Chinatown | |
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Coordinates: 40°26′13″N79°59′51″W / 40.4369°N 79.9975°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Pennsylvania |
County | Allegheny County |
City | Pittsburgh |
ZIP Code | 15219 |
Area code | 412 |
The U.S. city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was home to a "small, but busy" Chinatown, located at the intersection of Grant Street and Boulevard of the Allies in Downtown Pittsburgh where only one Chinese restaurant remains. The On Leong Society was located there. [1] According to the article, "... the first Chinese community in Pittsburgh developed around Wylie Avenue above Court Place," according to a 1942 newsletter of the American Service Institute of Allegheny County. The Chinatown spread to Grant Street, and then "... to Water Street and then spread out to Second and Third avenues."
The Chinatown grew from waves of Chinese immigrants who came east from California after the 1849 Gold Rush and the transcontinental railroads. The immigrants came from the area around Canton in China. According to the article, the Chinatown was primarily centered on Second Avenue with merchant names such as "Wing Hong Chinese Co., 519 Second Ave" and "Quong Chong Shing, 511 Second Ave", all of whom have been driven out when the Boulevard of the Allies was built forcing demolition of all buildings on Second Avenue, sometime by the 1950s. Even by the 1930s, "... the Chinatown was rapidly vanishing." [2] [3]
Pittsburgh's Chinatown in the 1920s to 1930s has been described as a dangerous place as there were frequent skirmishes between the two warring Chinese gangs, otherwise known as the "Tong Wars", covered by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Press. The Tong Wars were sensationalized by the press and played into racist stereotypes and anti-Chinese sentiment. "On Second Avenue there stands the temple, pagoda style, lifting itself three stories, its tiled roof and leaded windows giving it an air of Oriental distinction. Inside is the splendor of embroidery and hangings, teakwood and mother of pearl, red lacquer and gilt carvings, a carved stone altar for worship, and a long table for meetings of the On Leong Merchants Association."
The Chinatown–International District of Seattle, Washington is the center of the city's Asian American community. Within the district are the three neighborhoods known as Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once included Manilatown.
Toronto Chinatowns are ethnic enclaves in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with a high concentration of ethnic Chinese residents and businesses. These neighbourhoods are major cultural, social and economic hubs for the Chinese-Canadian communities of the region. In addition to Toronto, several areas in the Greater Toronto Area also hold a high concentration of Chinese residents and businesses.
The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinese enclaves within San Francisco. Since its establishment in the early 1850s, it has been important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that has retained its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity. There are two hospitals, several parks and squares, numerous churches, a post office, and other infrastructure. Recent immigrants, many of whom are elderly, opt to live in Chinatown because of the availability of affordable housing and their familiarity with the culture. Due to a combination of factors, some more broad-based related to difficult circumstances for San Francisco itself, while other factors are more specific to this neighborhood, San Francisco's Chinatown faces a struggle for survival.
Chinatown is a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, along S. Wentworth Avenue between Cermak Road and W. 26th St. Over a third of Chicago's Chinese population resides in this ethnic enclave, making it one of the largest concentrations of Chinese-Americans in the United States. It formed around 1912, after settlers moved south from near the Loop, where the first enclaves were established in the 19th century.
Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown is a small, historic area of Downtown Washington, D.C. along H and I Streets between 5th and 8th Streets, Northwest. The area was once home to thousands of Chinese immigrants, but fewer than 300 remained in 2017. The current neighborhood was the second in Washington to be called “Chinatown” since 1931. Originally, the first Chinatown was built in the Federal Triangle on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue some time after 1851, but was moved to the H Street area when a new federal building was built there. In 1986, a Chinese gate was built over H Street at 7th Street. By 1997, prominent landmarks such as the Capital One Arena, a sports and entertainment arena, had gentrified the area. The neighborhood is served by the Gallery Place station of the Washington Metro.
Uptown or The Bluff is a neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to the southeast of the city's Central Business District. It is bordered in the north by the Hill District and located across the Monongahela River from South Side. The predominant area zip code is 15219.
Old Town Chinatown is the official Chinatown of the northwest section of Portland, Oregon. The Willamette River forms its eastern boundary, separating it from the Lloyd District and the Kerns and Buckman neighborhoods. It includes the Portland Skidmore/Old Town Historic District and the Portland New Chinatown/Japantown Historic District, which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been referred to as the "skid row" of Portland.
