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City Cast Seattle

Sam J Leeds

Smith Tower is an icon in Seattle’s downtown landscape. At 112 years old, the building is full of stories. As a history nerd with an insatiable desire for ancient gossip, I’m here with 

 for 5 tidbits from 1914’s tallest building west of the Mississippi.

 and when it opened it was one of the tallest buildings in the country outside of New York. At 462-feet tall, it quickly lost its ‘tallest’ designation as skyscrapers were built further and further west. According to HistoryLink, “By 1923 it was the tallest west of Chicago, by 1931 the tallest west of Kansas City, and by 1943 the tallest west of Dallas, but it did remain the tallest building west of the Rockies for nearly half a century.” Somewhat hilariously, it was designed by an architecture firm called, I kid you not, Gaggin & Gaggin.

2. A poetry showdown for the rainbow salmon:

A famous Seattleite watched the building go up as a boy and in 1976 he bought the tower for $1.8 million. That boy was Ivar Haglund, of ‘acres of clams’ fame. Ivar bought a 16-foot salmon-shaped windsock, which he called the “Rainbow Salmon” and flew it from the tower’s flagpole. The city told Ivar he was violating municipal code, but because Ivar was known for writing in verse, the Superintendent of Buildings, Alfred Petty, sent a poem in addition to the official violation letter. That poem was leaked to the press 

and pretty soon the whole city was weighing in with poems of their own

The city eventually granted Ivar a variance (also in verse) and the flag was allowed to stay. After he died in 1985, the salmon banner was flown at half-mast.

Just below the rainbow salmon, the triangle structure at the top of Smith Tower has an apartment inside it. Originally, it was a small cramped unit next to the building’s water tower. During Ivar’s ownership, legend has it, a group of artists took turns living there, passing the key between each other 

. By the ‘90s it had fallen into disrepair. Then, 

a Venture Capitalist named Petra Franklin

 set her sights on the space. In 1997 she pitched its new owners on remodeling it in exchange for a 

. She raised her two daughters there and often hosted salons with music, academic talks or other community gatherings.

The penthouse wasn’t the only place people partied in the building. The tower’s basement had a speakeasy-style bar which started out as a gangster club. But when they got busted in 1970, a young performer who was a member of 

When Petra’s 20-year lease was up and building ownership changed hands again, the space was given another remodel. In 2021 it went back on the market. It’s 

currently being rented by the CEO of a credit score checking company for $13,750 a month

Now that’s a Seattle story if I’ve ever heard one. To watch the Into The Archives video about Smith Tower visit us on Instagram. 

5 Little-Known Stories About Seattle's Smith Tower

Seattle, Explained

Liam Billingham

"We decided that it was important for people to know that there was a Black theater in Seattle."

A few weeks ago I sat down on Zoom with an actor named Teotha ‘Tee’ Dennard, who I was interviewing about an exhibit called ‘A Legacy Illuminated: Black Theater in the Pacific Northwest,’ running through October 3, 2026. I was set to talk to Tee for about 20 minutes, but his storytelling and good humor kept us on for nearly an hour. Tee told me about Black Arts/West, a theater in Seattle’s Central District that existed from 1968 - 1980 and staged over 75 plays. Here are a few of my favorite sections. 

I highly recommend this interview that the great arts writer Jas Keimig wrote in 2024

Teotha Dennard was born in 1943 in Georgia and was raised primarily in Gary, Indiana. After a time in the air force in Germany, he and his wife made it out to Seattle in the late 60s. A few years later, while working as a social worker, he had his first experience of the theater.

I knew nothing about theater. I had no idea about theater. Never had any aspirations…I was raised in Gary, Indiana, and I came out here to get away from a bad marriage. A fellow by the name of Charles Canada dared me to audition…I walked down and there was a play being cast by the name of Black Girl. I opened the door of Black Arts/West Theater. And there were wall to wall, beautiful black ladies lined up in there reading and looking for a script. And I just knew this is the place for me. And I auditioned and…got cast as an understudy.

I got involved and I got bit by the theater bug, but it was basically a family and I learned to love theater and I learned to love the folks.

