Chinatown – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Take Root

Posted by Cindy on June 30, 2018

Jun 302018

Chinatown Public Library
1135 Powell Street

Take Root is a set of bi-lingual panels referencing traditional Chinese salutary plaques in contemporary materials of rear-illuminated, die-cut anodized aluminum. The Chinese text is based on calligraphy written for Take Root by well-known artist and calligrapher C. C. Wang. It features a Chinese-American saying about setting roots in America, that is adapted from a traditional saying about returning to the old country at life’s end. The English text is a poetic translation.

Light sconces bear the names of key departing and arrival cites in Asia and America.

Copper-leafed columns bear copper panels that are etched with bilingual community poems about the library and referencing the immigrant history of the community.

Rene Yung is a visual artist living and working in San Francisco, California. She grew up in colonial Hong Kong before emigrating to the United States. Her work combines visual imagery with text to explore issues of culture and identity. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, Venice, Italy, as part of the 1995 Venice Biennale; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas; Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; the Richmond Art Center, Richmond; and other Bay Area institutions.

Goddess of Democracy

Posted by Cindy on November 6, 2012

Nov 062012

Portsmouth Square
Chinatown

During China’s 1989 Tianamen Square protests, when hope for sought-after reforms seemed to be fading, artist activists unveiled a 33-ft. tall paper mache and foam sculpture of the “Goddess of Democracy.” The statue, in the tradition of other giant torch-brandishing women, became an icon for the Democratic Movement, though it was demolished by government troops only five days after its appearance.

Not surprisingly, replicas and tributes to the figure cropped up in other countries. In San Francisco’s Chinatown, a 10-ft. tall bronze version on a granite base was dedicated in 1994. The work was created by sculptor Thomas Marsh from the San Francisco Academy of Art, with the assistance of a group of anonymous Chinese students and other volunteers.

Thomas Marsh was born in Cherokee, Iowa in 1951. He received a BFA in painting from Layton School of Art in Milwaukee Wisconsin and an MFA in sculpture from CSU Long Beach. He is a classic figurative sculptor.

Arnold Genthe’s Photography at CCSF Chinatown Campus

Posted by Cindy on August 28, 2012

Aug 282012

Washington and Kearny
Chinatown

Diligence is the path

Up the mountain of knowledge

Hard work is the boat

Across the endless sea of learning

This is the Washington street side of the new Chinatown campus of San Francisco City College. This particular window is the library. The archival photograph is by San Franciscan Arnold Genthe. This young immigrant girl in traditional Chinese dress gazing out at the city is the cover photograph for the book Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown.

She is framed by a couplet, in English and in Chinese calligraphy, metaphorically extolling the cultural virtues diligence and hard work as the “path up the mountain of knowledge and the boat across the endless sea of learning.” For years this poem has been displayed on the student bulletin board at the Filbert campus, but no one is quite sure of its origin.

Genthe’s autobiography, As I Remember (1936), is the chief source of information about his life. In it, Genthe recounts a cosmopolitan upbringing in Berlin, Frankfurt, Korbach, and Hamburg. His father, Hermann Genthe, was a professor of Latin and Greek and, later in life, founded and served as director of a gymnasium or preparatory school.

Under his father’s tutelage, young Arnold grew up well versed in topics from poetry to classical literature

In 1895 he accepted an offer to tutor the young son of Baron F. Heinrich von Schroeder when the family moved to San Francisco. Thus began a new life for Genthe in America.

Genthe’s first photographs were made while in the employ of the von Schroeders to illustrate his letters home.

Genthe became involved in photography at a crucial juncture in the history of the medium. The introduction of the hand-held camera and easier methods for development and printing encouraged many people to try photography.

Genthe opened his first portrait photography studio in San Francisco in 1898 and became very active in the city’s cultural and social milieu. At the socially prominent Bohemian Club, he mingled with artists, writers, theater people, community and business leaders, and entertained famous out-of-town visitors. Through contacts at the illustrated weekly The Wave, he met Frank Norris, Jack London, and Mary Austen.

