Paul Dorpat spent decades showing Seattle what used to stand where we now park, study, and grab coffee. The public memorial planned for Aug. 30 is a chance to do what he did best: pay attention to the layers underneath our ordinary routines. For anyone who's ever paused at a downtown corner and wondered what was there before the glass tower, Dorpat was the reason that question felt worth asking. His "Now & Then" work paired old photos with current ones, making history feel less like a dusty archive and more like a conversation between two versions of the same block. That's not a small thing. That's a skill we could all use more of, especially when campus life and Pullman winters make it easy to live entirely in the present tense.
Here's our honest take: Dorpat didn't just document Seattle, he gave people a way to belong to it. Knowing that your favorite taco spot used to be a hardware store, or that the library sits on land with its own complicated story, changes how you show up. It makes you less of a visitor and more of a participant. For WSU students, that's a useful lens. We're all learning to navigate new places, and it's tempting to treat them as backdrops. But Dorpat's work suggests that place matters, not in a nostalgic, "things were better back then" way, but in a grounded, "this is where I am, and that's worth understanding" way. If you've ever felt like a stranger in your own town, his approach is a practical fix: look closer, ask what came before, and don't assume the current view is the whole story.
So what would we tell a reader who asks if they should go? Honestly, yes, and not just because it's a memorial. It's a chance to be in a room with people who care about the same things you might be starting to care about: history, place, and the small details that make a city feel like home. Bring a friend, grab coffee beforehand, and go in with curiosity rather than obligation. You don't need to be a history buff to get something out of it. You just need to be willing to listen and maybe look at one old photo and one new one and see what shifts. That's a low-stakes way to practice being present, and it's a skill that translates well beyond Seattle. It's the kind of thing future you will thank you for, even if it just means you finally know the story behind that weird brick building on your walk to class.
The one thing to watch? How we carry that forward. Dorpat's work didn't stop because he's gone, and neither does the invitation to keep asking questions about the places we live. The memorial is a moment to honor him, but the real tribute is in what we do next. So here's the concrete point: show up on Aug. 30, not just to remember a historian, but to practice being the kind of person who notices. Bring a friend who's never thought about it. Point out something old. Ask a question. That's how a legacy stays alive, not in a plaque, but in a habit. And that's a habit worth starting now.
