Seattle Chinatown Historic District | |
 Historic Chinatown Gate in the Seattle Chinatown Historic District | |
   | |
| Location | Roughly bounded by Yesler, Rainier, Dearborn, and Fourth,Seattle, Washington |
|---|---|
| Area | 23 acres (9.3 ha) |
| Architect | Multiple, including Sabro Ozasa, Charles Haynes, Thompson & Thompson[2] |
| Architectural style | Beaux Arts |
| NRHP reference No. | 86003153[1] |
| Added to NRHP | November 6, 1986 |
TheChinatown–International District (abbreviated asCID) is aneighborhood ofSeattle, Washington. It is the center of the city'sAsian American community. Within the district are the three neighborhoods known asChinatown,Japantown andLittle Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once includedManilatown.[3]
It was the third community for the city's Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were driven out of other locations around modern-dayPioneer Square during the late 19th century. A new Chinatown was established shortly after theJackson Regrade in 1907, which leveled terrain nearKing Street Station, alongside aJapantown in the same vicinity. The city's Japantown declined following theinternment of Japanese Americans duringWorld War II, while Vietnamese immigration after theVietnam War led to the establishment of Little Saigon in the 1970s. The construction ofInterstate 5 through the neighborhood in the 1960s and theKingdome nearby in 1976 led to further strain on the area.
The Seattle Chinatown Historic District was added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1986. The area was named the "International District" by the city government since the mid-20th century, but the term's use is controversial among the Chinese American community. Like many other areas of Seattle, the neighborhood is multiethnic, but the majority of its residents are ofChinese ethnicity.[4] It is one of eight historic neighborhoods recognized by the City of Seattle.[5] CID has a mix of residences and businesses and is a tourist attraction for its ethnic Asian culture and landmarks.[6]
The CID boundaries are defined as 4th Avenue South (on the west) to Rainier Avenue (on the east) and from Yesler Way (north) to Charles Street/Dearborn (south). The CID is bordered by the neighborhoods ofPioneer Square andSoDo to the west of 4th Ave S;Rainier Valley on the east side of Rainier;Beacon Hill and theIndustrial District to the south of Charles/Dearborn; anddowntown andFirst Hill to the north of Yesler.
Within the CID are three distinct neighborhoods: Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon. The Seattle Chinatown Historic District, so designated by the U.S.National Register of Historic Places in 1986, is roughly south of Jackson and west ofI-5, with Hing Hay Park at its heart. In the present day, Japantown is centered on 6th Avenue and Main Street and Little Saigon's main nexus is 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street.
Chinese immigrants first came to thePacific Northwest in the 1850s, and by the 1860s, some had settled in Seattle. The first in the city wasChin Chun Hock, adomestic worker who arrived in 1860 and later founded a general store and hotel.[7] Many of the first Chinese immigrants to Washington came fromGuangdong province, especiallyTaishan.[8] By 1873, there was an estimated 100 Chinese residents in Seattle, out of the city's total population of 2,000.[7] The first Chinese quarters were nearYesler's Mill on the waterfront, which included several business that opened in the late 1860s. The Chinese quarter grew to include residences and shifted uphill from the waterfront into leased buildings around Washington Street.[7] The influx of Chinese immigrants was slowed by theChinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Following an economic crisis a few years later, a group of white Seattle residentsdrove out the city's Chinese population in February 1886.[9] However, some took shelter with Native Americans on the reservations while others came under the protection of white employers and a judge.
TheGreat Seattle Fire of 1889 further hindered the community. Eventually, the Chinese re-established new quarters farther inland, along Washington St. and Second Avenue South.[10] This was the second Chinatown. Land values rose, especially with impending construction of the Smith Tower, and the people of Chinatown moved again, to the present and third location along King Street. Only theHop Sing Tong managed to retain its building on 2nd and Washington. It sold this building about 2006 in order to purchase the former China Gate building at 516 7th Ave S in the current Chinatown.
