Ways The East Coast Chinatown Is Different From The West Coast Chinatown In This Country
Many large metropolitan areas in the US have smaller ethnic neighborhoods where generations of immigrants moved into to those sections of the cities and made it their own. This is true for most ethnic groups like the Italians, the Polish and the Chinese as just a few of the examples. San Francisco has the biggest Chinatowns in the country with Manhattan being another big one. It is fun to visit these two cities and go to the Chinatown districts to experience the wonderful parts of the Asian culture like the food like Dim Sum restaurants or unique stores that sell things like Chinese board games and Oriental dolls. This article will look into 2 Chinatowns and the ways they are different from each other and ways they are similar too.
Chinatown in San Francisco began in the 1840’s with the first Chinese immigrants coming to the United States. Chinatown is located in downtown San Francisco and is an area that is 1 mile by 1.35 miles big. This Chinatown has a large tourism business with more people going there to visit than the Golden Gate Bridge. The Chinatown neighborhood that had been built was completely ruined in the 1906 earthquake. Following this, the city decided to rebuild Chinatown with the concept of having it be a place where tourists would like to visit and they constructed a lot of the places and buildings that can still be seen today.
There are two major sections of Chinatown with the 1st one being Grant Avenue that has the Dragon gate and the other is Stockton Street which is less touristy. Grant Street was the area designated more for tourism with attractions like a war memorial to Chinese war veterans and restaurants and shops that cater more to tourists. Stockton Street is less visited by tourists and is more authentic, much like Hong Kong with the produce and fish markets and restaurants and shops. This is the preferable area to visit for authentic cuisine. Another nice area in Chinatown is Portsmouth Square that is an open area that has room for people practicing tai chi and men playing Chinese chess.
Chinatown in San Francisco is a lot better one to go to than the one in NYC. The one in New York is probably the second largest Chinatown in America outside of Asia. It dates back to 1858 with a Cantonese businessman named Ah ken immigrated there and started a cigar business on Park Row. By the year 1900, there were 7,000 Chinese people living there but only a couple hundred of them were women due to the stringent laws for women coming into America then. The Manhattan Chinatown now has close to 100,000 residents living there and making a living there.
In the past, many parts of New York’s Chinatown were some of the highest crime areas in the city with some Chinese gangs forming and creating fear in the area. This has kept tourism at bay as well.
