Debby Gibby has been an advocate for housing and preservation in the First Hill neighborhood since she became a resident there in 1982. In this interview, she recalls the loss of the grand Perry Hotel, located on the southwest corner of Madison and Boren (now an empty lot), the First Hill Community Council's effort to engage major institutions in their plans for future development, and the First Hill History Project, funded by the City of Seattle's Neighborhood Matching Grant in 1998.

HM: What is your role within the First Hill Community Council?

DG: I'm the current acting chair of the community council, and have been involved for over ten years.

HM: Why did you get involved with the First Hill Community Council?

DG: I've lived on First Hill since 1982, and have always loved the neighborhood. I've lived here most of my adult life now. That's what motivated me -- I just wanted to serve the community.

HM: Do you work up here?

DG: Yes, I've been working on the Hill over 16 years now in the same place, so it gives me great perspective.

The Value of the Place

HM: You're awareness of preservation issues on First Hill goes back to when you first moved here?

DG: When I came up here, I saw all the old buildings, and people would tell me about the history of First Hill. I'm kind of a history buff anyway so that's what got me started. Later on, I got more active. As I got more active, I got more involved in community stuff. That's when it really hit me, the importance of the community, and it's significance to the city of Seattle and King County, and the State of Washington.

We had so much here to offer in terms of history and historical perspective on the development of urban neighborhoods, and housing issues. It just blew my mind away that this resource wasn't being used fully, and that those things that made it unique, and a value to everyone else in the city just weren't being highlighted. They were being ignored.

First Hill takes a lot of energy, and it is a unique situation, it's very politically charged. There's the conflict between what the people want and what the major institutions want and unfortunately, during most of its life as a community, city, county and state issues have driven First Hill's development. As a result, some of the most beautiful landmarks in the city and state have gone the way of the bulldozer.

HM: So when you say the people, who do you mean specifically?

DG: People who live here. On First Hill we've had lifelong residents that have been in rental housing. This has been going on since before 1900. There's been a strong undercurrent of people, not just the one's living in First Hill's mansions, but in the rentals too. You'd be surprised to know how many a well known people in Seattle's past have actually rented an apartment or rented a room in a boarding home up on First Hill as they're starting life in this city. Most people don't know that. These people are the ones that have been underrepresented, and undervalued in our city, and in our society at large.

HM: Good point. When talking about historic housing on First Hill, many people's minds automatically go to places like the Stimson Green or the Dearborn House to some degree. I think there is a lot of emphasis on ownership when talking about historic significance.

All History is Local History

HM: Could you talk a little about your experience with the First Hill History Project?

DG: One thing I learned is how much information wasn't tagged as First Hill history. And how much the big churches up here have on First Hill history, and Washington State history. The churches have enormous, extremely important resources. They have vast stockpiles of information, family histories, diaries, mostly uncatalogued.

Like, for instance, the diary of a man who came to Seattle who was renting the top floor of a house on Broadway and eventually became one of the founders of the Northern Life Insurance Company. He was talking about the struggle to find affordable housing on First Hill in the 1890s. In his diary, he talks about his great friend who came here from Japan, and how this man put his neck on the line to basically help open up Japan for trade.

Something like that seems significant to United States history. This man was a part of the Imperial Court of Japan, and ended up being imprisoned. The man writing the diary helped him get into America. It's kind of sad when you think about it. Later on that man and his family ended up in a Japanese internment camp here in the US. That's just one story found in one archive.

All the churches up here have an archive. Some of the records date back to before Seattle was a real city. I have to hand it to the churches. They have volunteers to keep track of these records and have kept them in one place. They've done a good job. St. James, First Baptist, Trinity Church, the Seattle Buddist Temple that used to be on First Hill over where Harborview is now. They have an excellent collection of stuff there. Some of it's kind of tragic. A lot of people left stuff behind in the church basement when they were sent away in World War II.

The First Hill Community Council

HM: So could you tell me more about the makeup of the First Hill Community Council? Who's on the council?

DG: We have renters, condo owners, some small business owners, and some residential property owners. Primarily, it's made up of people who are 24-hour residents here.

HM: Do you have a figure for how many residents are living in First Hill now?

DG: If you look at the census blocks, someone would probably say we got less than 5000 residents. But First Hill actually sits in the middle of more than one census block, so I'd say it's closer to 10,000.

HM: What kinds of problems come to the First Hill Community Council?

DG:Public safety is a big concern. Most of the crime here comes from outside the community. Housing is another big issue. There's nothing worse than having to worry about having your home ripped out from under you. If you're a renter, and the property owner wants to sell the building, the building gets sold. Or the owner might jack the rents up and force people out of their homes.

