The Gathering Place

Ray Jensen

SeaTac Community Center

A stylized schoolhouse represents a community that once was.

When Seattle-Tacoma International Airport gained its second runway in the late 1970s, more than 1,000 homes were cleared from 210 acres of land due to flight-path hazards—and the land became North SeaTac Park.

Decades later, Ray Jensen commemorated the lives of the many families who once lived there in Gathering Place, a sculpture at the entrance to the park’s community center. Inspired by the site’s ghost neighborhood of houseless foundations and empty streets, Jensen created a skeleton of a schoolhouse with a bright red steel frame. In its belfry he hung a bell that once rang in the old Riverton Elementary School. The sculpture was commissioned by 4Culture in partnership with the City of SeaTac Department of Public Works and Parks and the SeaTac Arts Commission.

Jensen (1929–2019) was a celebrated Northwest sculptor whose career spanned more than 80 years. His other regional public artworks include The Pursuit of Knowledge outside the Rainier Beach Library, The Dance in McCaw Hall’s lower lobby, and The Waiting Multitude at the University of Washington’s Suzzallo Library.