One of the biggest stories for the White Center business district is the conversion of the historic skating rink to a Swap Meet on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes this popular activity is called a Flea Market.

This promises to be fun and an exciting venture for the Tom Brown family. Tom is the grandson of the founder of the historic rollerdrome, which Pop Brown operated from the early 1930s to the 1950s.

Today, skating has lost its popularity and Tom has hit on a likely idea to provide citizens a place to sell surplus stuff to others every Saturday and Sunday. One woman from Des Moines told Tom she sold almost all of her boothful and made $285 on opening day last Saturday.

I think Tom has a great idea and the whole community should be pleased to see it.

Skating parties and other events can still be enjoyed the other five days as the maple floor has been protected with an epoxy and the 100 booths can be easily removed and stored. There is also a full lower level, which will allow for an additional 100 or so booths to display items for sale. Main entrance is on 17th Southwest.

Before Grandpa Brown built the skating rink the building housed a boxing ring and many notable prizefighters stood toe to toe and whacked each other, including White Center's hometown hero Al Hostak. I knew Al when he worked at the Epicure restaurant on 16th Southwest where I met Elsbeth, the charming German born hostess whom I married 40 years ago. Al was a tough guy and reached the world title in his middleweight class.

In those days the ring turned to rink had its entrance on 16th and much of 17th was a swamp and lined with blackberry bushes.

At one time in the early 1950s when I bought the White Center News the community boasted five supermarkets, a theatre, two furniture stores, three drug stores, two shoe stores, three small department stores, two new car dealerships, one bootlegger, several bottle clubs, a bakery and numerous restaurants. Yes, there were seven taverns.

That boom lasted till 1960 when Burien blossomed with a bang and in five years White Center lost much of its shopping traffic and slowly changed into several long blocks of mostly Asian oriented shops that serve a dramatic shift to a heavily immigrant population.

In the 90s Burien incorporated as a city, grew like a teenager and enjoyed 10 years as the place to shop. Then a relentless expansion of the airport and the explosion of Tukwila and Southcenter put a stopper on that small city and marked the changing of the shopping tide. Burien is not fading away but will in a few years have a sparkling new 600 unit condo covered plaza sporting a whole slew of new boutique size businesses around an open space town square.

Maybe the Swap Meet will be just the ticket needed to bring White Center bounding back into the shopping fray.

Jerry Robinson may be reached at publisher@robinsonnews.com