Near the end of the 19th century, Japanese immigrants also began arriving, settling on the south side of the district on the other side of the railroad tracks. Part of present-day Dearborn Street, between 8th and 12th avenues, was known as Mikado Street, after the Japanese word for "emperor."[11]Japanese Americans developed Nihonmachi, orJapantown, on Main Street, two blocks north of King Street. By the mid-1920s, Nihonmachi extended from 4th Avenue along Main to 7th Avenue, with clusters of businesses along Jackson, King, Weller, Lane, and Dearborn streets.[12]
The Jackson Regrade began in 1907; workers leveled hills and used the resulting fill to reclaim tidal flats, making travel to downtown easier. As downtown property values rose, the Chinese were forced to other areas. By the early 1900s, a new Chinatown began to develop along King Street.[10] In 1910, Goon Dip, a prominent businessman in Seattle'sChinese American community,[14] led a group of Chinese Americans to form the Kong Yick Investment Company, abenefit society.[10] Their funding and efforts led to the construction of two buildings—theEast Kong Yick Building and theWest Kong Yick Building.[15]
Meanwhile,Filipino Americans began arriving to replace the Chinese dock workers, who had moved inland. According toPamana I, a history of Filipino Americans in Seattle, they settled along First Hill and the hotels and boarding houses of Chinatown and Japantown beginning in the early 1920s. They were attracted to work as contract laborers in agriculture andsalmon canneries.[16][17] Among them was Filipino authorCarlos Bulosan, who wrote of his experiences and those of his countrymen in his novelAmerica Is In The Heart (1946).[18] By the 1930s, a 'Manilatown' had been established near the corner of Maynard and King.[10]
In 1942, under the auspices ofExecutive Order 9066, the federal government forcibly removed and detained people of Japanese ancestry from Seattle and the West Coast in the wake of theattack on Pearl Harbor. Authorities moved them to inlandinternment camps, where they lived from 1942 to 1946. Most of Seattle's Japanese residents were sent toMinidoka inIdaho.[19] After the war, many returned to the Pacific Northwest but relocated to the suburbs or other districts in Seattle. A remaining vestige of the old community is the office of theNorth American Post, a Japanese-language newspaper founded in 1902. Another is the Panama Hotel, which was proclaimed a National Treasure in 2015 with a prior listing on the U.S.National Register of Historic Places.[20]Maneki, one of the oldest Japanese restaurants in the United States, reopened in its storage space after its original building was looted and vandalized during the war.[21] Uwajimaya, originally a Japantown store, moved down the hill into Chinatown.
African Americans moved to Seattle in theGreat Migration, mostly out of the South, to work in the war industry duringWorld War II, occupying many of the houses left vacant by the internment of the Japanese Americans. They filled the empty businesses along Jackson Street with notable jazz clubs.[6]
In 1951, Seattle MayorWilliam D. Devin proclaimed the area "International Center" because of the diversity of people who resided and worked in the vicinity. Businesswoman and later city councilwomanRuby Chow and others criticized the use of "international" for masking Chinese American history. The use of "International District" by the city remains controversial.[6][22]
Seattle's first neighborhood advocacy group, the Jackson Street Community Council, opposed the construction of an interstate highway through the area.[6] Despite protest, many Chinese and Japanese buildings and businesses were destroyed for the construction ofInterstate 5 in the 1960s.[23] Ethnic Asians formed new civic organizations (as compared to the traditional Chinese family associations, tongs and social clubs) serve needs ranging from community health, care of the elderly, information and referrals, counseling, historic preservation, marketing of the area, and building low-income housing. The construction of theKingdome in 1972 further boxed in the neighborhood, leading to renewed protests over the community's lack of representation, including an impromptu demonstration at the stadium's groundbreaking ceremony on November 2, 1972.[24][25]
With thefall of Saigon in 1975, a new wave of immigrants from Vietnam andSoutheast Asia established Seattle's Little Saigon east of I-5. Many of these immigrants were of Chinese descent. Vietnamesepho was introduced to the city in 1982 with the opening ofPhở Bắc, a restaurant most famous for its boat-like shape.[26] Meanwhile, Little Saigon gained its first grocery store with the opening ofViet-Wah in 1981; it was joined by Lam's Seafood Market in 1991 and Hau Hau Market in 1995.[27][28][29][30]
The worst mass murder in the history of Seattle took place at theWah Mee Club on Maynard Alley on February 18, 1983. Thirteen people were killed.