Even as the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed Genthe’s studio, equipment, books, and art collection, he used a borrowed camera to document the events as they unfolded. Genthe and Ashton Stevens, drama critic for the San Francisco Examiner, toured the ruins with visiting celebrity Sarah Bernhardt.

Intrigued by San Francisco’s Chinatown, he shot a series of photographs documenting life there before the destruction of the city in 1906. About 200 photographs in the series survive.

I Can Cheezburger’s Invisible Bike

Posted by Cindy on August 9, 2012

Aug 092012

Chinatown

End of Quincy Street

Josh Zubkoff’s Invisible Bike

This was taken right after the piece was finished in 2008

This is the image the mural originated from. It is from Ben Hu’s blog I can Cheezburger

Josh graduated in 2003 from UC Santa Barbara, with a B.A. in Studio Art. He is presently a system administrator with AdInfuse in San Francisco.

His website shows the vast array of mediums he enjoys working in. Josh documented a goodly portion of what was going on from beginning to end on his blog. You have to scroll through quite a bit, but it is actually very, very funny and worth the read.

Chinatown’s Gateway Arch

Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2012

May 112012

Arguably one of the most photographed sites in San Francisco is the Gateway Arch (Dragon Gate) on Grant Avenue at Bush Street marking the entry to Chinatown, dedicated on October 18th 1970. This gate is the only authentic Chinatown Gate in North America. Unlike similar structures which usually stand on wooden pillars, this iconic symbol conforms to Chinese gateway standards using stone from base to top and green-tiled roofs in addition to wood as basic building materials. The gate is based on the ceremonial gates that can be found in Chinese villages, called paifang. The gate is adorned with sculptures of fish and dragons and is flanked by two large lion statues or fou lions, which are meant to thwart evil-spirits. The gate has three passageways. The large, central one is meant for dignitaries while the two smaller passageways are meant for the common people. Taiwan provided materials for the gate, but the design is by Chinese-American architect Clayton Lee, whose design apparently won a contest in the late 1960s. The two-tiered, pagoda-style structure was built according to principles of feng shui, which dictate (among other things) that a city’s grandest gate must face south, and — though somewhat dwarfed by the larger buildings around it — that it does. A wooden plaque hangs from the central archway, on which stand gilded characters rendering a quote from the “Father of Modern China”, the revered revolutionary leader (and one-time Chinatown resident) Dr. Sun Yat Sen:

“ALL UNDER HEAVEN IS FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE”

In China, the lion is regarded as the king of the forests and of the other animals. It has thus long been
used as a symbol of power and grandeur. It is even believed to offer protection from evil spirits. That is
why imposing statues of lions were placed at the gates of imperial palaces, official residences, temples and
tombs. Incense burners and imperial seals were also often decorated with carved lions.

Usually a male lion is on the left with the right paw on a ball – the symbol of unity of the Chinese empire –
and a female lion on the right with a cub under the left paw – a symbol of offspring. Another explanation is that the male is guarding the structure and the female protects those dwelling inside the building.

Chinatown Mural

Posted by Cindy on April 30, 2012

Apr 302012

Chinatown

Grant and Sacramento

This mural is by Twick of ICP Crew who had a mural in SOMA that has since been painted over and another one around a Banksy in Chinatown.

According to his Facebook page: “Twick” is a SF Hip Hop urban legend with many ranks like a general. He is one of the most respected figures shaping the Bay Area graffiti movement from the 80’s to present day. At the age of twelve Francisco (his real name) was inspired by the Chicano writing that decorated the walls of the Mission and his neighborhood. During this time he was introduced to his passion graffiti art. He is a self-taught artist who has been painting the art ever since it arrived in the Bay Area in the early 80’s. With 26 years of experience he uses Graffiti art as a positive tool. With his enduring passion evident through his everyday endeavors, Twick helps to break graffiti’s negative perception by transforming it to be looked upon as imaginative and inspirational works of contemporary art. He is a pioneer of hope and optimism painting murals with powerful images and full of culture. With the Mission and SOMA district walls as his canvas and his efforts to empower the local youth, Twick is dedicated to giving back to the community that raised him. In 2004 Precita Eyes gave him the opportunity to teach a graffiti mural class, Honored and inspired has been teaching youth workshops ever since.

