Chinatown - SF
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One of the city's most famous landmarks, Chinatown is a tourist attraction and world unto itself. Narrow Grant street is home to the Chinatown familiar to tourists. Beginning at Bush, it is entered by Foo Dog-guarded gates. The commercial shopping district found here continues north for several blocks. Strung with overhead lanterns and banners, the street is lined with innumerable restaurants, chintzy souvenir shops, overcrowded gift stores, and countless live seafood stores, more authentic tea markets, and Asian bakeries. The small alleys and cul-de-sacs of Chinatown house near-infinite restaurants, goldfish stores, and secreted Buddhist shrines.
A short stretch of Stockton also runs above the tunnel. Little used and comparatively remote from the rest of the city, it is the site of the expensive Carlton-Ritz Hotel, opened just a few years ago. Of stunning classical design, it was formerly a college. Since it is located away from tourists and downtown, it has become a favorite with shy celebrities and foreign diplomats wishing to avoid publicity. The hotel features a white Rolls-Royce courtesy car and motorcades of policemen are frequently seen lining up in the horseshoe driveway.
The Chinatown of the 19th century was a well-known haven of opium smugglers, Chinese slavers, and prostitution. Chinese gangsters, hatchet men, and high-binders stalked the streets, fighting in vicious tong wars with axes and revolvers. Even then, though, it had a reputation as a "must-see" for the daring tourist.
Vicious Asian gangs roam Chinatown, many probably spawned in the foreboding Chinese housing project on the south side of Pacific between Stockton and Grant. Rarely interfering with tourists or anyone outside the Chinese community, these gangs prefer to extort she owners for protection money, and war with each other over drugs and other illegal trade. The 1970's massacre at the Golden Dragon restaurant, where several patrons were killed and many more wounded, was an exception. In the midst of a war over the illegal fireworks trade and mistakenly believing that members of a rival gang were attending the restaurant, the gunmen entered and opened fire indiscriminately. Although denied by some, these gangs are the direct descendant of the vicious tongs of earlier days and closely watched by the police. Civic Center Plaza
The center of the city's government, this area contains the opulent Beaux Art-styled domed City Hall, the Opera House, Davies Symphony Hall, the Main Public Library, and other facilities. Part of a larger design never completed, most of the buildings were constructed just prior to World War I, replacing the buildings destroyed by the earthquake and fire. A farmer's market operates here on Saturdays and Wednesdays and the plaza is busy most days with business people, shoppers, bureaucrats, protesters, and the ever-present homeless. Bordered on the north by the Tenderloin and on the west by a span of depressed housing projects, the sunny plaza and its benches are a magnet for the unemployed and unoccupied. To the east is the United Nations plaza dominated by the Federal building, an unpleasant-looking 1950s high-rise housing the FBI, IRS, and other institutions.
In the late 80s and early 90s, with the rise of the homeless, the broad plaza became a campsite for hundreds. After more than two years and any number of complaints, many from the tuxedo and evening-gowned opera and symphony crowds, several additional shelters were opened by the city and the homeless driven out in 1990. By day they are everywhere, but at night are forced to leave the area.
Locations within Chinatown
- 公招Corp -- Chinese Social Media Corporation
