Chinatown, Boston

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The Beach Street gate into Boston's Chinatown. A park surrounding the Paifang gate is under construction as of 25 May 2006

The established Chinatown within New England is located in the downtown area of Boston, Massachusetts. The district centers on Beach Street near the city's South Station. The area is roughly bounded by Kneeland Street to the south, Surface Road to the east, Essex Street to the north, and Tremont Street to the west. Additional development extends down Tyler and Harrison streets to the Massachusetts Turnpike. The northwest corner extends near Boston Common (42.353° N 71.058° W).

[edit] History

In the pre-Chinatown era, the area was settled in succession by middle-class White Anglo Saxon Protestants from post-colonial times up to the 1830s. The area was then settled by Irish, Jewish, Italian, and Syrian immigrants as each group replaced another to take advantage of low cost housing and job opportunities in the area.

The Syrians, who gradually left the area by the 1940s, were succeeded by Chinese immigrants. Chinatown was established in 1890. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Boston's red light district, the Combat Zone, was located next to Chinatown. However, the Combat Zone has shrunk to almost nothing as it was located between the dual expansions of Chinatown from the east and Emerson College from the west.

Currently, Chinatown is experiencing a threat from gentrification policies. Large luxury residential towers are built in and surrounding an area that was overwhelmingly three to five-story small apartment buildings intermixed with retail and light-industrial spaces.

[edit] Modern day

Today, the area hosts many Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, and Vietnamese restaurants and markets. While there are many employment opportunities in the district, a common sight each morning are vans from suburban restaurants, picking up both supplies from the many Asian markets and workers for the restaurants.

Two bus services (Fung Wah and Lucky Star/Travelpack) provide hourly connections with New York's Chinatown with the ride taking about four hours.

The traditional Chinatown Gate (paifang), surrounded by lions, is located at the intersection of Beach Street and Surface Road. Once a run-down area housing little more than a fan building for the Central Artery Tunnel, a garden is now being constructed at this site as part of the Big Dig project. The Gate is visible from the South Station Bus Terminal, and is a popular tourist destination and photo opportunity.

The non-profit community newspaper Sampan provides English-language news and information about Chinatown.

[edit] New satellite

In recent years, a new satellite "Chinatown" has been rapidly emerging approximately 10 miles (16 km) to the south on Hancock Street in suburban Quincy. This is due to the rapid influx of Hokkien-speaking Mainland Chinese immigrants from the province of Fujian, as well as a large growing ethnic Vietnamese population. There are already several large Asian supermarkets such as the Kam Man Foods and Super 88 supermarket chains, and other businesses that are competing with Chinatown. Several businesses operating in Chinatown now have extensions in Quincy.

[edit] See also

• Chinatowns in North America

[edit] External links

• Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center
• Asian American Civic Association
• Asian Community Development Corporation
• Chinatown Heritage Project

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