Broadway Tunnel Art

Posted by Cindy on March 28, 2012

Mar 282012

Chinatown

Broadway Tunnel

This is the Chinatown side of the Broadway Tunnel. It is dedicated to Robert C. Levy and has a plaque that reads:

Robert C. Levy

1921-1985

City and Engineer and superintendent of

Building Inspection

City and County of San Francisco

He devoted his life to high standards of professionalism in engineering and to this city which he loved

January 1986

Dragon Relief by Patti Bowler – Bronze – 1969

The windows you see are the offices of San Francisco District Health Center #4 of Chinatown.

Patti Bowler lived most of her life with her husband Carson in Bodega Bay. The sculpture is part of the San Francisco Civic Art Collection and part of the earliest Art Enrichment projects.

Robert Louis Stevenson in Chinatown

Posted by Cindy on December 2, 2011

Dec 022011

Chinatown

Portsmouth Square

San Francisco remembers Robert Louis Stevenson with the first monument to Stevenson in the United States. It sits in Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. In 1876 Stevenson was at an art colony in France and fell in love Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, who was not only married with several children, but was 11 years his senior. In 1878, Fanny was called home by her husband in San Francisco. After a while Fanny telegraphed asking Stevenson to join her and he headed to San Francisco.

At the time Stevenson was not the world renown author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he was just a sickly and unknown writer. When he arrived in San Francisco he rented a room at 608 Bush Street, and often visited Portsmouth Square for the sunshine.

In 1880, once Fanny was free to marry Stevenson, they did and after a honeymoon in Napa Valley (home of the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park and a museum that is dedicated to his work), they headed back to Europe. In 1888 the Stevensons chartered a boat for the South Seas and eventually settled in Samoa. Stevenson died there in 1894 at the age of forty-four.

This monument was designed by Bruce Porter, landscape designer of Filoli Gardens and architect Willis Polk. It was unveiled in 1897. The inscription is from the Christmas Sermon in Stevensons’ book Across the Plains.

It reads: To remember Robert Louis Stevenson – To be honest to be kind – to earn a little to spend a little less – to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence – to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered to keep a few friends but these without capitulation – above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

In his novel The Wrecker, Stevenson said this of San Francisco: “She is not only the most interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of the races and the precious metals. She keeps, besides, the doors of the Pacific, and is port of entry to another world and another epoch in man’s history.”

608 Bush Street

100 Children

Posted by Cindy on November 26, 2011

Nov 262011

Chinatown

740 Washington Street

100 Children by Leland Wong

This mural is part of the Art in Storefronts project sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission. Leland Wongs Bai Zi Tu, or 100 children is a traditional Chinese painting, that brings blessing of a complete and healthy family that goes on for generations.

Leland, a native of Chinatown, began with what he called “Chinatown” orange, and then photographed 100 children from two schools in the Chinatown neighborhood.

The arts commission gives each artist $500, Leland knew this was going to cost considerably more, so he left his comfort zone and went fundraising. This panel lists all the generous donors, but what struck me as so fun and fanciful is the small block at the bottom, it reads …and the many unnamed people who threw donations into the white plastic bag being passed around by Don Huey at the WGUISFCT dinner.

The building was the Nam Yuen restaurant, the building was owned by the restaurateurs, and when they left the business they let the building (last seen in this Dirty Harry clip) sit empty for twenty years. While there is considerable litter, and some tagging, the present situation is a great improvement to what was there for so many years.

