Demolition fades memories further

I stood Friday and watched a demolition crew tear down the building formerly known as The Blvd., formerly known as the Arizona Steakhouse, formerly known as Henny’s restaurant.

In my mind, however, this building did not evoke the aroma of barbecue and sizzling steaks. It evoked the smell of joss sticks, chop suey and Chinese rockets. That building was the sole vestige of Spokane’s once-thriving Chinatown.

If you’ve spent any time at the INB Performing Arts Center, you know the building I’m talking about. It was right across the street on Spokane Falls Boulevard, the last building standing in a giant ocean of parking lot.

As those demolition workers carted those bricks and timbers away, they were carting away the last traces of Trent Alley, also known as Chinese Alley. The back of this building backed directly onto the old Trent Alley – which means it backed directly onto another world.

Here’s how a reporter described the scene in Spokane’s Chinatown on Chinese New Year in 1889: “Thousands of crackers were fired, bombs exploded and Chinese rockets were sent heavenward … . Punk or Joss sticks (incense sticks) are lighted and set near.”

He also added that a Chinese band “sawed and hammered away with all their might” on three fiddles, a tom-tom and a cymbal.

Trent Alley ran from Bernard and Washington streets, halfway between Main Avenue and Front Avenue (later renamed Trent Avenue, later renamed Spokane Falls Boulevard).

But Trent Alley was more than just an alley. It was a spacious courtyard, filled with storefronts, food stalls and shadowy nooks and alcoves. It was the center of Spokane’s Chinese and Japanese communities for decades, beginning in the 1880s and peaking in the first two or three decades of the 20th century.

The 1929 Polk City Directory gives an idea of Trent Alley’s flavor:

•Yee Yuen Hong Kee Co., Chinese merchandise.

•Wa Chong Co., Chinese merchandise.

•Sun Lee Yick, Chinese merchandise.

•Hop Yick Co., Chinese merchandise.

Well, you get the idea. It was also crowded with noodle shops, boarding houses, hotels and cramped apartments – a classic immigrants’ district.

This mini-international district was a wild place in the early days, full of opium dens and fan-tan parlors, fan-tan being a popular Chinese gambling game. The Morning Review called them “dens of vice that flourish like noxious weeds in the dark, noisome alleys.”

By the 1910s and 1920s, the area took on a more family-friendly atmosphere, especially as more Chinese and Japanese men (usually recruited to build railroads) brought wives and families over.

This particular building was built in 1909. I would bet that one of those Chinese merchandise stores occupied its back end. The front of the building was first called the St. Paul Hotel, then the Trent Avenue Hotel and then the Northwestern Hotel.

In the 1930s through the 1950s, Trent Alley began to lose its Chinatown character. The city’s Chinese and Japanese communities dispersed throughout the city and to the suburbs. Yet even in 1961, Trent Alley still housed the Hip Sing Association Social Club and the Fung Chun Social Club.

Then came Expo ’74 and its urban renewal projects. Most of Trent Alley was demolished in the 1970s and paved over for a parking lot.

For decades, this three-story brick building was the only thing on the block that wasn’t black asphalt. Its new owner in 1975 called it an “ugly old junker” and had it renovated as a restaurant. It housed a series of restaurants – remember Henny’s and the Fish House, anyone? – until finally, in February, the Spokane Public Facilities District bought it. Now, it will be more black asphalt.

I suppose we shouldn’t shed too many tears over this. Trent Alley disappeared 30 years ago, and it had disappeared long before that as a viable neighborhood. Only our imaginations can make it come alive now.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Any building, even an old and lonely one, can spark the imagination better than a parking lot ever will.