"Pittsburgh's Lost Chinatown" with Doors Open Pittsburgh, February 8.

Doors Open Pittsburgh will hold an online presentation on "Pittsburgh's Lost Chinatown" on February 8.

In the early 1900s, Pittsburgh’s Chinatown was thriving. With more than 20 restaurants, bakeries, import shops, and food markets, it was a lively center for commerce. This story reveals why, how, and when Chinatown vanished from the Pittsburgh landscape.

Its temple, social halls, and merchant societies formed a welcoming home base for Pittsburgh’s 500 Chinese residents. Today just one restaurant remains. This story reveals why, how, and when Chinatown vanished from the Pittsburgh landscape.

The event begins at 7:30 pm and tickets start at $5.

"Here's a new one for the Strip: sushi in a grocery store": (Pre-)Chaya in the Strip.

If you watch the 1996 Rick Sebak documentary "The Strip Show" on WQED you might see a familiar face setting up a stand in the Strip District. Before opening Chaya in Squirrel Hill in 2001, Fumio Yasuzawa and his wife, Jackie (pictured above), operated a stand at Sambok, an Asian grocery in the Strip District. He was photographed for a 1999 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on local sushi offerings:

Several call themselves the most authentic. Fumio Yasuzawa's sidewalk ad reads "Tokyo trained," which is the equivalent of the UL label on electrical appliances. His devoted fans call him Yasu, and he works in what's undoubtedly the smallest space of any sushi chef in the city -- a closet-sized nook just inside the door of New Sambok Oriental Foods in The Strip.

He opened this stand in 1998, as documented by the Post-Gazette:

Here's a new one for the Strip: a sushi bar at a grocery store.

Sambok, the Oriental food store at 1737 Penn Avel., has hired a Tokyo-trained sushi chef to make the tekka maki, California roll, and other sushi and sashim specialities at the sushi bar. It's open Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Saturday, the big day in the Strip, it opens a half hour earlier. On Sunday, it's closed.

The chef is Fumo "Yasu" Yasuzawa, who has worked at the Hotel Kitano in New York City and the River Vale Country Club and Fort Lee Hilton in New Jersey. The New Sambok Sushi Bar, as it's called, and the chef also will come to your wedding, dinner party or whatever. Rent-a-Sushi Bar, the new service is called.

Chaya announced last week that it will close at the end of this month.

Throwback Thursday: Chan-ho Park sets record for most wins in Major League Baseball by an Asian pitcher while member of the Pirates.

via Yonhap News.

In August 4, 2010 the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates claimed 37-year-old pitcher Chan-ho Park (박찬호) off waivers, making him the first Korean player in Pittsburgh Pirates history. The Pirates have had Korean players in their system dating back to the late-1990s, and had relief pitcher Byung-hyun Kim in spring training in 2008, but did not have a Korean player on the Major League roster until Park (and would not have another one until, or after, Jung-ho Kang). Park would appear in 26 games for Pittsburgh that year and, on October 1, set the record for most Major League Baseball wins by an Asian pitcher. He would pitch one year in Japan and another year in Korea after leaving Pittsburgh.

Cool curiosities at Wilkinsburg's Asian Merchandise.

A Sampo Tri-screen Color TV, released circa 1981-2.

One of the larger Asian groceries in the area is probably its least heralded, at least this century: Asian Merchandise Inc in Wilkinsburg, a multi-floor establishment on Penn Ave. (map) that's gone by Pittsburgh Asian Center, Pittsburgh Asian Market, Asian World, and Ou's International. It's also one of the oldest, moving to its present location in 1981 after operating at 757 Penn Ave. from 1978 to 1981. The owner, Chen-Tu Ou, came to Pittsburgh via Taiwan in 1975.

Bringing "A Touch of Orient to the region": When Pittsburgh almost built an "Asia on the Allegheny."

From a February 20, 1989 Pittsburgh Press article.

In the mid- to late-1980s, Pittsburgh was entertaining plans to build an "Asian Trade Center" on the North Shore, part of a redevelopment effort that would soon bring the Andy Warhol Museum and the Carnegie Science Center to the area. Initial plans for the Asian Trade Center in 1985 were focused on Union Station, the former train station on Liberty Avenue now The Pennsylvanian apartments. By 1988 and 1989, the plan was to construct apartments, hotels, and Asian retail in the blocks between on what is now the site of the Morgan at North Shore Apartments.

Pitt's first Chinese graduates.

Two of the first three petroleum engineering graduates in the United States were Chinese, and they were the first two Chinese students to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh back in 1915. As noted in a post on this topic last year, the Pitt Weekly profiled the four men who were en route to earn this degree:

PITT CHINESE TO BE PETROLEUM KINGS

Melican Chinese laundries and Chinese chop suey restaurants are common objects in our city life, and on most any corner we see the familiar sign 'Wa Lee Yee, Laundry" but did you ever stop to think that we will be soon buying our oil and gasoline from real Chinese pretroleum [sic] engineers?