The building has since been bought by Self Help For the Elderly.

Portmouth Square Tot Park

Posted by Cindy on November 25, 2011

Nov 252011

Chinatown

Portsmouth Square

Tot Park

Untitled by Mary Fuller McChesney and Robert McChesney

In researching the artists I found this 2002 article in the San Francisco Chronicle by M. V. Wood. I loved it so much I thought I would just reproduce it here for all to enjoy.

They were hip.

They were young and beautiful. And they were both artists living in San Francisco in the 1940s, when the city was already romantic, and the cars and tourists were still scarce. Their crowd ruled the scene long before the Beats bought their bongos. They were the countercultural kings when Jerry Garcia was a toddler playing somewhere along the city’s streets.

Years later, Robert McChesney would become recognized as one of the leading figures of American Modernism. His works would be in numerous museum collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And Mary Fuller would become a well-known sculptor and writer, awarded public art commissions throughout the Bay Area.

But back then, McChesney was an emerging, hotshot artist, and Fuller was a successful potter. They kept bumping into each other in artsy North Beach. Finally, during a gallery exhibition of his work, McChesney drew Fuller into a closet and kissed her.

Since that kiss, more than a half-century ago, the Beats had come and gone. Garcia grew up and died. The Berlin Wall went up and came down. So did the World Trade Center. And through it all, McChesney and Fuller continued creating art.

On Saturday, the couple, who moved to the North Bay in the mid-1950s, will return to their old stomping grounds in San Francisco for the opening of the Art Exchange Gallery’s show of his paintings and her sculptures.

A lot has changed in the world and in the city since they were young, McChesney says. “And all of that goes into the art,” he adds. “Everything about life influences your art.”

While 89-year-old McChesney tells the story of their early years and that first kiss, Fuller, 79, smiles. Her husband gives her a sly grin and sidelong glance, probably much like the look he gave her in that closet long ago.

Older couples who give each other that look tend to elicit a characteristic response from younger people: to cock one’s head to the side and whisper, “Oh, aren’t they cute?” It’s the same kind of endearment bestowed upon puppies and other sweet, benign creatures.

McChesney and Fuller do not elicit that sort of behavior. They’re still too wild, too passionate, too fierce to be cute.

They’re still hip.

Robert died in 2008 at 95 years of age.

The sculpture, done in 1984, is cast cement. It represents the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac.

Sun Yat Sen

Posted by Cindy on September 8, 2011

Sep 082011

Chinatown

St Mary’s Square

Quincy, Pine, California and Kearny Streets

Sculpted by Beniaminio Bufano

This 12 foot statue is inscribed (in Chinese):

Dr. Sun Yat Sen 1866-1925

Father of the Chinese Republic and First President

Founder of the Kuo Min Tang

Champion of Democracy

Lover of mankind: Proponent of friendship and peace among the nations,

based on equality, justice and goodwill

Bufano has been in this blog before. His work usually used an easily-recognized style of glazed terra-cotta, a technique he learned from porcelain glazers while traveling in China. Also while in China, Bufano met and befriended the Chinese revolutionary leader, Dr. Sun Yat Sen. His claim to have stayed at the Sun home has never been substantiated, but it is clear he knew the man.

When Sun was in political exile, he visited San Francisco with the largest Chinese community outside Asia, to rally support for his overthrow of the Manchu Empire. Sun was successful in founding the Chinese Republic in 1911, and was inaugurated as first president on January 1, 1912. He served only six weeks, but the republic lasted more than a year. Dr. Sun lived until 1924.

In 1938, Chinatown business leaders commissioned this stainless steel and red granite statue of Sun, to commemorate Sun’s visit to the city. Bufano received the commission.

Dr. Sun Yat Sen was recently described by the People’s Daily (official paper of China) as, “the forerunner of the democratic revolution in China.…a great revolutionary and a great statesman who fought against imperialist aggression and for the independence and freedom of China.” Dr. Sun was among the first graduates of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese.

