At The End Of The Rainbow -- Skyway: A Community Of Color, Conflict And Cooperation

-- WEST HILL

Even by the abbreviated standards of the Northwest, history in Skyway is uncommonly close to the surface.

Just 53 years ago, a young Jiggs Hoyt drove the new gravel road south from Seattle on his way to his sweetheart Doris' home in Renton. He passed through what would soon become the Skyway neighborhood, then just a stump-stippled landscape between two cities.

"There were stumps that were six feet, eight feet in diameter up here," Hoyt says.

About 14 years later, Jiggs and Doris, then married, moved to Skyway. It was 1943. A few blocks of houses recently had been built in the neighborhood and the "wild times" were just about to begin, Hoyt says.

A MIX OF PEOPLE

With the return of GIs from World War II and boom times at nearby Boeing, Skyway took off. People flocked to Skyway's reasonably priced housing and its ready access to Seattle and Renton.

"It was filled with young families - a lot of vets," remembers Frank Kline. After the war, Kline put $49 down on a new Skyway home, with payments of $45 a month after that. "It was the only place I could afford," he says.

Like the bedrock underlying Skyway, that postwar demographic bulge still shapes the neighborhood today.

Many of the postwar generation remain. They show up in the census figures which, between 1980 and 1990, registered a 23 percent increase in the over-65 population. And they show up at the VFW hall, where the draw of hamburgers on Thursdays and steaks on Saturdays fills the parking lot with big American cars.

But as older residents die or move out, a new generation is moving in. Like the first wave, the newcomers are attracted by the neighborhood's location and its affordability.

Unlike the first wave, many of the new generation are African- and Asian-Americans moving from South Seattle. They often cite the neighborhood's increasing racial and ethnic diversity as a reason to settle there.

To this generation, the unincorporated Skyway area is increasingly known as West Hill, an inclusive name that takes in the Bryn Mawr, Lakeridge, Skyway, Earlington, Panorama and Campbell Hill neighborhoods.

Included in West Hill's neighborhoods are clusters of pricey homes with awe-inspiring views, blocks of small-lot single-family houses and stretches of '60s- and '70s-vintage apartments that haven't aged well. Tucked away in odd corners of the neighborhood are pastures complete with horses, the occasional remnant of an orchard and tumble-down greenhouses.

NEIGHBORHOOD DIVERSIFIES

"We're a rainbow community. People move here because that is what they choose," says Marilyn Terry. An African American, she works at Campbell Hill Elementary, where her son goes to school.

"I think it's one of the few areas where kids actually have the opportunity to learn to appreciate and at least respect someone else's background," Terry says.

Again, some census figures. While Skyway and its surrounding neighborhoods were 83 percent white in 1980, that figure dropped to 65 percent by 1990. The African-American population grew from 7 to 20 percent; the number of Asian Americans increased from 8 to 13 percent of the total.

Changes have been even more dramatic in the three West Hill elementary schools, which are part of the Renton School District.

Campbell Hill Elementary now has a total minority poulation of 60 percent; Bryn Mawr Elementary is 42 percent and Lakeridge 48 percent. Districtwide, 30 percent of Renton's students are minorities.

SOME RACIAL OVERTONES

The changes on West Hill have not come without strife.

A 12-year-old Asian-American girl remembers the difficulties her parents had buying a house just a few years ago because some people didn't want to sell to an Asian-American family. Some older residents, speaking in low tones, worry about their property values as the number of minority families increases in their neighborhoods.

As in many rapidly changing neighborhoods, tensions between new and old have trickled down to the schools.

A group of West Hill parents sued the Renton School District, alleging racial discrimination in the closure of Dimmitt Junior High School, which has forced busing of junior-high students, and in a plan to bus West Hill kindergarteners. They argued that the district spared other neighborhoods the disruption of busing by foisting it on the minority school population of the West Hill.

And parents concerned about racism in Renton's schools and buses formed the Renton Black Parents Association, a group that includes many West Hill residents, to pressure the district.

The discrimination suit was dropped after community activist Nemesio Domingo was elected to the Renton School Board. Although Domingo lost a re-election bid last fall, West Hill parents won a promise that Dimmitt would be opened again sometime, perhaps as early as this fall. That promise is now in doubt, however, as the district considers a cheaper plan to make Renton High School a combined junior and senior high school.

Reflecting another set of struggles, newspapers three years ago were filled with headlines about youth gangs in Skyway/West Hill. There were fights and vandalism and reports that some homes in the neighborhood were being used as "safe houses" for drug-dealing gang leaders.