Pitt has taken the lead in producing Chinese Knights of the oil can, and will, unless the unexpected happens, graduate two sons of the oriental country with the degree of petroleum engineer in June. This will be the first time for any university in the United States to offer the degree, so the men taking it will have a notable distinction.

The students who expect to take the degree of petroleum engineer are F.A. Johnson, Ben Avon, Pa; George W. Myers, Pittsburgh; Barin Ye Long, Changtu, China, and Chun Young Chan, Canton, China.

"Pittsburgh of China."

Thirty-eight years ago, Pittsburgh formalized a Sister City relationship with Wuhan, China. A September 18, 1982 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article records the signing of a friendship pact between Mayor Richard Caliguiri and Mayor Li Zhi.

Pittsburgh Magazine: "The Fight to Recognize Pittsburgh’s Lost Chinatown."

The November 2019 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine takes a look at the fight to recognize Pittsburgh's former Chinatown as a historically-significant neighborhood.

“Unlike any other immigrant group that came through Pittsburgh, with the Chinese, you can’t find anything — unless you go digging for it — to show that they really were here,” says Marian Mei-Ling Lien, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), one of the oldest Asian-American and Pacific Islander advocacy groups.

Lien wants people to know something about Pittsburgh’s Chinatown and early Chinese population. The Pittsburgh chapter is applying — for the fourth time — to earn a state historical marker for Pittsburgh’s Chinatown from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Read more online or in the November 2019 issue.

Pitt's Chinese Nationality Room turns 80 today.

The Chinese Nationality Room in 1939; via Historic Pittsburgh.

The University of Pittsburgh's Chinese Nationality Room was dedicated on October 6, 1939.

Pittsburgh's Misdo.

From the October 18, 1986 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

One of the biggest doughnut chains in Asia this century, Mister Donut originated in the US and was ubiquitous around Pittsburgh in the 1970s and 1980s. This 1986 Halloween advertisement offers a free pumpkin with the purchase of a dozen donuts and a beverage. Mister Donut survives locally, somewhat, in the form of Donut Connection, which purchased a few of the locations.

Franck's "Unkillable Human" on the North Shore.

On the Northshore Heritage Trail is a 2003 sculpture by Dutch artist Frederick Franck titled "Unkillable Human," commemorating those lost in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is located basically across the street from Warhola Recycling on Chesboro St. (map). A marker there reads:

At Hiroshima Franck was confronted with the shadow of a human being burned into a concrete wall by the atomic bomb.

The indestructible spirit rises from the ashes.

The sculpture---though Franck preferred the word "sign"---was originally to find a home at a proposed Peace Park at Point State Park, but was eventually relocated to the North Shore when those plans fell through.

Beyond Chinatown: Pittsburgh's "Chinamen" once entertained idea of "Chinese Building" downtown.

A 1908 Pittsburgh Gazette Times article reports on the efforts to replace Pittsburgh's Chinatown with a state-of-the-art "Chinese building" downtown.

Two of the country's first three petroleum engineering graduates were Chinese, and were the first Chinese students to graduate from Pitt.

In January 1915, the Pitt Weekly noted that the first graduating class of its Petroleum Engineering degree would contain two American and two Chinese students (though that year's commencement program shows only one of the Americans earned his degree).

PITT CHINESE TO BE PETROLEUM KINGS

Melican Chinese laundries and Chinese chop suey restaurants are common objects in our city life, and on most any corner we see the familiar sign 'Wa Lee Yee, Laundry" but did you ever stop to think that we will be soon buying our oil and gasoline from real Chinese pretroleum [sic] engineers?

Pitt has taken the lead in producing Chinese Knights of the oil can, and will, unless the unexpected happens, graduate two sons of the oriental country with the degree of petroleum engineer in June. This will be the first time for any university in the United States to offer the degree, so the men taking it will have a notable distinction.

21 years of Korean Pirates.

Pitching prospect Byung-il Kim, (김병일) via 중앙일보.

Long before the Pittsburgh Pirates first started signing Asian prospects like Jung-ho Kang, Ji-hwan Bae, and Jin-de Jhang a few years ago, there have been some interesting intersections between the Pirates and Asian baseball. In 1965, the Pirates were set to tour Japan but the trip was cancelled that June, ostensibly due to the Pirates' "inferior drawing power" but in reality due to stalled contract negotiations with a Japanese baseball player. In 1975, the Pirates played, and lost to, the reigning Central League champion out of Nagoya, the Chunichi Dragons, who joined Pittsburgh in spring training that year. And, in the 1990s, the Pirates had a working agreement with one of the top pro teams in South Korea.

