Throughout 2024, we have been working directly with the disability community to share stories and experiences that highlight advocacy efforts for equitable access and disability justice.
We recently caught up with King Khazm and Kitty Wu from 206 Zulu to learn more about how they used funding from a Historic Seattle Grant and the Seattle ARTS Cultural Facilities Fund to support renovations to Washington Hall, one of Seattle’s Historic Landmarks. A Seattle based non-profit organization, 206 Zulu provides accessible spaces while serving communities through the upliftment, preservation, and celebration of Hip-Hop culture.
Washington Hall is one of those spaces where the babies go and also the grannies go, so it’s important to be able to have all the areas be accessible.
Can you tell me a bit about the history of Washington Hall and how it has served as a community gathering space?
Kitty: Washington Hall was built by Seattle architect Victor Voorhees in 1908. The Danish Brotherhood built it for their meetings and gatherings, but it was also available for public use. Originally, everything on the first floor was private meeting space for the Brotherhood, and they built out the ballroom for public events. There were also single room occupancies in the back third which is where our offices are now. I think it was probably in 1970 or 1974 that the sons of Haiti bought it, and they owned it until 2009 when 4Culture and Historic Seattle stepped in to save the building.
The original three anchor partners were Hidmo, which was an Eritrean restaurant that we used to have our meetings at, Voices Rising, an LGBTQ artists of color organization that does music, art, and poetry, and 206Zulu. We also have Creative Justice on site on the first floor. So, it continues to be a community gathering place that is welcoming for all.
Khazm: Historically, the Danish Brotherhood and Sons of Haiti kind of anchored the space. Accessibility and creating a place for different communities to come together has always kind of been the mission of Washington Hall. As Danish immigrants were coming to Seattle and trying to get on their feet, the public spaces, the venue spaces like the lodge and the ballroom where open for all different types of communities … so many different communities. Especially during the red-lining era, touring artists of color who couldn’t perform in a lot of the big venues downtown would often come to Washington Hall as a space to perform and organize. And then local artists and communities of color would also call Washington Hall home. So, it’s always been a super big melting pot for a lot of different communities to gather with the mission to create access.
Why did you apply for the Historic Seattle and ARTS Cultural Facilities Grants for renovations to Washington Hall?
Kitty: When we first moved in, she was in pretty rough shape and needed a lot of work.
Khazm: Yeah, we had several phases of renovation, just to reopen the building which included a seismic retrofit, major capital campaign, and the elevator renovation. But we still had a considerable number of upgrades that we wanted to do. The Cultural Facilities Grant helped pay for the electrical upgrade, which was much needed. You know, we’re wanting to hold space for larger concerts and theater productions, so we kind of encountered a lot of issues with the bare bones of the electrical. Then with the little that was leftover, we were able to kind of retrofit the space with curtaining for the sides, the back areas, and the hallways. We have another phase where we’re looking to upgrade the lighting and the sound system.
Kitty: Right off the top the electrical on the stage had this buzzing. Anytime you plugged in any kind of amplifier or anything, it would buzz into the entire space. We really just needed clean sound. Because, not just the bigger shows, but the smaller shows need good sound too, you know. I think that’s one of the things that is really important, is just realizing that our smaller and regional artists need just as much attention and nice services as the bigger groups. Also, the electricity, like anytime you even had two coffee pots on, it would blow the breaker. So, from both the music side as well as the catering and hospitality and food services side, it was super, super needed.
We’ve recently done a number of film festivals too. 206 Zulu has the Seattle Hip Hop Film Festival and Langston Hughes has done their Black Film Festival with us now for two years in a row, and those curtains on the side just make it so that the light isn’t distracting, and people can see the screens. It’s nice that the renovations open it up for us to have more film too.
What renovations were needed for the space to be accessible to all?
Kitty: That was a Historic Seattle grant. I think the Egyptian, us, and one other group needed funds for different kind of accessibility renovations. I think the City put up something like $600-800,000 for the elevator. That has been life changing for us. Like, Khazm wasn’t even able to get up into those spaces unless he had his manual chair, which also meant it wasn’t accessible to all of our other guests that use wheelchairs or walkers or strollers. Washington Hall is one of those spaces where the babies go and also the grannies go, so it’s important to be able to have all the areas be accessible. I remember we had one guest that got out of his wheelchair and onto the stairs and kept lifting himself up each stair just to get up into the space. I think it was at that point where I was like, “We can’t. This can’t happen.” And some of our guests had power wheelchairs, so they couldn’t come up at all.
