Belltown Messenger

Another Winter Olympic Games are upon us this month. With them comes a new set of Gold Medal opportunities for Belltown's own Olympic hero, speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno.

And beside him in Torino, Italy will be his father, hairstylist Yuki Ohno. Yuki came here from Tokyo in the '70s, via London. In 1980 he opened Yuki's Diffusion, then as now on the ground floor of the Security House apartments on Fourth Avenue south of Bell Street. At the time, his salon and the William Traver Gallery (now on Union Street) were the only retail businesses along that stretch of Fourth.

The neighborhood, he recalls, "used to be a very sleepy downtown. You didn't use to see pedestrian traffic. That's one of the biggest changes. Low income housing units now blend in with condos. You didn't see wacked out people in the streets; the federal government released all these people, they don't know how to keep up with their meds or take care of themselves, they crash in the street. We've seen them there.

"The city's big problem is how you accommodate those needs; while at the same time, how can these people in the condos come out in the evenings and enjoy themselves? How do you balance the needy people who want to stay here and provide housing for people who have a job?"

"We like it here. We were always here, right by downtown. Downtown has lit a potential for retail. We draw from everywhere- Bellevue, Issaquah, Bainbridge, Lynnwood, Marysville. Belltown is very convenient."

Yuki's Diffusion still proudly bears its disco-era origins in its neon sign, its black-and-white tile floor, and its tubular stair rails. But the hairstyles produced there have changed.

"Seattle in the '80s wasn't really a fashionable city. People didn't talk about fashion that much. When I came from London with Sassoon training, a Sassoon haircut was a big deal. Everybody went for it."

Now, "men and women have such a selection of styles to choose from. For example, in women we still see very straight hair looks and soft wavy looks also. Men's hair's still very short cropped, but some have really long hair too. We don't have 'The Cut.' There was one time when every woman had to wear the same thing. In color, too, there's so much selection right now including very bold colors and highlights.

"Seattle is beginning to be a little more metropolitan. You witness a lot of good hair styles these days. Look at Broadway in the summertime. Everybody's showing off their hair."

Apolo currently lives and works at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. It is his eighth year there. "You're not a superstar there. You're not different inside the complex; you're just another individual shooting every four years for the Games. No matter how famous you are, you are just one of many."

The Training Center is sort of a magnet facility for Olympic hopefuls. Competitors come when they are young-such as Apolo when he was just 14-and eat, drink and sleep their sport. It's a sports environment where everybody has one thing in common-shooting for the games. It feels very far from Belltown. The younger Ohno competes in four events (500-meter, 1,000-meter, 1,500-meter, and men's relay) at this February's games in Turin (Torino), Italy. The elder Ohno diplomatically refuses to predict how many medals his son will win, but the salon is laced with mementos of his son-Nike publicly posters, collages made by adoring fans, assorted memorabilia.

Apolo hasn't lived with Yuki since age 14; but the two remain close. Yuki works particularly closely with his son during the games. "I am Team Apolo Anton Ohno. I am a crew member. The only member-his partner. It takes a lot many people to make a contender, a strong support system." Yuki says he still does Apolo's hair sometimes when he visits. It's part of being the crew.
-CH and ML