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Home > Boston's Neighborhoods
> Chinatown/South Cove
Learn more
about your ancestor's neighborhood through the timeline, find more information
in the Further Reading section, or use the links to experience life in
that community today.
Timeline
- 1700-1805:
Area to be known as the South Cove/Chinatown neighborhood consists of
tidal flats.
- 1761:
Phillis
Wheatley is brought to America at the age of eight. She begins writing
poetry at the age of 13 and publishes Poems on Various Subjects:
Religious and Moral (1773) in England. She is bought by the Wheatley
family at the dock on what is now Beach Street in Chinatown.
- 1805:
Landfill project begins along Fort Point Channel from Washington Street
to Harrison Ave.
- 1835-1845:
Second landfill project fills from Harrison Ave. east to Albany Street.
- 1835-1850:
Home of middle income White Americans.
- 1845-1848:
Irish settle in South Cove in great numbers. The center of their community
is St. James Church on Albany Street (later moved to Harrison Ave).
- 1847:
Boston architect, Gridley J. F. Bryant, who later designed Old City
Hall, designs The Quincy School. The
Quincy School, named after Mayor Josiah Quincy, is the first graded
middle school in the country.
- 1850s:
Area becomes home to the leather and garment industries. Middle class
Yankees move out in the 1860s-1890s, Irish, then Jews and Arabs, primarily
Christian Syrians, move in.
- 1885:
The first Chinese move into Oliver Place (Ping On Alley) among resident
Syrians. Chinese work for the New England Telephone Company on 50 Pearl
Street and live on Beach Street, Oxford Place, and Harrison Ave.
- 1890:
Approximately 200 Chinese are in Chinatown. The Chinese Monthly News
begins publication.
- 1896:
Syrians primarily in Oliver Place, Chinese Harrison Ave, Jews and Irish
south of Kneeland Street, Blacks in Oak Street near the railroad.
- 1899:
Construction of Boston Elevated Railroad pushes Chinese south to Tyler
and Hudson Streets.
- 1900:
White immigrants groups move out, Chinese move in.
- 1924:
Jewish businessmen establish multi-story garment shops along Kneeland
Street. Prior to WWII, the employees were mostly Irish and Italian women.
After the war, Chinese women dominate.
- 1935:
Chinese inhabit roughly the area of today's Chinatown.
- 1938:
The interior blocks of Harrison Ave and Tyler Street are cleared to
create parking.
- 1950s:
Chinatown expands south of Kneeland Street displacing the former Irish,
Syrian, and Jewish populations.
- 1952:
Chinese Merchants Association Building is constructed at Hudson and
Kneeland Streets.
- 1955:
After the Mass Pike Extension is constructed, many Chinese are displaced
and begin moving either to the South End or into the suburbs of Allston-Brighton,
Brookline, Roxbury, and Dorchester.
- 1956:
Central Artery cuts through Albany Street.
- 1970:
Chinatown Little City Hall founded. There are now 1,900 in Chinatown.
- 1993:
The first bank to be owned and operated by Asian Americans in Boston,
The Asian American Bank, opens on Kneeland St.
Links
- Chinese
Historical Society of New England
- Events
- Neighborhood
News
- Restaurants
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