Positive changes putting fresh face on neighborhood

Originally published Saturday, March 29, 1997

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Change is coming to Lake City, but nowhere is it being felt more than at the venerable Elks Lodge, where women are now admitted as members and the former stag bar is slated to become a smoke-free health bar.

Even the inner lodge room, where the chieftains of Seattle's North End once held court, will become a weight room.

Tony Del Mastro, a pragmatic, longtime member, says the plan to convert part of the 32-year-old lodge into an indoor tennis and health club is a matter of survival.

"All these fraternal organizations are dying off," says Del Mastro, who for years has been a stalwart Lake City booster. "The younger guys are a different breed" and not interested in old lodge rituals.

What the Elks -- and the rest of Lake City -- need is a new generation of leaders willing to preserve the community's neighborly qualities, Del Mastro says.

The recruitment of residents and business leaders already has begun, he says, and the results are promising. Lake City residents by the dozen are helping restore Thornton Creek and the surrounding watershed. They're cleaning up graffiti, lobbying for a new two-acre park and serving on an anti-crime citizen patrol.

An equally hopeful sign is a procession of new restaurants and shops that have opened along Lake City Way: a Greek-Italian restaurant called Dino's by the Park, Cranium's Cool Collectibles & Records and Galerias, Fine Mexican Art.

Carlos and Violeta Hueso, owners of Galerias, started their business two years ago, selling Mexican artwork at swap meets in Kent and Fremont. Their traditional warrior masks, lamps, brass castings and frames sold well and the Greenwood couple say they saved every penny so they could open their shop last year.

Like others, the Huesos say they opened their business in Lake City because rents are lower than other neighborhoods and they feel the community is improving.

Even Lake City's Fred Meyer has a fresh remodel.

"It is starting to get a new face-lift," says Linda Tenney, owner of Linda Tenney Toyota, America's first Toyota dealership. "I see some real positive changes coming to Lake City."

Tenney says her dad started the dealership and in 1958 became the first in the country to sell Japanese cars called Toyopets. The company later changed its name to Toyota.