 I'm George Yamasaki and my heavy connection with the Western Edition came during the period of time when I was one of the attorneys for National Braymar Inc., which was the designated developer of what was then called the Japanese Cultural and Trade Center and has subsequently been renamed by us actually, the Japan Center, because we felt it was misleading to the public for what was basically a shopping center and hotel and theater complex to have this cachet of culture to it. Although I must say we did have, we were able to introduce some culture, meaningful culture, during the time that we were involved. We brought a branch of the Asian Art Museum to the Japan Center, which sadly no longer is operating there. But my involvement, as I say, was very heavy during the latter part of the 60s and the first half of the 70s. I've been involved with the Cherry Boston Festival since 1970 as a volunteer. So I've had this continuing connection with probably the major event of the Western Edition for 50 years. But I've never lived here. I had my office here briefly when I was representing the developer. I'm originally from Hawaii. I'm what's called an older Sansei. My maternal grandfather arrived in Hawaii, we believe, in 1886, which is a few years earlier than many of the families that came to the mainland in the United States. Can you describe in more detail your time, you know, serving your involvement in the whole Japan town and the redevelopment of it? Sure. In the 60s, the City and County of San Francisco, like many, many metropolitan areas of the United States, embarked on a redevelopment program. It was a federal program and it was the accepted practice of the time. It was designed to rehabilitate areas that had fallen into disrepair. It turned out to be fraught with problems, which may or may not have been anticipated at the beginning. But it turned into a very controversial program throughout the country and certainly here in San Francisco. This part of the Western Edition was called officially Western Edition A1. There's a little bit of maybe underground humor there because A1 is a term for first class, first rate, that sort of thing. And I'm sure that the opponents of redevelopment would conclude that the Western Edition redevelopment was anything but A1. However, that was the designation and when people speak of it or spoke of it then and even now recalling it, refer to it, they call it A1. And that is the south side of Post Street, which includes the Japan Center. The north side, which was developed by the Japanese-American community itself and other property owners and people involved prior to redevelopment in that area in effect had a significant say in what happened there through a nonprofit sponsored by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency called the Nihonmachi Community Development Corporation. I was a member of the board of directors of that, but that was really a community project headed by Masashi Zhao, who is a major property owner and business owner. I'm sure many people are familiar with and even customers of so-called hardware on the corner of Buchanan Mall and Post Street. And Mas was the president of the NCDC, as it was known, Nihonmachi Community Development Corporation, and the vice president was Yori Wada, who subsequently became a regent of the University of California and was then the executive director of the Buchanan YMCA, which is south of Geary and is still in the same building. And he was looked upon as kind of the honest broker because he was not a business person, not a property owner. And the attorney for the NCDC was Victor Abe, who had pre-existing law offices in the A2 area. Can you tell us more about your involvement with the Cherry Blossom Festival? Sure. When I came out here as one of the attorneys for the developer National Braymar, I was also tasked with attending to their interests as a developer and one of the successor owners of the Japan Center. Now that's a whole other story about the Byzantine structure of the Japan Center and one of its really serious shortcomings. So if I may, I'd like to digress on that for a moment. National Braymar was chosen as the developer actually solicited by the head of the Redevelopment Agency, Justin Herman, who has in 2019 become a very controversial person. His name was stripped from the plaza down by the ferry building. And Mark Bewell, who is the president of the rep park agency, voted against that change of name. And I must say that there's great merit in Mark's position because Justin Herman has unjustly been characterized as a racist and uncaring and ruthless. My experience with him was quite to the contrary. Justin was a man of great taste, great vision and concern for people, not just of one group, but people as a whole. And what he sought was what he and the powers that be at the time believed sincerely would be best for the city and county of San Francisco. I have never, ever heard of Justin doing anything that might be considered negatively, racially motivated or as a detriment to the economically disadvantage. I think that's extremely unfair. But anyway, as I say, the concept behind the Japan Center when it came into being was that it would feature Japanese businesses. And of course, Justin was hoping for culture and unfortunately didn't get much of it. But it was a very difficult time because in the 60s, Japan was still in a recovery phase and there were strict economic and currency restrictions on the transfer of funds outside of Japan. So the trick of getting Japanese businesses, Japanese corporations to invest in a project here in San Francisco was daunting to say the least. What came about was that National Braymar developed the entire center. I believe the figure was, in those days, about ten million dollars. But bear in mind, that's the 60s. So multiply that by whatever you want and you come out with a pretty large number. Now it covered the three blocks from Laguna de Fillmore and Geary to Post. Starting at the east end was then the Miyako Hotel and the Japanese Consulate General. And then the driveway for the hotel and what we call the east building which was, oh let me back up, the Consulate General building and the Miyako Hotel were ultimately purchased and this was all prearranged by Kintetsu of Japan, a subsidiary of Kinky Railways, a conglomerate, a very large conglomerate. And then the east building which National Braymar retained. The peace plaza which National Braymar retained with the exception of the keyhole pool and the peace pagoda which was a gift of the people of Japan and designed by the eminent architect Professor Yoshiro Taniguchi. That was given to the city and county of San Francisco. That's a separate parcel and it, as I say, was in the shape of a keyhole because there was a pool that housed the plaza. Then the next building what is what is now called the West Mall but was then called the Kintetsu Mall because it was purchased by Kintetsu. And then the Webster Street Bridge which was retained by National Braymar, the what we call the West building which is now called the Kinokuniya building