Another big problem is the demolition of historic affordable housing. There have been a lot of tear downs since the 60s with the building of the freeway, the development of major institutions, and the Ozark fire hazard laws have probably contributed to the loss of over half the historic affordable housing on First Hill. It's a hard blow to take in any community.

HM: Why is there so much pressure on the community?

First Hill has been targeted as the place to put the hospitals. I think some of our city laws have not been favorable to First Hill residents because those laws have made it extremely difficult for this community to respond to challenges, like the expansion of downtown development into the neighborhood, and the hospitals' expansion plans.

I hear the same thing over and over again. Major institutions need to be free to do their business so that they can create more well-paid jobs. The bad news is that most of the people who actually work up here do not live in the city limits of Seattle, they live on the East Side, or the Issaquah plateau or even Olympia. Why should the people who live up here sacrifice their homes for this? Living here on First Hill is important to us. We're a living community. Are our homes, are we, less important than workers who come and go?

Preservation Battlefield

DG: This conflict actually goes back to Mother Cabrini and the Perry Hotel. When she purchased that property around 1916, there was huge resentment in the community. There were people throwing rotten apples and tomatoes at the building because they were so angry because most of these hospitals have come in and taken away people's housing.

This was just before the great flu epidemic broke out in Seattle. This community got really hard hit from that.

When Tate Mason demolished the boarding house where their original clinic was built, one of the arguments was that there were nothing but bad people there anyway. Actually, the people kicked out were business owners and even Imogene Cunningham. She's one of the greatest photographers in the 20th century. She and her husband Roi Partridge had their photography studio there. He created the Washington state seal. And he's an important component of the arts and crafts movement.

So there's resentment from that kind of thing, and the hospitals keep building out and out. Those of us in the community think that if the Northcliffe goes, where are they going to go next? They're either going to go south or north.

One of the first things that the First Hill Community Council did was get behind the creation of the major institution master plan laws. The Council basically solicited the city to get those, and we got them. Part of that was for better planning for this very reason. They keep building out and out and out.

These rules make it so that the institutions bring their ideas for expansion to that committee. Usually they've got a ten-year plan. The Council's relationship with Virginia Mason has been extremely contentious because unlike Harborview and Swedish which has 13 city blocks they have less land to work with. And they have these apartment buildings. They initially had four and when a unit caught on fire in the Hudson Arms, they tore the building down.

HM: And what about the Perry Hotel.

DG: That's one of the saddest and hardest projects. That's where I got my feet wet with working with a major institution for historic preservation. It was a difficult land use issue. I had to do the best with what I had at the time and unfortunately its one of those sad cases where we had a piece of property on First Hill that was stunningly beautiful and had been built with innovative building techniques. Typically the rebar runs up and down, but it wasn't built like that. It was actually built with bands of steel that were deliberately curved in different ways. The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart essentially took off one wall of the building to put up the Cabrini Tower, then they added a hospital wing off to one side, and then they did a lot of extensive changes.

In some places it was absolutely solid. You couldn't take a drill to it, it was that strong. In other places, it was crumbling. Unfortunately, no one had access to the original building plans which would have made a huge difference because when they got to tearing the building down they realized it had a double foundation. They ended up taking jack hammers to take it down. If we had known about that, that it had an extra support structure, it would have made all the difference in the world, but we didn't have that information at the time.

The Sisters had a plan for development of the property, but because of religious politics, everything had to be approved through Rome at the time. This meant the development languished forever.

Most people aren't aware of some facts about the Perry. Sam Hill of the Northern Railroad actually lived there, as did William Boeing. A number of important people were associated with that building. And the building had huge religious value because of Mother Cabrini's association and her sainthood. The Perry Hotel was important to Mother Cabrini, it was her last purchase. Some say she never stepped foot in the building, but I kind of find that hard to believe because she was up here, and at the Cathedral.

We managed to save a lot of the terra cotta artifacts off the building. They're sitting in a yard, basically, on plats, so a lot of that stuff is available. It's supposed to go on a new building, but that fell through. I don't know what's going to happen. They proposed with LIHI to put up a low-income housing project there, but there are a lot of problems with that particular project.

The community looks at that corner as the heart of the neighborhood and representative of the community.

HM: What would represent the First Hill community?

DG: A market-rate apartment house. That's what really represents the community. At the heart and core, that's really what the community is. On one corner you have the Stacey, which is the mens' University Club. That represents one link to the past, representing the first mansions and social clubs that were up here -- some are still here. On another corner, you have the small business community from the 20s which represents that era. And then you have on the other corner, a hospital. Where's the representation of the people who live here? Don't we matter?

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