Chinatown–International District, Seattle
Within the district are the three neighborhoods known as Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively.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.[10] The Jackson Regrade began in 1907; workers leveled hills and used the resulting fill to reclaim tidal flats, making travel to downtown easier.According to Pamana 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.[8] In 1942, under the auspices of Executive Order 9066, the federal government forcibly removed and detained people of Japanese ancestry from Seattle and the West Coast in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor.[18] 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] 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 the Kingdome 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.[32] As part of projects intended to maintain the identity of the neighborhood, the Seattle Department of Transportation installed bilingual street name signs at its intersections starting in the summer of 2013.[33][34][35] On February 28, 2019, police officers arrested five spa owners/operators and conducted a raid on 11 massage parlors, the majority of them on South Jackson Street within the neighborhood, in connection with an investigation into an alleged prostitution and money-laundering scheme that began in January 2015.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.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 clearing occurred despite strict guidelines put in place with the COVID-19 pandemic due to the difficulty encountered by the Seattle Police Department in patrolling the stairwell.[44] 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.[45][47] In an editorial regarding the Little Saigon section for The 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.
U.S. National Register of Historic PlacesU.S. Historic districtHistoric Chinatown GateSeattle, WashingtonBeaux ArtsneighborhoodAsian AmericanChinatownJapantownLittle SaigonManilatownChinesePioneer SquareRainier ValleyBeacon HillIndustrial DistrictdowntownFirst HillNational Register of Historic PlacesInternational District/Chinatown station1 LineLink light railDowntown Seattle Transit TunnelFirst Hill StreetcarPacific NorthwestGuangdong provinceTaishanYesler's MillChinese Exclusion Actwhites drove out most of Seattle's Chinese populationGreat Seattle Fire of 1889Hop Sing TongJapanese AmericansChinese Americanbenefit societyEast Kong Yick BuildingFilipino Americanssalmon canneriesCarlos BulosanAmerica Is In The HeartExecutive Order 9066attack on Pearl Harborinternment campsMinidokaNorth American PostManekiGreat MigrationWorld War IIWilliam D. DevinRuby ChowInterstate 5Kingdomefall ofSaigonSoutheast AsiaPhở BắcViet-WahWah Mee ClubWing Luke Memorial MuseumCity CouncilUwajimayapaifangColumbia CenterSeattle Department of Transportationbilingualstreet name signstraditional ChineseJapaneseVietnamesemassage parlorsprostitutionmoney-launderinggentrificationhomelessnessaffordable housinghomeless encampmenthomeless crisisEd Murrayhomeless shelterSeattle City HallCOVID-19 pandemicSeattle Police DepartmentThe Seattle TimesNational Trust for Historic PreservationAmerica's 11 Most Endangered Historic PlacesPhiladelphiaDanny Woo GardenDonnie Chin International Children's ParkHing Hay ParkNippon Kan TheatreKobe TerracePanama HotelWing Luke MuseumLunar New Yearnight marketGeorge TsutakawaNorie SatoChinese dragonDanny Woo International District Community GardenHistoric Chinatown Gate (Seattle)Japanese Cultural and Community Center of WashingtonNippon Kan TheaterThe Paper TigersThe Last of Us Part IIMassive EntertainmentWorld in ConflictAmerica's Most Endangered PlacesFestál at Seattle CenterHistory of Chinese Americans in SeattleHistory of the Japanese in SeattleHoa Mai ParkWilderness Inner-City Leadership DevelopmentNational Park ServiceUnited States CensusCity of SeattleNorthwest Asian WeeklyKING-TVElliott BayLake WashingtonSeattle TimesTaylor, QuintardThe StrangerSeattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle Civil Rights and Labor History ProjectNorthwest Digital ArchivesSeattle