(C) Verite News New Orleans
This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



In New Orleans, a tale of two Chinatowns [1]

['Tammy C. Barney', 'More Tammy C. Barney', 'Verite News', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width']

Date: 2024-05-13  

In the French Quarter remains the last evidence that New Orleans had a Chinatown. In fact, the city had two.

According to Richard Campanella, a geographer with the Tulane School of Architecture, the first Chinatown existed in the Third Ward on the 1100 block of Tulane Avenue near 215 S. Liberty St. After the Canal Street Presbyterian Church opened a Chinese Mission at that location in 1882, Chinese immigrants began to gather there. Chinese businesses – restaurants, groceries, shops and laundries – soon followed.

The area also had merchant associations, fraternal organizations and clubs, and a cremation society.

“The Chinese finally moved into a little section of their own and called it Chinatown, with a few little beat up restaurants serving soul food on the same menu of their Chinese dishes,” jazz great Louis Armstrong said in 1907. “My Mother and my stepfather used to take me and Mama Lucy (my sister) down in Chinatown and have a Chinese meal for a change. A kind of special occasion.”

By the 1920s, the area began to decline as the Chinese immigrants assimilated into New Orleans culture. According to Very Local, many Chinese business owners lost their leases in 1937 due to the Great Depression. The rest were forced to relocate when the federal Works Progress Administration redeveloped the area in an attempt to boost the economy.

The second Chinatown was born when the immigrants who lost their leases joined the Chinese businesses located on Bourbon Street. Smaller than the first, the second Chinatown existed until the 1970s.

“The only surviving remnant of either of the Chinatowns is a faded sign of the former On Leong Chinese Merchants Association on 530 Bourbon St.,” Burke Bischoff wrote on Very Local. “While the New Orleans Chinatowns are no longer around, their spirit is survived by the numerous Chinese restaurants and Asian markets that call the New Orleans Metro Area home.”

Related

Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/05/13/in-new-orleans-a-tale-of-two-chinatowns/

Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/