In 1969 the City of Seattle used federal Model Cities funds to purchase a building for use as a community center, the Chevra Bikur Cholim Synagogue, which was designed in 1915 by B. Marcus Priteca (1889-1971) and located at 104 17th Avenue South in the Central District neighborhood. In 1971 the building became the home of what is now known as the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (LHPAI), the hub for African American arts and culture in Seattle. After 45 years as a program of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreations, in 2018 a non-profit arts organization, LANGSTON, was created to oversee LHPAI and to strengthen and advance local community through Black arts and culture.

In this image Steve Sneed (b. 1957), director of Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center, as it was then known, stands inside the center shortly after the completion of a million-dollar building repair and renovation project. In 1989 the Parks and Rec department had been considering demolishing the aging building, but Mr. Sneed helped save the building by reinvigorating the program with an anti-drug, anti-gang, hip-hop-infused youth musical called "Peer Pressure." The popular show convinced Parks and Rec to fund the renovation, and LHPAI has remained a vital part of the city's arts community. The building is now a National Historic Landmark.

Caption information source: "Arts Center Celebrates Reopening," The Seattle Times, April 16, 1993, p. 23.
Caption information source: "One summer during his college days in the late ’70s, Steve Sneed," by Kelton Sears, Seattle Weekly, January 5, 2016.
Caption information source: "Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (Seattle)," by Zola Mumford, HistoryLink.org Essay 10909.
Caption information source: https://www.langstonseattle.org/our-story/#top
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.