Take a guided tour of Tacoma’s historic Nihonmachi (Japantown) with historian Michael Sullivan, and writer Tamiko Nimura on the Walk Tacoma, Tacoma’s Japantown Walk. The free, 1 mile walk, sponsored by BCRA, will be held on Wednesday, May 2 from 5:15 – 6:30 p.m. It will start at the top of the UWT stairs at S. 19th and Jefferson Ave, and end with a social at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma hosted by the museum and the Mad Hat Tea Company.
Between the 1880’s and the 1940’s, immigrants created a vibrant Japantown in downtown Tacoma. The neighborhood extended from S.17th (Union Station) to S. 11th, between Pacific Ave. and Market St. It included a hotel, shops, restaurants, places of worship, and a Japanese Language School. Walk the historic neighborhood and learn about the significance of these historic downtown locations. Leaders Michael Sullivan and Tamiko Nimura have done a large amount of research on this historic neighborhood, and together with the help of Josh Parmenter, they have created a free phone app of the walking tour for iPhones http://apple.co/2zrNb8M and for Android http://bit.ly/2yLbpxq.
Walk Tacoma is a six-event walking series, sponsored by MultiCare and the Puyallup Watershed Initiative Active Transportation Community of Interest. The themed, educational walks are held in downtown Tacoma on the first Wednesday of the month. All walks are free, and held either after work or during the lunch hour. To encourage more families and children to participate, the Children’s Museum of Tacoma will be providing an activity for children to complete along the route. Participants can register for the walk series on the DOTG website or sign-in at the beginning of each walk.