Photographers note: That is a pigeon on Dr. Sun’s head. The bane of statuary photography.

Chinatown’s Fire Station #2

Posted by Cindy on September 7, 2011

Sep 072011

Chinatown, San Francisco

1340 Powell Street

Fire Station #2

When you are in the building trades you realize that building parts can be art too. For most people, however, they are just that, parts. In the case of this fire station, Al Wong has added art that is whimsical, appropriate, and yet truly probably missed by most people that walk by.

This is etched out of the glass in the jut out on the left, when the sun is right it paints clouds on the ground below.

The bay markers also reflect “clouds”

Al Wong graduated with an MFA in 1971 from San Francisco Art Institute, and is now a professor there. This piece installed in 1994 of Ceramic Frit Marquee Glass is owned by the City of San Francisco and was Commissioned by the SF Art Commission for the San Francisco Fire Department.

Banksy in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on August 17, 2011

Aug 172011

Banksy in San Francisco

SOMA

8th Street between Folsom and Harrison

Quoting from wikipedia “Banksy is a pseudonymous England based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.” ” Banksy’s first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as “the world’s first street art disaster movie,” made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in the UK on 5 March 2010. In January 2011, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film.”

When Banksy started to show up around down it caused quite a store even the S.F. Chronicle got involved.

This is on the corner of Commercial Street and Grant Avenue in Chinatown in San Francisco. This one is now protected by plexiglass. I am not sure what that means, street art evolved into high art? Building owner wants it to remain to bring more people to his stores vicinity? I am stumped. The colorful piece was done afterwards by Twick.

If at first you don’t succeed, call an airstrike. This is at the corner of Broadway and Columbus in North Beach.

Chinatown Architecture

Posted by Cindy on July 25, 2011

Jul 252011

15 Waverly Place
Chinatown – San Francisco

The Marble plaque on this wall reads:
Chinese Baptist Church

Property of the

American Baptist Home
Mission Society of NY
Built 1888 Destroyed 1906
Rebuilt 1908

When Chinese students were not permitted to attend the city’s public schools, the Church offered day school for children, and night school for adults. Today it offers English language classes and an outreach program to immigrants.

After the 1906 earthquake, many buildings in San Francisco were built of brick, mainly because people feared fire more than shaking. This of course was foolhardy as brick does not stand up to earthquakes and to continue to work as public buildings these all have been retrofitted. What I love about this building is the “clinker brick”.

Wikipedia describes these thusly: Clinkers are burnt under temperatures so high that the pores of the fuel property are closed by the beginning sinter process. Thus they are considerably denser and therefore heavier than regular bricks. Clinkers hardly take up water and are very resistant. In early brick firing kilns, the surface of the bricks that were too close to the fire changed into the volcanic textures and darker/purplish colors. They were often discarded, but around 1900, these bricks were discovered by architects to be usable, distinctive and charming in architectural detailing, adding the earthy quality favored by Arts & Crafts style designers.

There is also a wonderful stain glass piece in this church that I had to photograph from the outside, as I was unable to get into the church.

Art Nouveau in Chinatown

Posted by Cindy on July 24, 2011

Jul 242011

720 Kearny Street
Chinatown, San Francisco

The first overseas office of the Sing Tao Daily was opened in San Francisco in 1975. The parent company of the Sing Tao Daily, the Sing Tao Newspaper Group Limited, was founded in 1938 and is based in Hong Kong. It has one of the longest publishing histories among the Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong.

This amazing Art Nouveau building designed by Luigi Mastropasqua in 1907, is at the corner of Commercial and Kearny Streets in Chinatown. Mastropasqua is probably more famous for designing Julius’ Castle on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill.

Commercial Street is one of the oldest thoroughfares in San Francisco, dating back to 1847. At that time Commercial Street was but two and a half short blocks—from Dupont (now Grant Avenue) to the old waterfront just past Montgomery (where Leidesdorff Street now is.) Its name derives from the fact that it was early San Francisco’s most prominent commercial street.

