Jim and Gene Akutsu lived in a home owned by their parents at 311 Tenth Avenue near the corner of Alder Street. The site is just south of Seattle University and overlooks what is now the site of the King County juvenile justice center.

From 1920 to 1923 their parents Kiyonosuke and Nao owned and operated the Golden Shoe Company at 650 Jackson Street, a storefront within the historic Rainier Heat & Power Building.

They sold the location to open the New Golden Shoe Repair Shop at 422 Sixth Avenue S.  and S. King St. They had just purchased new shoe repair machinery for the shop shortly before Pearl Harbor.

For many decades after the war the corner of 6th and King was the site of a U.S. Post Office, the site is now part of the extension of Hing Hay Park.