which was retained by National Braymar. And the theater complex which included the hot springs which was originally a theater restaurant, really a spectacular operation ultimately purchased by dream entertainments headed by a man named Kunizo Matsuo who although he would he did not make animated films he was known as the Walt Disney of Japan because he was the number one entertainment figure in Japan at the time. Now underneath and this is all condominium really a mind-boggling kind of arrangement. The areas are split up, the city-owned garage is subsurface. Oh backing up just for a second in the East Building the then Bank of Tokyo owned its office and some community space in that building in the East Building and I believe they still do. Anyway there were these multiple owners of a shopping center and a hotel and theater complex and believe me that's no way to structure a shopping center. It was very difficult to get the financial support for one but the discipline that a coordinated shopping center requires and that's something that has prevailed to this day actually gotten worse I believe because although I haven't kept up there have been subsequent sales and there are even more owners and there's just no coordination I shouldn't say no coordination but certainly not the kind of coordination that's necessary to successfully promote a shopping center and this was even before shopping centers experienced their downturn in which they're currently suffering. One point to make is that the Peace Plaza is now owned by the city and county of San Francisco. The city and county always had the keyhole pool which houses the Peace Pagoda. Initially National Braemar tried and offered to give the Peace Plaza to the city and county of San Francisco but this is an interesting story. In those days in the 60s Stonestone Mall which is now an enclosed mall was an open mall as was the practice in those days and Bob Keneally who was the city attorney assigned to the project the Japan Center project reacted to the offer of the gift of the Peace Plaza by saying well that's absurd that would be like the city owning the Stonestone Mall. Subsequently however you know after the ethnic identity and the student demonstrations and all the civil rights protests the city purchased the Peace Plaza from an entity to which National Braemar had sold the Plaza. So anyway there are all kinds of very odd curious quirks in the history of the Japan Center and with regard to the Cherry Blossom Festival the Cherry Blossom Festival came into being in March 1968 with the opening of the Japan Center and there was an enormous city celebration all kinds of distinguished visitors attended the opening ceremony but by contrast the first Cherry Blossom parade was something like four blocks just around Japan Town. Now of course it runs from City Hall to Japan Town it's it's a huge extravaganza it started out fairly large but but not anywhere the scale that it is today and it was really intended to bring attention to the opening of the Japan Center but throughout the years thanks to the incredible volunteer work of literally hundreds maybe thousands of people but a few very key people. The Japan Center is a major event in San Francisco the two-week weekends festival now in April after that first year it was decided that March was a little risky as far as the weather is concerned although that's pretty much when the Cherry Blossoms actually bloom. This last year another bit of strange weather and we actually had the Cherry Blossoms in full bloom during the two weekends of our festival. The festival has become something that you cannot even experience in Japan. My understanding is that in Japan there are festivals of all kinds but they are generally limited to one discipline or one element of the culture. Here our Cherry Blossom Festival showcases as much as we can of the magnificent heritage of Japan and so in one place a visitor can see everything from bonsai to ikebana to origami to martial arts to you name it and we have our Japanese-American elements like the queen program and now we have the well I shouldn't say now it's been here for a number of years we have the website stage and the contemporary entertainment and of course we've always had the food which combines everything from Japanese food to what is now probably the most popular food item in the festival the Kimochi Terry Burger which combines the best of both worlds you might say so we're very proud of that festival we we hope it will continue but there is some concern about its future as well as the future of Japan Town as a whole because demographics have changed lifestyles have changed there is sadly not the core group of first generation Japanese who have who had firsthand knowledge and and real sincere affection for elements of the culture of Japan but let's hope for the best we've had a good run of over 50 years and uh and do you think you'll be continuing to emcee the festival well I don't know how much longer I can do this but I'll try thank you you're the voice thank you so you kind of touched up on this already but what do you envision for the future of the cherry blossom and also the future of you know the western Japan Town and the western edition community as a whole well I have to say my crystal ball is very crowded I see many problems and they're not intentional by any means they're just evolutionary um way back when Japanese and Japanese Americans were in many instances forced to become entrepreneurs they were forced to become small business people they had degrees from the University of California but they couldn't find any jobs in their field so they would open businesses or restaurants there's no alternative no significant alternative but that's very very hard work very demanding very stressful and now the Japanese Americans who are now in their third fourth fifth generation are in a way so assimilated and so successfully a part of the greater community that and so well educated well prepared they are able to find conventional jobs with 401ks and health benefits and reasonable hours without the headaches of owning and operating their own businesses also there's been a lot of marriage outside the Japanese race and so inevitably there isn't the direct connection to Japanese culture custom tradition uh and there's so many tools on on people for their time and energy that uh there are it it's going to be a I hope it works out but it's going to be a delicate balancing act to keep uh Japantown really Japantown uh and to keep the festival alive and as significant especially in the cultural ways as it has been I think that the uh cherry blossom festival has in its own way contributed to the acceptance if you will of the Japanese American following world war two by the greater community uh you know people will kind of uh I won't say forget but minimize the fact that they were the Japanese were parodied and and maligned as as the yellow peril the vicious enemy and now they're they're generally accepted as a part of the greater community thank you so much George thank you for all that you shared thank you