Commercial has a very colorful history, serving off and as a red light district of San Francisco in the Barbary Coast days.

This street also houses my favorite restaurant in Chinatown – City View Dim Sum Restaurant at 622 Commercial.

Oriental Home and School of San Francisco’s Chinatown

Posted by Cindy on July 23, 2011

Jul 232011

Chinatown

940 Washington Street, San Francisco

I love the architecture that you find in Chinatown. I actually think, more because of the history than the actual styles. This brick building with its’ beautiful tile arched entry is one of my favorites. It is the Gum Moon Womens Residence. It has a nice piece of marble with the inscription.

Oriental Home and School

of the WHMS of

The ME Church

This building’s history begins in 1870. The history of the Chinese immigration in the United States is not a pretty one, and this is standing testament to the people that did care. The Reverend and Mrs. Otis Gibson had become aware of the “mui tsai”, girls in bondage. He wanted to do something to help. With twelve other women they formed the Womens Missionary Society of the Pacific Coast with the mission “to elevate and save heathen women, especially those on these shores, and to raise funds for this work”. A full account of the Society can be found in a published article by Jeffrey Staley. The building itself was built after the 1906 earthquake and was designed by Julia Morgan.

Chinatown’s Dragon Mural and More

Posted by Cindy on July 22, 2011

Jul 222011

Chinatown – San Francisco

Chinatown is chock a block with murals, and this is one of my favorites. It is titled Dragons Gate and is by Wes Wong and Lost One. According to their website Fresh Paint they are “a San Francisco based mural painting company offering a fresh take on aerosol wall painting.” They are young, and their work shows that link from youth based tagging to professional mural execution”

You can find Dragon’s Gate on the corner of Trenton and Pacific Avenue.

This mural was sponsored in part by SFAC StreetSmArts Program.

Wentworth Street between Jackson and Washington presently holds these two murals. The first is here thanks to the Art in Store Fronts Project (a San Francisco Arts Commission Program) and is painted by Robert Minervini. Robert received his MFA from the San Francisco Arts Institute in 2009 and lives in San Francisco. His works can be seen on his own website. This mural is entitled “If these Walls Could Talk” and was done in collaboration with Adopt-An-Alleyway youth volunteers. It is a montage of images generated by interviews with local residents and the history of Wentworth Street.

This is also on Wentworth alley, painted by Adopt-An-Alleyway youths. It is a depiction of the “living room of Chinatown” Portsmouth Square.

The mission of the Adopt-An-Alleyway (AAA) Youth Project is to have high school students monitor and organize clean-ups to beautify Chinatown’s forty-one (41) alleyways, provide services to the Chinatown community, and to help these youth develop leadership skills.

They also run an Chinatown Alleyway’s Tour.

Chinatown has three times more alleys than streets and they all are worth exploring. The locals have done an amazing job in cleaning up the alleys and giving tourists a reason to go down them, with markers, history walks and little finds like this. By the way, Wentworth Street is nicknamed Salty Fish Alley because of the many dried seafood stores that filled it in the early 1900’s.

Phone Company Building

Posted by Cindy on July 21, 2011

Jul 212011

743 Washington Street
Chinatown

San Francisco’s Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Established in the 1840s, It plays an extremely important part in the history of San Francisco and the history of the Chinese diaspora. Chinatown is the most densely populated neighborhood in the city and one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the United States. It is also one of the more working class neighborhoods of San Francisco. Chinatown has more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Chinese Telephone Exchange sits at 793 Washington. In 1891, the first public telephone pay station was installed in Chinatown. In 1894, a small switchboard was set up to serve the patrons of the phone system. People were often asked for by name rather than by number, so telephone operators had to memorize and know each patron by name. This made telephone numbers unnecessary, which was important since the Chinatown community felt it was rude to refer to people by numbers. Operators also knew the address and occupations of patrons so they could distinguish between two people with the same name. In addition, they had to speak five Chinese dialects as well as English.