The Ghost Shadows or GSS was a Chinese American street gang that was prominent in New York City's Chinatown from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. Formed in 1971 by immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong, the gang is affiliated with the On Leong Tong. They adopted the colors black and white as their clothing to match the name of the set. Throughout the 1980s, the gang was often engaged in bloody turf wars with other Chinatown gangs such as the older Flying Dragons, affiliated with Hip Sing Tong and the Division Street Boys affiliated with Tung On Association, and their activities included extortion, kidnapping, murder, racketeering, drug trafficking and illegal gambling. The Ghost Shadows' influence was widespread, having links to Chinatowns in other cities as well as links to Sicilian-American Mafia families. The organization is defunct due to Federal RICO crackdowns during the 1990s.
The Boulevard of the Allies is a mostly four-lane road in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, connecting Downtown Pittsburgh with the Oakland neighborhood of the city. Because of its lengthy name, locals sometimes refer to it as simply "The Boulevard".
The Hip Sing Association or HSA, formerly known as the Hip Sing Tong, is a Chinese-American criminal organization/gang formed as a labor organization in New York City's Chinatown during the early 20th century. The Cantonese name "Hip Sing" translates roughly to "cooperating for success." The Hip Sing Tong, along with their rivals the Four Brothers and the On Leong Tong, would be involved in violent Tong wars for control of Chinatown during the early 1900s. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Hip Sings were involved in drug trafficking operations with the Kuomintang (KMT) and later the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). They would later establish chapters in Chinese-American communities throughout the United States in major cities such as Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco. Recently some branches have begun to transform back into the legitimate fraternal organization they started as over a century prior.
Chinatowns are enclaves of Chinese people outside of China. The first Chinatown in the United States was San Francisco's Chinatown in 1848, and many other Chinatowns were established in the 19th century by the Chinese diaspora on the West Coast. By 1875, Chinatowns had emerged in eastern cities such as New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese immigration to the United States, but the Magnuson Act of 1943 repealed it, and the population of Chinatowns began to rise again. In the 2010s, the downturn in the U.S. economy caused many Chinese Americans to return to China.
Chinatowns in Canada generally exist in the large cities of Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal, and existed in some smaller towns throughout the history of Canada. Prior to 1900, almost all Chinese were located in British Columbia, but have spread throughout Canada thereafter. From 1923 to 1967, immigration from China was suspended due to exclusion laws. In 1997, the handover of Hong Kong to China caused many from there to flee to Canada due to uncertainties. Canada had about 25 Chinatowns across the country between the 1930s to 1940s, some of which have ceased to exist.
Grant Street is the main government and business corridor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is home to the global headquarters of U.S. Steel, Koppers Chemicals, and Oxford Development. It also is home to the seat of Allegheny County, City of Pittsburgh and the regional Federal Government offices. It is part of the Pittsburgh Central Downtown Historic District.
The U.S. city of Baltimore, Maryland is home to a small Chinatown. Historically, Baltimore had at least two districts that were called "Chinatown" where the first one existed on the 200 block of Marion Street during the 1880s. A second and current location is at the 300 block of Park Ave., which was dominated by laundries and restaurants. The initial Chinese population came because of the transcontinental railroad, however, the Chinese population never exceeded 400 as of 1941. During segregation, Chinese children were classified as "white" and went to the white schools. Chinatown was largely gone by the First World War due to urban renewal. Although Chinatown was largely spared from the riots of the 1960s, most of the Chinese residents moved to the suburbs. As of 2009, the area still shows signs of blight and does not have a Chinese arch. As of 2017, the area has become an “immigration hub” for Ethiopian people. In 2018, a mural of a Chinese dragon and an African lion was painted to signify the past as a Chinatown and the present as an African neighborhood. A night market in September 2018 marked the first Asian celebration of the area to an area that was “long forgotten and neglected”.
Asiatown, also spelled AsiaTown and formerly known as Chinatown, is a Chinatown located in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. Chinese people, brought to the country as railroad workers, established the area in the 1860s. The area became known as Chinatown in the 1920s, and was then centered at Rockwell Avenue and E. 22nd Street. Large numbers of non-Chinese people from Asia settled in the area in the 1960s and 1970s, leading to the enclave's expansion eastward. The expanded enclave was named Asiatown in 2006, with that portion on Rockwell Avenue often being referred to as "Old Chinatown" or "Historic Chinatown".
The city of New Orleans was once home to one of the largest Chinatowns in the Southern United States. It existed from the 1880s until its destruction by WPA re-development in 1937, and it was located at the end of Tulane Avenue, at the 1100-block near Elk Place and South Rampart Street, south of the Tulane stop on the modern North Rampart streetcar line.
A fair sized Chinatown existed in the U.S. city of Spokane, Washington, for years that started when the railroad came through in 1883. It consisted of a network of alleys between Front Avenue and Main Avenue that stretched east from Howard Avenue to North Division Street. The Chinese population gradually thinned out until the alley became abandoned by the 1940s. Virtually all that remained of the Chinatown alleys were demolished as part of construction projects spurred by Spokane's Expo '74.