CHINATOWN GATEWAY COALITION

Boston Chinatown History

Boston’s Chinatown was established between 1869 and 1870 when the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad brought Chinese railroad workers to manufacturing jobs in Boston and other parts of the Northeast. The first workers pitched their tents in Ping On Alley. Chinatown grew slowly over a hundred and thirty years, from a community of predominantly male “sojourners” to a 46-acre neighborhood that is one of the last ethnic communities in the city of Boston.

The growth of the Chinese and Asian communities in Boston, and in other parts of the United States, was hindered by restrictive immigration laws enacted to keep them out of the United States. Changes in the immigration laws after the Second World War, and beyond, helped to change the community from a predominantly male community to one of the multigenerational families. Chinatown’s physical growth, however, was impeded by urban renewal, institutional expansion, and two mega projects which  occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, the construction of the Southeast Expressway/Central Artery and the Mass Turnpike.

The construction of the Southeast Expressway/Central Artery resulted in the displacement of over 300 families from the Chinatown and South Cove area in the 1950s. Urban renewal in the late 1960s displaced more families from the area bounded by Oak Street, Hudson Street, Harrison Avenue and Broadway. When the effort to convert parts of the South Cove into light industrial use was combined with the construction of the Mass Turnpike extension in the mid-1960s it resulted in the obliteration of the South Cove residential area, and created a canyon where the Mass Turnpike now exists.

In the 1960s two institutions in the South Cove, Tufts University and New England Medical Center, began to grow at the same time that Chinatown was beginning to grow. The competition for facilities and land became a major crisis and turning point for the Chinese community.

Chinatown’s generally accepted boundaries are Essex Street to the north, the Surface Artery to the east, Washington and Tremont Streets to the west, and Marginal Road to the south. Chinatown continues to be a cultural, social and service hub for the Boston and New England Chinese and Asian community. Public transportation links sizable Asian enclaves in the South End, Allston-Brighton and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods to Chinatown, as well as enclaves in the neighboring communities of Malden, Quincy and Brookline.

Chinatown now is home to approximately 6,000, 40 percent of whom, in 1990, had been in the United States for five years or less, with 35 percent (35%) describing themselves as speaking English “not well”. Many new immigrants choose to live in Chinatown until they have established themselves and have developed the English language skills and economic mobility to exercise options regarding their housing and employment. Additional data from the 1990 census included:

• Ninety-one percent (91%) of Chinatown residents were Chinese

• Median incomes for Chinatown households was $9,059 compared to $12,530 for Boston

• The per capita income for Asians residing in Chinatown and Castle Square was $6,539

• Chinatown had a higher percentage of elderly (65 years and above) of 19.8% compared with an 11.5% for Boston and lower percentages for all other age groups compared to the entire Boston population

Taken from Chinatown Masterplan 2000, Agenda for a Sustainable Neighborhood