Dennard acted in a variety of shows before getting cast in Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘A Raisin In The Sun,’ one of the most important American plays ever written, in 1973. It is the story of the Younger family, a Black family on the south side of Chicago dealing with poverty as they prepare to move to a majority white neighborhood.

Dennard played the role of Walter Lee, made famous by the great Sidney Poitier in the 1959 Broadway production and the 1061 film.

On ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ changing his life

, rest in peace…he saw something in me... I was blessed and honored to be able to be cast as Walter Lee, the son. And that role called for some deep thoughts, some deep acting, and…coming out of yourself and becoming that character.

It was a defining moment in my career that let me know right then that I had been ‘acting at acting.’ I was being myself. I was being myself, but he wanted me to be Walter Lee.

So…that was a defining moment for me right there… It let me know all this stuff you've been doing, you've been doing it for the wrong reason…these people are here…they're professionals.

This is their life, and you're in here for the wrong reason. And if you are going to be here and you got the opportunity to do something like this, then you have to become an actor...from then on, I had to become those characters and it let me know how important and how necessary and how much discipline and training and commitment…that went into being an actor and, and being in a family because that's what it was, an ensemble.

After his success in ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ Tee went to the University of Washington for some acting classes but ended up going back to acting full time. He directed a few productions at BA/W and around town. In 1978, he accepted the role of artistic director alongside Doug Johnson. However, the theater didn’t have much time left.

They sent a guy out from the National Endowment for the Arts, which is our biggest funding…fiscal sponsor.

He said, well, you guys have to start doing white theater…Most of our attendance at that time had started to be ..white audience. So Black audiences fell off and white audiences started to come. So the majority of our audience and our subscribers at that time were white people…it was an education for some whites. They had no idea about the contributions that Black people had made…because they had been swept under the rug period, you know, throughout the country.

So our audience became white, right? And so that's why they sent the International Endowment for the Arts Out. They said…you're doing Black plays, but your audience is white. Now you need to do white theater, which we could have done, but it would've ceased to be Black Arts Theater. It would've ceased to be what Doug Barnett wanted it to be. Our motto was to educate, enhance, and enrich the lives of Black people. That was the motto of Black Arts/West that Doug came up with.

So that would've just changed the whole scope of Black Arts/West…

Dennard and Johnson couldn’t find the funding to match what the NEA was giving them, and they made the decision to shut down the theater in 1980.

I was the last person there. I made sure I stayed and made sure that we were able to pay all of our vendors and to pay any actors on our payroll through her when Black Arts/West closed and finished out.

On his acting career after Black Arts/West

Dennard didn’t just act in theater, but did a variety of film and TV projects, including Black Widow (shot in Seattle), an episode of 

, and more. Including one very famous movie shot in Port Townsend.

I ended up having a real lucrative film career. I was in 15 major motion pictures. My claim to fame is 

People need to know that it was here….this small exhibit that we have here can be phase one of renewing and possibly starting another Black theater in Seattle…a theater that has seasons, four theater productions in the winter, a summer production…a real deal.

Hopefully we can generate some, some interest through this exhibit..most of the people on the committee are seniors…so hopefully we can attract some young people that want to pick up the torch. And we can go from here. This is going to be what, that's what my focus is going to be. Where can we go from here?

Black Arts/West show at Arts At King Street Station runs through Oct 3

, and Dennard says he hopes people learn about the history of the theater and what could be next.

The History of Black Arts/West, a Black Theater in Seattle

Seattle’s P-Patches are ubiquitous throughout the city. In every neighborhood there’s some sort of cute handmade sign bearing a name like Unpaving Paradise, Hazel Heights, Queen Pea or Climbing Water. So, you’d be forgiven for thinking all community gardens in every city are called P-Patches. It turns out, 

“ Often people think it's like green peas,” Kenya Fredie, the Program Manager for the 

Department of Neighborhood’s P-Patch Program

The Picardos were Italian immigrants who operated a truck farm in Wedgewood. They sold produce to local markets and at their biggest point the farm covered about 30 acres, from NE 75th Street to NE 82nd Street.

 a University of Washington student and a neighbor of the Picardos named Darlyn Rundberg (later Del Boca) wanted to help feed neighbors who were struggling. She asked the Picardo’s if she could use part of the farm’s land to grow crops like beans, broccoli, corn, and cabbage. The Picardo’s said yes.

