Last Reel For Kokusai Theater -- Roof Of Old Japanese Cinema Collapses

A rotted wooden truss is blamed for the collapse of the roof of the Kokusai Theater yesterday, burying almost eight decades of history in one of Seattle's oldest movie houses.

No one was injured in the afternoon collapse, but surrounding businesses in the International District were evacuated. Firefighters, rescue teams and trained dogs searched the wreckage to make sure no one was trapped at the site, at 412 Maynard Ave. S., across from Hing Hay Park.

The theater had been vacant for years, but two small restaurants operated in a separate, front part of the building. The Canton Wonton House was closed when the crash occurred - the owners were vacationing in conjunction with the recent Chinese New Year.

But the Phnom Penh Noodle House was packed for lunch when the roof tumbled in. Owner Sam Ung said he didn't hear a thing, because the sections of the building are separate, and didn't know anything was amiss until emergency workers evacuated his restaurant.

"Everything is still in there," Ung said yesterday, standing across from the business he's owned 10 years. "The bowls are still on the table."

Ung said the building's roof sometimes leaked, but figured that was normal for an old building. When he took the garbage out on Sunday night, though, he said he noticed the back wall bulging.

Concerned, Ung called one of the owners, George Liu, yesterday morning. Liu called a contractor, but it was too late. The roof

collapsed 15 minutes before the contractor arrived.

According to King County property records, the building was purchased in 1989 by Liu and co-owner Assunta Ng, who owns the Seattle Chinese Post and Asian Weekly newspapers.

Ng said she had planned to demolish the theater and construct a new building there, but scuttled that idea because parking would be difficult to include in the project.

She also said the theater had no historical significance because it was built as a garage. But for years, it operated as one of the nation's only Japanese movie houses, while also featuring Chinese and Filipino films.

"It used to be very popular," said Ed Suguro, who remembers watching films there in the 1960s and '70s. "It was a cultural thing - going back to your roots."

Even the theater had its own cultural history. Before it was operated as the Kokusai Theater, Lily Takatfuka said her father ran it as the Atlas Theater. He showed American movies but was forced to abandon it during World War II, when he was sent to a Japanese internment camp in Montana.

"I remember seeing movies like `King Kong' and `Birth of a Nation' there," said Takatfuka.

When the 300-seat theater reopened as the Kokusai, it showed popular Samurai films such as "Sword of Vengeance" and later a variety of kung fu films. But the emergence of videos cut into business and the movie house closed.

The theater portion of the building remained vacant, its 6,400 square feet enclosed by aging walls and a broad, flat roof. Because it was classified as a low-hazard commercial building, it was inspected by the Fire Department every other year.

While Fire Department records show a number of minor violations, such as insufficient numbers of fire extinguishers and damanged plaster, there was nothing to indicate the roof was at risk of collapsing.

Only when renovations were made in the building's front part, where businesses are located, did the city's Department of Construction and Land Use (DCLU) get involved. It approved permits for minor renovations in the '70s and again in the early 1990s.

The Seattle Fire Department is required to inspect commercial buildings every other year, but Captain Randy Hansen said he wasn't sure if that requirement applied to the vacant part of the theater building.

Hansen said "general deterioration" appeared to have caused the collapse - not a small earthquake that occurred in the area Sunday.

A preliminary report by a DCLU inspector said yesterday's collapse was apparently due to an exterior roof truss that had rotted from exposure to weather. The theater didn't have any interior walls to help hold up the roof; it crashed down onto the vacant stage and rows of theater seating.

"I'm just thankful no one was hurt," Ng said. "It's still Chinese New Year. You don't expect something like this to happen."