Expo ‘74 did not kill Trent Alley (and neither did the Parkade)
(Range Media later revised this blurb and added the following: “Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Parkade garage was built in place of paved over historical Asian businesses and Spokane’s former Chinatown. The Asian business district was actually across the street and replaced with other parking lots while the Parkade was built atop a theater district. We regret the error.” Thank you, Range Media!)
There is a common misconception in Spokane that goes something like this: “Spokane’s thriving Asian district, Trent Alley, was deliberately dispersed and paved over by mid-century urban renewal efforts.”
I have encountered versions of it that blame the Parkade Parking Garage (see right) and versions of it that blame Expo '74, like the following:
“Well, if you look at social justice issues [around Expo 74], the other thing is that we wiped out Chinatown. There was a significant Asian population, and we just moved them out to make room for construction projects.”
This puts me in a difficult position every time. As well as being an Expo collector, I am a devoted researcher of Spokane’s early Chinese community and I am thrilled when there is public interest in that under-reported aspect of our town’s history. However, my excitement is tempered when I see that people’s hunger for information about this topic is being fed with misinformation.
I think that the misconception may have arisen from a misreading of a section in the Spokane Historical article on Trent Alley. For several years, that article said:
But by the late 1950s most of Trent Alley’s residents relocated into other parts of the city. When Expo ‘74 came to town, the remains of Spokane’s Trent Alley were demolished and paved over to prepare for the World’s Fair.
Or possibly the misconception arose from this HistoryLink article about Spokane’s Japanese community:
By the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese Alley was a thing of the past. Most of the Japanese community had dispersed throughout the city or into the suburbs. In 1973, Japanese Alley and Trent Alley were demolished in the urban renewal projects leading up to Expo '74, Spokane's World's Fair.
Both websites are some of the first resources that you find when you search online for information about Spokane’s historic Japanese community. Both also seem clear that there was no thriving Asian-American community in the Trent Alley location by the time that Expo ‘74 began reshaping downtown. But this is the danger of reading quickly and misinterpreting a metonym - “Trent Alley” can mean the Asian-American community that was located in downtown Spokane, but it can also simply mean the literal alley. Urban renewal efforts in the 1970s destroyed the alley, not the community.
We did have a thriving Asian district in downtown Spokane at one time, and it was referred to as "Trent Alley" in its later years. However, these later years were the 1940s and early 1950s. By the time Expo '74 began its modifications to the downtown area, these communities had dispersed. The only lingering remnant was the Hip Sing Association's headquarters, and I have never discovered documentation indicating whether their relocation in late 1974 was voluntary or involuntary.
I recently edited the Spokane Historical article to make this clearer:
Through the 1950s and 1960s, most of Trent Alley’s Asian residents relocated into other parts of the city or passed away from old age. In 1972, the Spokesman-Review described the area as derelict: "Spokane's 'Chinatown,' centered along Trent Alley just south of Trent and east of Washington, is now a series of empty, boarded-up buildings. Gradually the old hotels and stores once occupied by Chinese [people] are being torn down." The one surviving building was the Hip Sing Association's headquarters, which hosted tea and conversation for a handful of elderly men who remembered Trent Alley in its heyday. In late 1974, the Hip Sing left Trent Alley for a new headquarters on the north side of town. Its headquarters and the other buildings of Trent Alley succumbed to urban renewal efforts over the subsequent decades. The last building associated with the Trent Alley area was torn down in 2009.
Matchbook cover from the Gay Tavern Card Room.
Thanks to an article from 1965, actually have a list of the businesses that were displaced to make room for the Parkade Parking Garage. They were:
The old Hotel Grand (the article notes "the upper stories have been vacant for many years") at the corner of Main and Howard.
Gay Tavern, N. 117 Stevens
Dollar Steak House, N. 119 Stevens
Ryan’s Tavern, N. 123 Stevens
Harold March Jewelers, N. 125 Stevens.
Lue’s Cameras, W. 501 Main
Reid’s Barber College, Inc. W. 503 Main
“the former El Rancho theater,” W. 509 Main
Pete’s Custom Tailors, W. 511 Main
New Deal Tavern, W. 515 Main
M&H Loans, W. 517 Main
Neslin’s Men’s Furnishings, W. 521 Main
Star Jewelers, N. 130 Howard
Goodyear Shoe Repair, N. 128 Howard
The Chef Restaurant, N. 124 Howard
The Echo Tavern, W. 505 Main
Andy’s Press Shop, W. 523 Main
In some ways, suggesting that these communities were displaced by a few over-enthusiastic developers is letting too many other people off the hook - Expo '74 could not have bulldozed the empty buildings of Trent Alley if the people of Spokane, Washington State, and the United States had not spent decades voting for policies that prevented Asian immigrants and their descendants from coming to this country, marrying, raising families, owning homes, and having a voice in civic life.
We have recently been blessed with two great resources about the early Asian residents of Spokane, including how their stories intersected with Expo '74: Asians for Collective Liberation Spokane has created "Expo Revival: Searching For Trent Alley," on display on the third floor of the central library (https://aclspokane.org/exporevival/), and the Echoes of Expo audio storytelling experience recently released its third episode, "What Was Lost," that focuses on the same topic (https://www.echoesofexpo.com/). I would recommend both wholeheartedly to anyone interested in the history of Spokane's early Asian communities and how they were affected by Expo '74.
