Activist Mark Wilson Made A Difference In Central Area

In the last years of a too-short life, Mark Wilson could stride down Jackson Street in Seattle's Central Area and see the difference he had made.

Before, the sidewalks had no trash cans or newspaper boxes or racks for parking bicycles.

There was no health club with a fresh juice bar, espresso or a philosophy of welcoming people of all colors and ages, people in wheelchairs, people who were fat.

Mr. Wilson created all that by organizing neighbors and merchants, lobbying City Hall and transforming a decrepit building into his dream: the EveryBody Health and Fitness Center.

In addition to standard weight machines and aerobics classes, the club offers African-style aerobic dancing, Chi-kung exercises by a master who taught the late Bruce Lee and cardiovascular programs for seniors.

"I figured it was the best thing I could give back to the community other than a hospital," Mr. Wilson once said. "It's preventive maintenance and improves your health."

Mr. Wilson was a savvy businessman, citizen activist, fitness expert and old-fashioned, lend-you-his-tools-and-advice type of neighbor.

Yet his greatest talent, friends and relatives said, was in bringing out the best, whether in a person, a struggling neighborhood, a sagging building or an idea nobody else dared dream.

"He would inspire people," said friend and neighbor Katie Dolan. "He'd envision them doing something really unusual and encourage them in their dream."

Mr. Wilson died Dec. 9 after a long illness. He was 36.

Mr. Wilson was born in Danville, Va., the eleventh of 12 children. His mother worked on the line in a tobacco plant, his father in a cotton mill.

From the time he was a choir boy in the local Baptist church, "he was always sweet, always trying to help someone else," said his mother, Rebecca Wilson.

A quick student throughout his years at George Washington High School, Mr. Wilson held an after-school job cleaning rooms at a Holiday Inn. One year, with the money he earned, he bought his mother a wrought-iron porch set. Another year he gave her a set of white dishes with pink flowers. She treasures it.

After graduating from high school, where he served in the ROTC, Mr. Wilson joined the Navy and served as an electrician for four years. He then attended Olympic Community College in Bremerton, Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon and Seattle Central Community College.

Mr. Wilson worked as a train attendant for Amtrak for 15 years. He was also a partner in Wilson-Zeiger Property Management Co., which restored housing for rent to people in his own neighborhood.

"If a house wasn't good enough for Mark to live in, it wasn't good enough for our renters," said his partner, Howard Zeiger.

Throughout 15 years in the rental business, the couple lived in run-down neighborhoods, remodeled and upgraded housing, and petitioned the city for everything from fire hydrants to street paving. They mobilized neighbors to form block watches, taught them how to use tools to fix up their homes and led them in bugging the city to haul away abandoned automobiles.

"He was very proud of that," Zeiger said. "He'd tell city officials, `I want the same treatment the rich folks get in those other neighborhoods.' "

After years studying health clubs in America and Europe, Mr. Wilson drew up a business plan and bought an 1895 building on Jackson Street that had been a livery stable, an Odd Fellows hall, a storefront church, an illegal day-care center.

"The first time he drove me by to look at the building, I wouldn't get out of the car," Zeiger said.

Using their own money, they gutted the place, hauling out 50 truckloads of spoiled food, dirty diapers, crushed cans, broken glass and rat feces. They fixed up the hardwood floors and brought in exercise equipment.

It's now the classiest building for several blocks, with warm light and the aroma of espresso spilling out into the street. Passers-by wave to neighbors sipping juice and pumping iron.

The windows have no bars. Zeiger said Mr. Wilson always told him that bars don't look good in a neighborhood because they make a business look like it's afraid of the people.

Mr. Wilson made friends with the people. He'd tell young people to stay in school. He'd let folks down on their luck work out in the club free.

"He knew how to trust people and had very little problems because of it," Zeiger said.

Even when he was sick, Mr. Wilson thought of others. The week before he died, he phoned Dolan to plan a dinner party for her 69th birthday.

"Let's dress up in the designer clothes we bought at garage sales and go to a swish place for dinner to celebrate," he told her. Mr. Wilson said he would rent a limousine for the occasion.

Class all the way, his friends said. That's just the kind of guy he was.

In addition to his mother and partner, Mr. Wilson is survived by sisters Betty Epperson, Janet Clark, Brenda Crews and Elwyn Smith; brothers Bill, Rubin, John, Donald, Selwyn and Dwight Wilson; and many nieces and nephews, including Greg Clark, who manages EveryBody Health Club.

Memorials suggested to: Chicken Soup Brigade, 2501 South Jackson St., Seattle, WA 98144.