Residents of the hill fought back.

They brought in gang experts and held meetings. Feelings and fears were aired and a surprising thing happened, says Bruce Keller, president of the Skyway Commercial Club:

"They very quickly got off the negatives of gangs and fear. They liked the community feeling they got from having these meetings."

Attention turned to finding things for kids to do and building a sense of community pride.

"It's not a gang problem," Keller says. "It's basically a problem of what do you do with these kids that have no place to go."

Through graffiti patrols and litter-pickup teams, with parades and play days and youth activities, residents of West Hill found common purpose, Keller says.

Crime in some categories has declined. Residential burglaries, for example, dropped from 128 in the first three quarters of 1989 to 109 for the same period in 1990. In the first three quarters of 1991, there were 91 residential burglaries reported to King County police.

It may be too early to say the gang problem is licked, says Rich Brooks, head of Renton Area Youth Services. Gangs usually grow out of a whole set of social problems associated with poverty.

"It would be hard to think of a community that has spent more time and effort focused on that than (the West Hill) community," says Brooks. "It's a unifying issue."

MULTICULTURAL THEME

At Campbell Hill Elementary, issues of race and ethnicity come up organically. A second-grade teacher plays the piano in his classroom and, without prompting, the class begins singing a song titled "Martin Luther King." Artwork in the hallways recently celebrated student interpretations of King's messages.

"Our staff, because it is diverse, deliberately built in lessons that emphasize multiculturalism," says principal Mary Ford. "We do it on a day-to-day basis."

Asked to describe what they like about their neighborhood, sixth-graders at Campbell Hill talk about biking, bowling at Skyway Park Bowl and going to the recently started after-school activities at Dimmitt.

They say racial taunting in school is almost unheard of; none is afraid to walk around the area in the daytime. They worried about gangs a few years ago, but not anymore.

"The (gang) problem was real bad a couple of years ago; then they all started to leave," says Brendan Donckers.

"A lot of parents stood up and said, `Get away from here!' " adds Robbie Terry, Marilyn's son.

A GENTLER APPROACH

Walking between the two Skyway business centers, a quarter-mile apart along Renton Avenue South, Ceil Simmons apologizes for litter.

"It's time for another litter patrol here," she says.

Vice president of the West Hill Community Council, Simmons has spent years trying to clean up the neighborhood. She says the county began enforcing its codes against such eyesores as junked cars with just a little nudging. Her example encouraged others to try.

"A lot of the older residents didn't realize there was someone who would do something about it," she says.

Simmons carries under her arm a copy of the new West Hill Community Plan, prepared over eight months by county planners with comments from Simmons and other residents.

The plan sets zoning and design standards for West Hill, it identifies needed street improvements, park improvements and social services, and it would encourage more pedestrian-friendly business and residential areas.

"How the place looks, the aesthetics, that's really important," Simmons says. "We're really pushing now to clean up the area and get people involved."

It's a gentler approach to civic projects than was sometimes employed in Skyway's woolier days, says longtime resident Chuck Peterson. When a group of VFW members decided they wanted to help out the community by removing a stump to spruce up Skyway Park, they turned to a tool familiar to veterans - dynamite. It was a big stump, so they used about 200 sticks, just to be sure.

"It damn near blew Skyway off the top of the hill," recalls Peterson, laughing. The stump flew across the street and landed harmlessly in a yard between two houses.

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

Under the new community plan, most zoning in West Hill would stay essentially the same as it is now, says county planner Lori Grant. The plan does recommend some changes that would encourage sewers and open space and would also draw some businesses into multifamily buildings.

Much of the West Hill area still is without sewers, and the plan would allow infill and density increases to make sewer extensions and open-pace economical for developers.

"We'll give them an extra lot or two but, in exchange, we'll make them keep some extra open space," says Grant.

The plan also calls for public and private cooperation to design multifamily developments that incorporate services such as clinics and small offices.

"Hopefully," says Grant, "that will encourage more pedestrian use and cut down on the impacts of more units."

For improvements in parks and social services, the plan can only recommend, not mandate. What happens next depends on other branches of county government, most notably the County Council, which must approve the plan and then fund its proposals. And there, Skyway has a strong supporter.

Councilman Ron Sims says he supports improvements for the area, especially those that would support youth activities.

"What we lack there is infrastructure," Sims says.

"It's a neighborhood that's in transition, but I think the signs are positive for it."