In 1986, a portion of Chinatown and Japantown was listed on theNational Register of Historic Places as the "Seattle Chinatown Historic District."[31] That year theWing Luke Memorial Museum moved to 7th Avenue, a location it would occupy for two decades.
In 1999, theCity Council approved the "Chinatown/International District Urban Village Strategic Plan" for the future of the neighborhood. This plan, agreed to by all major organizations in the CID, led to City Ordinance 119297. This ordinance enshrined the three neighborhoods of Chinatown, Japantown, Little Saigon and the Chinatown Historic District into one larger neighborhood with a compromised name. Since then, the often conflicting interests of development, preservation and the conversion of old buildings to low-income housing have clashed as office developments (e.g., Union Station) and market-rate housing developments are overwhelmed by drastic increases in low-income housing stock. In addition, controversy erupted over vacating S. Lane Street as part of a large redevelopment by the private business Uwajimaya. Protesters formed the Save Lane Street organization and insisted as business owners they supported re-development, but opposed vacating a public street for a private business use. After losing a lawsuit filed over the matter, the Save Lane Street group dissolved.[32] Activist groups also fought an attempt to build aMcDonald's at the entrance of the neighborhood, which resulted in the company's withdrawal.[33]
Construction on apaifang for the neighborhood began in 2006 and theHistoric Chinatown Gate was unveiled on February 9, 2008. It stands at the west end of South King Street. It is 45 feet tall and made from steel and plaster.[34] The Wing Luke Museum moved to theEast Kong Yick Building in 2008.[35]
As part of projects intended to maintain the identity of the neighborhood, theSeattle Department of Transportation installedbilingualstreet name signs at its intersections starting in the summer of 2013. The Chinatown and Japantown neighborhoods received them with the initial installation; the Little Saigon neighborhood did not have the signs installed until August 2016. The signs feature a top section with the street's legal English names in white on a green background and a bottom section with white translated text in the neighborhoods' respective native languages on a brown background;traditional Chinese is featured in Chinatown whileJapanese is featured in Japantown, withVietnamese featured in Little Saigon.[36][37][38]
On February 28, 2019, police officers arrested five spa owners/operators and conducted a raid on 11massage parlors, the majority of them on South Jackson Street within the neighborhood, in connection with an investigation into an allegedprostitution andmoney-laundering scheme that began in January 2015. 26Chinese women, ranging in age from their late 20s to early 60s, were removed from the parlors; many of them were new arrivals that were not fluent in English. According to police and court documents, many of the women worked 14-hour shifts for six to seven days per week in decrepit conditions.[39]
The neighborhood has experiencedgentrification since the early 2000s owing to a dramatic increase in overall demand for real estate development in the city. A May 2016 report from the National Coalition of Asian Pacific American Community Development revealed that overall city rents outgrew incomes by 45 percent from 2000 to 2014. As a result, a significant portion of its long-time residents have been displaced from their residences due to their inability to pay the increased rent, subsequently enduringhomelessness due to the insufficient amount ofaffordable housing in the neighborhood.[40] The Nickelsvillehomeless encampment, established in 2008, moved in September 2014 to a site on South Dearborn Street opposite the onramp to northboundInterstate 5. The property owner evicted the encampment in February 2016 after its leader was ousted the year before due to on-site conflict, invalidating the agreement made with the owner; 16 remaining residents were cleared out peacefully on March 11.[41][42][43]
