On the 1920s and ‘30s, this block of South King Street between Sixth Avenue South and Mayard Avenue South felt like a Filipino “barrio,” according to a visiting journalist form the Philippines, with cafes, social clubs and labor contract offices teeming with activity. Many of the buildings that housed these businesses have long since been torn down, including the one that housed Rizal Hall, upstairs, at 605½ South King Street. It has been replaced by the modern red brick building at 601 South King Street that now hosts a grocery, travel agency and the offices of the Interim Community Development Association, which works for social justice and equity in the neighborhood. (An informative kiosk across Sixth Avenue South outlines of some of the area’s rich Filipino history.) Rizal Hall was a particularly lively spot, where jazz bands and community orchestras performed for dancing and listening. Like the bridge that links the Chinatown International District to Beacon Hill, it was named for Filipino patriot Jose Rizal, whose name also adorned the Rizal Lodge, another Filipino social club that was torn down in the 1970s to make way for the I-5 freeway.​
​
The entrance to Rizal Hall was under the awning to the left, up SouthKing Street. Note the sign on the corner for the Manila Café.
(Washington State Archives)
.png)
Dee Dee Hackett, singing at the Rizal. Note bandstand with partially obscured name of the club. (Al Smith, courtesy of MOHAI)
Founded by Demetrio Ente, Rizal Hall first operated in 1933 as a taxi dance establishment, where working men could pay for a dance with female employees. The Moonlight Serenaders, a Filipino band featuring saxophonist Eusebio Francisco Osias, played here often. Ente moved the club to Stockton, Calif. in 1937 but on December 22, 1943, just in time for the Christmas season, the Rizal had a grand reopening in Seattle, thanks to owner Charlie Beale, who featured popular African American jazz musicians such as pianist Al Pierre, saxophonist Tootie Boyd, trumpeter Bob Russell and the popular vocalists Russell Jones, Dee Dee Hackett and Gloria Lawrence and dancer Tickle Toed Sonny Boy. In 1945, Boyd led a group here called Tootie Boyd’s Rizal Club Band, which suggests that the club was open at least through the last year of the war.
The Rizal Club
site today.