"Ah so!" "Banzai." Pittsburgh Pirates and Chunichi Dragons.

Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh and Chunichi Dragons manager Wally Yonamine, 1975.

In 1975, the Chunichi Dragons spent spring training with the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton, Florida. The Dragons were the reigning Central League champions, and were managed by Japanese-American---and Japanese Baseball Hall of Famer---Wally Yonamine. A book on Yonamine, Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball, says the visit was a reward for his leading the team to the Central League championship.

For winning the pennant, Chunichi's board of directors gave the team two rewards. The first was a new clubhouse.

. . .

The second was a trip to Florida for spring training. Yonamine made arrangements with Joe Brown, Pittsburgh's general manager, for the Dragons to train with the Pirates. The Dragons arrived in March, already in shape from their February camp at Hamamatsu, and played exhibition games against the Pirates and nearby Major League teams. Though everybody knew the American teams were not yet in top form, Chunichi did well, taking two of three games against Pittsburgh and beating the Chicago White Sox 1-0.

A final good-bye for the old Kim's Coffee Shop?

Almost four years ago I posted some photos of a facade on Penn Ave. in Garfield made up with a pretty distinctively Korean look The eaves on 5447 Penn Ave. (map) are made to resemble a traditional Korean house, though it was actually a Vietnamese place opened in 1983 and run by Mai Hong Khuu until her cancer diagnosis and death in 2006. (Reviews from the last century commented on the windowless atmosphere, and even a 2004 City-Paper review feels especially dated, with Pittsburgh's increased familiarity with Vietnamese and Chinese over the last few years.)



A notice of condemnation was posted on February 12 where the door once was, warning of an "unsafe structure" and "imminent danger," with the solutions required by the notice either repair or demolition. The former restaurant, as well as the building above it, were purchased in 2012 by the nearby Pittsburgh Glass Center, with the intention of turning it into student and artist housing. However, by all indications the two spots have been empty since the restaurant closed nearly 13 years ago. It was sold in 2018 to an LLC run by Ghassan Bejjani, a neurosurgeon who purchased four other vacant homes on the same block in 2015 (under a different LLC) and a building across the street last year.


As seen in 2015.

WESA FM asks "What Happened To Pittsburgh's Chinatown?"

Taken in 2012.

Pittsburgh's NPR station, WESA FM, has a lengthy piece on what happened to Pittsburgh's Chinatown.

"The Ishomotos [sic] staying at Gusky Orphnanage Are Very Nice People."

This photograph from the August 20, 1945 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette shows members of two Japanese-American families gathered inside a temporary internment facility on the Northside. The Gusky Orphanage---razed in 1950---was used to house Japanese-Americans as they transitioned between detention centers. The two families here, the Fujiharas and the Ishimotos, were the subject of a couple profiles in their day.

Nine decades of Chinese food in Squirrel Hill.

Advertisement in the June 29, 1934 Jewish Criterion.

Pittsburgh's Chinese food scene has gotten a lot of attention and acclaim in recent years, specifically newer restaurants in Squirrel Hill—see this piece in Saveur and this write-up from Eater, for example—but Chinese restaurants have been in the neighborhood for almost a century. The Canton Tea Garden opened on June 30, 1934 at 2018 Murray Ave., where it stayed through the 1930s and 1940s. Like its contemporaries, it advertised Americanized dishes for local tastes. The December 14, 1934 installment of "Sue's Shopping Pursuit" profiles the restaurant:

If it is true that in China people never heard of Chop Suey, all we can say is "they don't know what they are missing." Once you have eaten it at the CANTON TEA GARDEN you'll have no trouble in agreeing with us. And at the same place—2018 Murray Avenue, by the way—there are all sorts of other Chinese dishes too.

But we have saved the best thing about the Canton Tea Garden for last. On some of these cold winter nights haven't you often had a yen (parton our mixture of Japanese with Chinese!) for some good Chinese food—yet you hated to go out to get it? Well, all you need to do next time you feel that way is to phone Hazel 1213, no matter when it is, or where you are—you can order what you want.

Via Dr. Young Suh Kim.

On December 9, 1950 it reopened at 2205 Murray Ave., as seen in the photograph above taken by a Korean graduate student in the late-1950s. The outline of the sign's lettering can still be seen on the present-day Squirrel Hill Shoe Repair.


"Tea G" faintly visible at the Squirrel Hill Shoe Repair.

July 27, 1959: "End of the Road for Chinatown".

On July 27, 1959, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette used the demolition of two buildings on downtown's Third Avenue to proclaim the end of Pittsburgh's Chinatown, which had been sharply declining in size and population for decades.