here. - Todd Matthews

For thirty years, between the 1920s and 1950, the Wah Mee was classy,
cinematically noir, and very popular. “The Wah Mee Club was famous in Seattle,”
writer Frank Chin observed. “You don’t speak with any real authority about Seattle
of the ’30s, ’40s, or ’50s, if you can’t say when you first stepped into the electric,
smoky — Wah Mee.”
Indeed, the club thrived, as did most clubs in Chinatown and along nearby South
Jackson Street. Historian and writer Paul de Barros, in his book on Seattle’s
speakeasies, Jackson Street After Hours, writes, “Imagine a time when Seattle,
which now rolls up its streets at 10 o’clock, was full of people walking up and down
the sidewalk after midnight. When you could buy a newspaper at the corner of 14th
and Yesler from a man called Neversleep — at three in the morning. When
limousines pulled up to the 908 Club all night, disgorging celebrities and wealthy
women wearing diamonds and furs. When ‘Cabdaddy’ stood in front of the Rocking
Chair, ready to hail you a cab — that is, if he knew who you were.”
According to de Barros, the more popular bottle clubs in and around Chinatown
were the New Chinatown, Congo Club, Blue Rose, 411 Club, Ubangi, and the Wah
Mee. All were hot spots for dancing, music, gambling, and booze. Many of these
clubs dated back to the early 1920s. De Barros profiles many of these clubs in his
book.
The New Chinatown was located a few blocks from the Wah Mee, on Sixth
Avenue South and South Main Street. According to de Barros, the club attracted
and promoted much bootlegging. The outside featured a replica neon bowl with two
“chopsticks” poking out from the bowl. Frequented by sailors and prostitutes, the
New Chinatown was known as a place for the occasional brawl. Five bucks bought a
bottle of home brew and an evening of some of the best live music being played in
Seattle during the 1930s. Jazz music was indeed a hit at the New Chinatown; even
the club’s bouncer, a burly and morbidly obese guy named “Big Dave” Henderson,
sat down at the piano most nights.
In 1940, the Congo Club opened in Chinatown, at Maynard and Sixth Avenues.
In the front, the Congo Grill; tucked away past a swinging door, the actual club
WAH MEE 4 TODD MATTHEWS