FINDING SAN FRANCISCO Part II: CHINATOWN & PRESIDIO

 

Very few pictures exist of San Francisco’s original Chinatown which was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. Hundreds of residents perished, many went unaccounted for. In the aftermath, when the mayor was in a race against time to rebuild the city, the proposal was to relocate the newly envisioned Chinatown. This was met with opposition from many local politicians who saw San Francisco’s Chinese community as a key to trade with Asia. This was, perhaps, the most persuasive argument Mayor Schmitz heard against relocation as the drive behind his fast-track rebuilding of the city was to reestablish San Francisco as a world-class port city and trade with Asia was one of its most lucrative assets.

In a rare move, delegates from China became intricately involved in the proposals for the new Chinatown and, thanks in large part to their participation, Chinatown was rebuilt in its original quarters, a blessing to the residents who would have been forced to move as far as Hunters Point.

The new Chinatown was born from a collaboration between the resilient residents and local architects. The result was a new Chinatown boasting infrastructure celebrating its cultural heritage and becoming a valuable tourist and trade point of interest.

In the end, the surviving residents of Chinatown found a silver lining after the earthquake. A new district rose from the ashes on the footprints of their old quarters and, with many of the city’s immigration papers lost in the earthquake, many found their status in this country uncontested.

San Francisco’s Chinatown today looks superficially but little different than New York’s or Boston’s, but in the context of the city as a whole it has a feel all to its own. The stories of the early Chinese arrivals who sacrificed so much to build the West and the roads to the Pacific seems written in the very walls of the buildings. It’s a lively bustling area, decorated with lanterns, dragons and gilded streetlights. It is as important to San Francisco today as it was in 1906 when, though seen as an extension of the infamous Red Zone which would be snuffed out a decade later, locals and international diplomats joined forces to bring it back home.

 

History is also kept alive in the Presidio where the old Coast Guard station remains. Though aligned with barracks and parks, the Presidio is one of the few developed areas in the West Coast with a history as old as any in the East, being fortified on the year of our nation’s birth.

Though designated a California Historical Landmark, the Presidio is best enjoyed as a park surrounded by nature trails, with wide open spaces surrounded by old military barracks with attractive views of the Golden Gate in the distance.

The Presidio has a long history of defending the coast. After the earthquake it served its city once more when it became a haven for thousands of the displaced homeless residents, their tents covering the entire ground.

In San Francisco, tragedy and triumph have written its history and built the city’s character.

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