I think that must have been around 2014 or 2015. It was super helpful on the ADA side, but then also for equipment load in. The amount of time that it would take to load stuff up those stairs [gives an exacerbated smile]. It’s changed load-ins, load-outs, and just the experience that everyone gets to have. We also have a lift that goes from the lobby up to the stage. So, there are the elevators and then there’s a single person lift that is just a people mover that’ll get you up to the stage. So now it’s truly accessible to everybody.
Khazm, how did it feel not being able to access all the spaces at your place of work?
Khazm: It was kind of a full circle moment for me to be able to be part of the movement to restore this space and make it accessible for everyone. I’ve been going there since I was young. Actually, Washington Hall was one of the spaces, at that point ran by Nu Black Arts Theater, that would open up for me, and a lot of folks that I work with, to host our own events during a time when we didn’t really have access to many spaces.
As you know, a lot of historic spaces, and really, even non-historic spaces are not accessible. So, it’s kind of been a lifelong challenge, but then having the ability to work somewhere that’s special, that you believe in, and not being able to access, you know it’s challenging. That’s kind of what fueled a lot of us to work hard for this capital campaign. More than just the grants, we worked hard as a collective of different organizations to come together and raise funds to really get it up to speed and maximize the building’s potential and access. There are restrictions to what you can do to Historic Landmarks, and we were thankful to have engineers and architects that were able to troubleshoot it and work out what was detrimental to the architectural integrity.
And there’s kind of tricky levels to the space too. Some of them are half levels between the front and back, and then there’s also a pretty decent sized basement, which is really valuable for storage. So fortunately, we were able to work it out to where the elevator can access all the floors including the upper balcony, which overlooks the ballroom, the first floor, the basement, and the back rooms as well.
Why are funding opportunities that support accessibility and renovations to cultural spaces so important?
Khazm: I think the Cultural Facilities Grant is particularly important, especially for new or emerging organizations and community groups. We started as a community group for many years before we were a non-profit and we were slowly able to build capacity and sustained organization. These types of resources are invaluable because growing organizations don’t have the capacity either for acquisition or to do all the major outfitting that it needs to be done just to get to the base level.
Kitty: I think we’re really lucky here with the City of Seattle that departments do hear us, and they do respond. I keep thinking about COVID. I honestly don’t know what we would have done without some of the people at the Office of Arts and Culture. They were so supportive like, “Whatever you need. What do you need?” Just there to help us get through. We also got a grant from Seattle IT so we were able to get some cameras during COVID. We didn’t have enough upload on our internet plan, and they were able to negotiate with our Internet service provider to get us more, so we were able to stay engaged with community through live streaming events during those years.
How could the City improve the grant and funding process for small organizations and community groups?
Kitty: One thing that’s a bit of a challenge for these grants like the Cultural Facilities Fund is that it was a reimbursement grant. And so, it does pose a bit of a challenge because either we’re having to borrow money from the bank or make sure that invoicing and everything is coming through super quickly. So maybe just some additional access to funds instead of having it be reimbursement funds. That would be really helpful.
One thing the City caught wind of during COVID and has implemented is simplifying some of the application and reporting processes. Pre-COVID, some of the reports were just crazy! For the ARTS Cultural Facilities Grant it feels like they’ve heard that and have really streamlined the process for applications and reporting. Department of Neighborhoods grants can be challenging sometimes when you have the volunteer match.
Khazm: A lot of us wear many hats, and don’t have accounting or administrative staff. So kind of streamlining things in a way that’s not so arduous and having more resources available would be helpful. Sometimes it can be, I wouldn’t say discouraging, but it sometimes seems like organizations that are mid-size or have large level incomes receive exponentially more funding when they’re a lot more sustained as an institution versus smaller organizations that maybe don’t have as much capacity but are really serving their mission in profound ways and are in the community doing impactful work. So maybe being a little bit more in tune with that and being proportional for more marginalized communities. I know that that’s kind of an ongoing mission for the City, so I hope it see it happen more.
