles, the boss tenor player, and Tommy Adams are just sitting there on stage, like, what are we going to do now? The piano player was gone. He wasn’t a drunk. He just looked drunk because he had Asiatic ‘flu, and he had been throwing up so he couldn’t stay. Billy Tolles saw me and said, ‘Hey, ain’t you a Holden? Don’t you play?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I play!’

What was the neighborhood like when you were young?

The neighborhood was very mixed, really integrated around 14^th  & Fir. I thought the whole world was like that. There was one guy who was Chinese and he went to war for the Americans that lived in the apartment. He owned the apartment complex that was next to our house on 14^th and Fir. He went in the 2^nd World War and he came back…Howard was his first name. He also owned Poppa’s Grocery Store on 14^th and Yesler. He walked with a limp and he was good to all of us, he was nice and we all bought groceries from him. On the other corner, the southwestern corner of that same intersection was another building owned by another Chinese man.

One of my first jobs was working at his grocery store washing vegetables and fruit to put in the freezer at night. Then my Dad said, “Go out and get a job; go get you a paper route.” So my brother and I went and got paper routes. We didn’t have to make any money, but we had jobs.

You mentioned Bruce Lee lived there. Do you remember what street that was?

Oh yeah! Fir! That’s where our family house is. And it’s right across the street from the Washington Hall where my Dad used to work in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s.

Bruce lived in the Fir Apartments right across the street from our house, we lived at 1409 and he lived across the street. Right across the street from Washington Hall, there’s a garden, that’s where the Fir Apartments were. That’s where the big old building owned by Japanese was, it was a big old building.

In the neighborhood of that time, everybody knew us as the Holdens. Everybody in the whole neighborhood knew my folks because they were musicians and they played in all the places in the Central District.

Click here to read the complete story.

Decades of service to the community was recognized Tuesday as the Seattle City Council’s transportation committee voted its approval of a new honorary designation of a portion of 19th Ave running from the edge of Capitol Hill into the Central District as Rev. Dr. Samuel B. McKinney Ave. The designation won’t mean a change of names for 19th Ave but it will be accompanied by the addition of special street signs marking the honorary avenue.

Connecting E Union to E Madison and McKinney’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, the quarter-mile stretch will honor the longtime pastor who left the pulpit in 1998 after 40 years leading the congregation. As he approaches his 90th birthday, the neighborhood around the church and the stretch of 19th Ave that will feature street signs honoring the reverend continues to change with increasing redevelopment.

“The City of Seattle is fortunate to be home to outstanding community and religious leaders who have done much to shape the conscience of Seattle,” the resolution for the designation reads. The full document is below.

The designation will be voted on by the full Council next week. We’ll check in on the timeframe for when the new signs will go up along the stretch of 19th. Continue reading →