Seattle honors Bruce Lee with Bruce Lee Way signs in the Chinatown International District

Seattle put Bruce Lee's name on its streets on Friday. New signs reading Bruce Lee Way now hang along King Street between Sixth Avenue South and Maynard Avenue South in the Chinatown International District.

Seattle was his first home base

Lee was born in San Francisco in 1940 and grew up in Hong Kong. He came to Seattle as a teenager, studied at the University of Washington and opened his first martial arts school in the city. He also met his future wife, Linda Lee Cadwell, in Seattle. He died in 1973 at just 32 and is buried in the city's Lake View Cemetery, which still draws visitors from around the world.

His daughter, Shannon Lee, came to the dedication and said seeing her father's name on a Seattle street meant a great deal to her family. She said he built community wherever he went. It made her happy, she added, that people still love him and still want to celebrate him.

A two-year grassroots push

The honorary name was sponsored by City Councilmember Eddie Lin. It grew out of a two-year campaign by the Jun Fan Gung Fu Academy, which teaches the style Lee developed. The academy paid the estimated $2,500 to make and put up the signs.

Abe Santos, a co-founder of the academy, said the signs remind everyone who passes that Lee belongs to Seattle's history. He said simply that Lee loved the city.

Fans turn out

Admirers packed the sidewalk for the unveiling. Johnny Lo showed off tattoos of the claw scratches Lee's character wears in Enter the Dragon and called Lee his idol and everyone else's too.

For the Chinatown International District, one of the oldest Asian American neighborhoods on the West Coast, the signs add a well-known name to streets that have long carried the stories of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Vietnamese families.

Shannon Lee said she hopes the street name keeps her father's influence alive for young people who never saw him on screen. His legacy, she said, still inspires people, brings them together and sparks joy.