Chinatown Alleyway Usage

Day 2 of our trip, we visited the International District again, but even though, we already did go on a tour in the ID, we went on another tour. This time with the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda). Amazingly, it was the organization I researched for my initial post in the blog. From those initial thoughts, I assumed that SCIDpda would be similar with our Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) in both practice and mindset. They are very much similar, but not in all things.

Anyways, community engagement is very important to both them and also to us. They are doing many project in their community as we do, most notably and interesting to me, personally, was their alleyway revitalization project. As I am a youth of Adopt-an-Alleyway and a Chinatown Alleyway tour guide, this really did interested to me and brought me ideas of possibility in our alleyways. This project brought the community together through community events in the alleyway, specifically in the historical Canton Alleyway. These events would showed the community the possibility of how these buildings in the alleyway can be used and deteriorate the connotation of alleyways being scary and dirty. Some examples of their events are music festivals, night markets, and kid fun days.

Holding these events in our San Francisco Chinatown alleyways can prove to be actually very beneficial to many businesses because so many people actually walk through the alleyway, not knowing the businesses and shops on the main streets or even in the alleyway themselves. Also, our neighborhood’s nightlife is dying and disappearing. Having a night market can revitalize that very nightlife and bring  businesses more publicity and business itself. These can help make people really appreciate the alleyways and think about the possible uses of it.

Secondly for them, their night markets is a great way to show the many cultures in their community and their vast variety of different Asian Pacific Islander ethnic group. I hope having a night market or the other events in SF’s Chinatown can help many people really explore and get interested in Chinese culture and understand the real authentic Chinese culture in our somewhat little community.

-David Trang

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