April 4, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

Is Kensington Towers, a 30-story 299-rental unit development on the sell block? After getting permit approval by a Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) press release on September 11, 2003 which stated that ground breaking will start next spring, the site continues to be an empty lot 3 years later. So what’s up?

A call to the BRA confirmed that Kensington was having some “difficulties getting financing.” So I ask: Shouldn’t they have the financing ready when they applied for the permit? What I was told was that the developer submitted an initital feasibility study that said these were the costs and this would be what they would be able to do. “As you know, the housing market has changed now and some of their costs have gone up.”

So I ask another question: Are they going to do a Fitzgerald-Archstone Smith deal, get the permits and then flip it to a buyer? “As far as I know, I have not heard of anything. I believe they will continue to be the developer.”

(Kevin Fitzgerald was the original developer with Charles E. Smith, and sold it to what later became Archstone Smith — with Archstone and Charles E. Smith merging. Both projects are located on Washington Street across from each other.)

Kensington had to battle many issues before it was approved. The first was getting the City to define the project as a Planned Development Area (PDA) so it can exceed the zoning codes. However one of the qualifications for a PDA designation was that the area needed to be one-acre or more and Kensington didn’t have the necessary land acreage. The developers and the City did some creative zoning by including the adjacent China Trade Center to fulfill the one-acre requirement.

The second problem was there were several shops on the site which needed to be removed, a Vietnames clothing store, an adult newspaper stand and an adult strip club called the Glass Slipper. The City said, “Hey, we can use eminent domain and take the properties.” Some people in Chinatown at the time supported this idea because they wanted to remove the strip club. The Glass Slipper sued the City and made a compromise, in which the Glass Slipper moved across the street where it was. (So Chinatown didn’t get to move the strip club away.)

Then there were the preservationists who wanted to save the old Gaiety Theater and which Kensington wanted to demolish. I won’t go into this much further, but as you can already see there were many issues just for Kensington to get the necessary approvals to build. It would be a shame now that Kensington can’t get it done because of financing.

What did Chinatown get so far? Not much to show for. The Glass Slipper is still nearby Chinatown. Where once was the Gaiety Theater and the dream of preserving it is now just an empty lot. The affordable units the Chinatown community was to receive from Kensington has stalled along with the development.

Update 4/5/07: Word on the street is that Kensington is seeking “inside and outside” financing with a time frame of one year.

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April 4, 2007 by Storyteller.

Chinese food has become a big part of the American culture.  According to Chinese Restaurant News there are three times more Chinese restaurants than there are McDonald’s.  Next time you are driving or walking on the street pay attention to how many Chinese restaurants you pass by.  On my 15 minutes drive home from work I see four Chinese restaurants and one McDonald’s.  Greasy Pu Pu Platter, general Tao’s chicken and pork fried rice is a part of the American diet and American life as well. How often do you and your friend stay in on a Friday night to watch a Blockbuster movie and ordered Chinese food take out.  Many Americans know how tasty the food is but do they have any clues about the lives and stories of the people behind the food?

As much as 80% of Chinese family are somehow directly or indirectly related to Chinese restaurant work and life.  Almost every single members of my family had one time or another waitress, bartend, packed orders, cooked or washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant.  Personally I started in the kitchen taking phone calls and packing orders.  By the time I left I had waitress and bartend.  Working at a Chinese restaurant was temporary for my family and I, we were there until something better comes along.  For my sisters and I it was a place where we can make some spending money for ourselves during our weekends home or summer off from school.  After graduation from college my sisters and I never went back there.  When we first came to the U.S. my father worked a second job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant to make some additional money to raise a family of four children.  He quit about five years into the job because we were settled in the U.S. and financially stable by that time.  For many middle age or older Chinese immigrants who does not have any professional skills and who can’t speak enough English to interact with society they are stuck in the restaurant industry until old age.

Chinese restaurant is also a wide form of networking and connection for Chinese immigrants.  Workers can introduce their friends or family members to their boss and get them a job that way.  That’s how I got mine.  Some workers in the suburbia are recruited from big city Chinatowns.  Managers and owners would find waitress and cook through the temporary work agency  postings in Chinese newspaper.  I met a woman who was recruited to a Western MA Chineserestaurant from New York City.  She came from Malaysia to the U.S. trying to find a job and hoping to make a bundle of money and then return to herhome country.  The owner provides housing for workers like her who aren’t from the area.

In my next blog I will go into details on the lives of individual and family working in this industry.

Posted in LIFE AND STORIES OF ASIAN AMERICANS | Print | 2 Comments »