Families that came to help grow produce were offered small 8-foot by 8-foot plots around the edges of the Picardo’s land to also garden for themselves. And from that seed of kindness the basics of the P-Patch program today sprouted.

In 1973, Seattle City Council decided to buy the Picardo farm and after a 10-month trial period, the city authorized a community-gardening program. By year-end there were 10 community gardens. All ten were called P-Patches to honor the Picardo family.

The program started a movement. Seattle’s community gardens program is one of the oldest and the largest in the country. 

 throughout the city. Of those gardens, 56 have designated giving gardens and in 2025 they donated 41,000 pounds of food to local food distribution centers and meal programs.

“The P-Patch program is really cool because we talk about diversity of plants and how that helps with an ecosystem, but so does the diversity of people,” Fredie said. “So it's a multicultural organization in which we have over 15 languages throughout the program. It's important to make sure that the P-Patches are indicative or reflective of the neighborhoods in which they're at.”

Wait lists to get into a p-patch run anywhere from 6 months to 5 years depending on the density of housing in each neighborhood. But there are lots of options for places to volunteer and get your hands in the dirt while you wait. Navera Ahmed, a community garden coordinator for the P-Patches had some suggestions:

“Look at local organizations and nonprofits that help you with getting access to green space. For example, 

 has a lot of opportunities for volunteering. There's a lot of places you can volunteer at that will help you with education, will help you get your hands in the dirt, and a place to get started while you're waiting.”

. They host monthly work parties every third Saturday from 10am-2pm. Regardless of how much experience you have with gardening, P-Patches offer a way to get to know the land and your neighbors better.

For Ahmed that’s especially meaningful. She grew up in Seattle, but because her family isn’t originally from Washington she told me, “all of that ancestral knowledge that my parents and my grandmothers have given me is not for this soil. I've had to come to terms with [having] to start from the beginning, and I think that's the case for a lot of people in Seattle. P-Patches are such a great opportunity to actually get your hands in the dirt and do the work and, and start from zero and really learn because we don't have any requirements for what you grow, only that you actively maintain it.”

To watch Sam's full video on Instagram, just 

You’d be forgiven for thinking all community gardens in every city are called P-Patches. Did you know the "P" doesn't stand for peas or any vegetables at all? It turns out, the name is specific to Seattle history. 

The Story Behind Seattle’s P-Patches

Why Seattle’s Community Gardens Are Called P-Patches

A couple months back, I drove by the Pagliacci on Stone Way and couldn’t help but notice how… cool it looked. I know next to nothing about architecture, but the building looked vaguely brutalist to me, so naturally I 

I kept thinking about how the design, though, and I wanted to hear more about how all the Pagliacci’s came to look like they did. A little research led me to Richard Floisand of 

, who work with Pagliacci on the design and build of their locations. Richard and I met up at Pagliacci Silsul in Ballard to talk.

. It sold Native American objects and had two totem poles that have their own history. The shop closed in World War 2, eventually became several different 

Pagliacci wanted to keep elements of the original so they consulted with 

 to understand the history of the building. To quote Richard, “when it feels like it's part of your neighborhood and it's always been there, you're going to be inclined to just embrace it more.”

Pagliacci kept the structure’s original logs, which were a replica of a 

 and are native to an archipelago called Haida Gwaii off of British Columbia. The shingles speak to the fact that Ballard was one of the 

largest shingle making locations in the West

, and the shape is in the style of a Nordic house.

. They are going to go back into the Earth, as is 

one traditional way totem heads and poles are disposed of

One last quote from Richard: “You're trying to tell a story about new and old..What's a good story? Hiding the past and pretending it wasn't there or actually saying, hey, this is really kind of interesting.”

To watch Liam's full video on Instagram, just click the image below.

All the thoughtful details that went into designing local pizza chain Pagliacci’s restaurants

Seattle, Explained

5 Little-Known Stories About Seattle's Smith Tower

The History of Black Arts/West, a Black Theater in Seattle

Why Seattle’s Community Gardens Are Called P-Patches

Latest articles

The Story Behind Pagliacci’s Architecture