The exchange was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, but was rebuilt, and remained in operation until it closed in 1949.

Technology changed, and switchboards were no longer needed. The Bank of Canton bought and restored the building in 1960.

Chinatown has an incredibly rich history and there are hundreds of books out there about it, but two that I find especially interesting are: “The Barbary Plague” by Marilyn Chase and “Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown” by Arnold Genthe and John Kuo Wei Tchen.

Chinatown Murals

Posted by Cindy on July 20, 2011

Jul 202011

Chinatown – San Francisco

Stockton and Pacific

This mural is also on the Ping Yuen Housing Project. This is the Stockton Street Side of the building.

Painted by Darryl Mar in 1999. Mar is a graduate of UC Irvine. He went on to get a masters in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Mr. Mar was aided by Darren Acoba, Joyce Lu and Tonia Chen. It is in memory of Sing Kan Mah and those who have struggled to make America their home.

Walking further down Stockton Street towards the tunnel you will find this mural on the Victory Memorial Hall it was erected by the China War Relief Association of America and painted by Amy Nelder.

The Center sign reads: “Ten Miles of Track, Laid in One Day, April 28, 1869”

The waving banner reads “On April 28th 1869, a team of 848 Chinese railroad workers, using only hand tools, set a record laying more than 10 miles of track in just 12 hours. For the entire year of 1868 the Central Pacific Railway laid only 350 miles of track – about one mile a day. Chinese immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom (over 90%) came from Gwang Chou Province, constituted about 86% of the Central Pacific workforce, more than 12,000 of out of 14,00 workers.”

According to Wendy’s website she “comes from a rich San Francisco tradition. Her grandfather, Al Nelder, was the revered former Chief of Police for San Francisco and her mother, Wendy, is the former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She continues that spirit of public service by being one of only 18 fulltime forensic artists in the United States as the forensic artist for the San Francisco Police Department.”

As you can see above, the Chinese were instrumental in building the railroads throughout the west. It is a piece of our history fraught with both the good and the bad. If you are interested in reading further about it I suggest checking out the following book. “Nothing Like it in the World” by Stephen E. Ambrose, I know there are hundreds others, but his makes for wonderful reading about the entire railroad history in the west.

Chinatown – 8 Immortals

Posted by Cindy on July 19, 2011

Jul 192011

Chinatown – San Francisco

711 Pacific

Bok Sen – Eight Immortals

I was stopped short by this set of murals. The style is so obviously asian and yet you just don’t see that style outside of the asian world when it comes to murals. This is the front of the Ping Yuen Public Housing Project on the corner of Stockton and Pacific in San Francisco. The housing project was built in 1952, and designed by Architect Henry Temple Howard. Howard was a graduate of UC Berkeley and the Ecole de Beaux Arts. After a stint with his father, architect John Glen Howard, he went to work for Blakewell and Brown, the architects of Coit Tower. He worked with landscape architect Mark Daniels on this project.

Ping Yuen has three buildings, east, middle and west. There are playgrounds in the back and small landscaped areas for sitting. Despite being surrounded by high fences and lots of bars on the windows most people that live there consider it a very safe place to live.

This particular wall is outside of the walls, which is how it got tagged. These murals have a very interesting story. They were done by Josie Grant. The original mural, painted in 1979 depicted representations of classic tai chi poses. The city had hired a contractor to seal the walls after some roof damage, the contractor white-washed over the murals. In 1995, the city hired Josie again to put up new murals. She did not want to recreate the original murals, so this is what she did, apparently with some acrimony from some of the tenants. There was considerable discussion about the fact that she was not Asian, and that these aren’t what people expected. I think they are wonderful, and so very different than what is around town.

The title of these murals is Bok Sen – 8 Immortals. All these shots were taken through the bars of the fence that surrounds the property.