In a bid to address the city's worseninghomeless crisis, MayorEd Murray announced on February 8, 2017, that the city would open a24/7homeless shelter similar to thenavigation center opened by officials in San Francisco in 2015. After a search dating back to the previous June, the city selected the Pearl Warren Building on 12th Avenue South in the Little Saigon area, which was already hosting a traditional men's homeless shelter at the time. The selection was received with mixed to negative reaction from the Little Saigon community; many in the community were surprised by the announcement, claiming that the city did not ask them for input. While members stated that they were understanding of the need to handle the crisis, they held concerns about the potential for crime and sanitation issues. Backlash from the community, which included letters sent to him and protests outsideSeattle City Hall, prompted Murray to announce on April 24 that he would halt the project until he could devise a plan that would satisfy community members. The center opened on July 12 with 75 beds and within its assigned budget of $2.7 million.[44][45][46]
Impromptu encampments were still prevalent within the neighborhood. After city officials cleared an encampment of around 20 shelters in a neighboring stairwell on April 22, 2020. Many campers migrated one block over to South Weller Street, which was lined with more than 30 shelters. The clearing occurred despite strict guidelines put in place with theCOVID-19 pandemic due to the difficulty encountered by theSeattle Police Department in patrolling the stairwell.[47] As of October 2022[update], there were 15 encampments around the area, with severe public safety issues surrounding their presence cited as a major reason for a mass exodus of businesses from the neighborhood.[48][49] More than 19 businesses had shuttered operations in the area in that year, with Viet Wah's closure on September 30 among the most notable occurrences.[48][50] In an editorial regarding the Little Saigon section forThe Seattle Times, an executive director of a local nonprofit (that also elected to move out) argued that private developers were contributing to the exodus by neglecting to maintain their properties in seeking a market rebound. According to a 2021 economic study of the neighborhood section, it was “rated as having high risk for displacement” owing to rapid residential growth, with around 1,145 new housing units built over the past four years.[51][52]
In 2023, it was the first neighborhood in the state to be included in theNational Trust for Historic Preservation's annual list ofAmerica's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. TheChinatown neighborhood inPhiladelphia was also included in the list, with the organization noting that less than half of such neighborhoods were still remaining out of 83 identified nationwide.[53]
The neighborhood hosts aLunar New Year festival near the East Asian Lunar New Year; Dragon Fest, a pan-Asian American festival, during the summer; and anight market in early fall.[54] The nonprofit Friends of Little Saigon hosts an annual Celebrate Little Saigon event that celebrates Vietnamese culture.[55]
Certain neighborhood buildings in CID incorporate Chinese architectural designs such as balconies on the second or third floors or tile roofs.[56] The neighborhood also has public art installations by artists such asGeorge Tsutakawa andNorie Sato. Artists Meng Huang and Heather Presler installedChinese dragon sculptures on lampposts along Jackson Street in 2002.[57]
Notable businesses and landmarks include:
The CID is served by theInternational District/Chinatown station on the1 Line of Seattle'sLink light rail system (via theDowntown Seattle Transit Tunnel near 5th Avenue S), and three stops along Jackson on theFirst Hill Streetcar: at 5th Ave S (connecting to the 1 Line), 7th Ave S, and 12th Ave S.
An independent film calledThe Paper Tigers, a martial arts comedy, was filmed in the Chinatown-International District.[58][59] The district has a short appearance in the Naughty Dog's gameThe Last of Us Part II where players can visit the iconic Chinatown Gate.[60]
City ordinance 4044, enacted Dec. 23, 1895, changed the name "Mikado" to Dearborn Street as part of a city-wide plan to standardize street names in a booming urban area. Section 276 of the bill stated, 'That the names of Alaska Street, Mikado Street, Modjeska Street, Cullen Street, Florence Street and Duke Street, fromElliott Bay toLake Washington, be and the same are changed to Dearborn Street.'
Rainier Heat and Power Company
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| National | |
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47°35′51″N122°19′15″W / 47.59750°N 122.32083°W /47.59750; -122.32083
