As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the infamous 1871 Chinese Massacre, here’s a brief slideshow of LA’s first Chinatown, which sprang up in the late 1800s along the Old Plaza’s eastern fringe. As we saw yesterday, the center of this district was the crime-ridden Calle de los Negros, or Street of the Dark Ones, shown in the first slide above.
After the 1871 race riot, Old Chinatown continued to expand along Los Angeles and Alameda Streets, but remained largely impoverished. In 1937, the bulk of the neighborhood was razed to make way for the construction of Union Station, and the residents and businesses relocated to today’s New Chinatown, up North Broadway.
