The exclusion of Seattle's Japanese families by the federal government during World War II changed the city in numerous ways. Among the more obvious signs were the shuttered and boarded up Japanese businesses along Main, Jackson and upper King Streets. Many of the families who managed or worked in the stores and shops never returned to the city after they left the incarceration camps.

This image shows an area of 6th Avenue just north of Jackson Street in Seattle’s Chinatown - International District. The NP (Northern Pacific) Hotel is visible in the left background. A group of Japanese businessmen led by Niroku Shitamae bought the NP Hotel in 1914. As a residential hotel, the NP was an important part of the Japanese American community in Seattle and a destination for immigrants coming from East Asia. During the Japanese American incarceration, a day clerk cared for the hotel and Shitamae was able to reclaim it after the war. The NP closed in 1973. The building was purchased by InterImCDA in 1991 and is now used as low-income housing and a restaurant.

Signs in image: Dudley's Cleaners & Dyers; N.P. Hotel

Caption information source: “N.P. Hotel (#11), retrieved from https://revisitwa.org/waypoint/np-hotel/.