April 11, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

“WHAT DOES CHINATOWN WANT FOR THE FUTURE?”
A report on the Chinatown focus group discussions

Thursday, April 19, 2007
6:30pm – 8:00pm
Metropolitan community room
38 Oak Street, Boston, MA 02111

“What Does Chinatown Want For the Future: A report on the Chinatown focus group discussions” is a presentation by the Chinatown Gateway coalition on Thursday, April 19th. With over 100 participants covering a broad population of the Chinatown community, the focus groups asked for each person’s opinion on how Chinatown can be better.

The Chinatown Gateway coalition’s mission is to advocate for land development in the interests of the Chinatown community. Coalition members are: Asian Community Development Corporation, Chinatown Neighborhood Council, Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Chinese Economic Development Council, Chinatown Main Streets, Chinese Progressive Association, and Chinatown Residents Association.

Contact Kye Leung info@chinatowngateway.org

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April 6, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

I was at the last Chinatown Residents Association meeting on April 4 @ the Josiah Quincy School.. This is taken from a fact sheet given out at the meeting.
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Tufts University is planning an additional 5-stories to its School of Dental Medicine at One Kneeland St (corner of Kneeland and Washington St.) in order to alleviate overcrowding. The building currently is 10-stories and was built in 1973. Since the Tufts Dental School is not included in the Tufts University Master Plan, it needs to be amended.

Project Details
- Existing building is 10 stories, 174 feet in height, 178,346 sq ft.
- Add 5-stories (bringing height to 224 feet) and approximately 90,000 sq ft.
- No new parking proposed.
- No traffic and parking impacts are expected as 75% of patients use public transportation.
- Estimated construction *20-24 months, finish in 2010 (the Tufts University speaker said 20-24mo, in the fact sheet it listed 18 months.)

Public Benefits
- Increase dental services
- Beautification of existing plaza and sidewalks
- Provide 150 construction jobs
- Contribute funds to Boston Neighborhood Housing and Jobs Trust

Public Process
- Project Notification Form submitted to the Boston Redevelopment Authority on March 15, 2007.
- Public comment period ends April 24, 2007.
- Contact Sonal Gandhi, BRA, One City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201 or sonal.gandhi.bra@cityofboston.gov
- Tufts University contact: Mr. Glenn Hand, Project Manager, 617-636-3607

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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 »

April 3, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

Developer Ori Ron purchased the old Dainty Dot building on Essex Street last year for $9 million with the intent of converting it into high-end condos. His proposal is for 30-stories in an area zoned for 10-stories and 27 units of affordable housing on another lot in Chinatown to fulfill his 10% affordability requirement. Whether people are against another large-scale project that exceeds the zoning codes (again) or proponents who say this project will convert an abandoned building for better use, all agree that Boston Chinatown is changing.

Boston Chinatown has a history of being changed by outside forces. In the 1970s, it was the “Combat Zone”, or red light district, when it was moved from what is now City Hall/Government Center to Chinatown. The 1980s-1990s was the age of institutional expansion as Tufts and New England Medical Center expanded. This decade has been high-rise developers that are shaping Chinatown: Millennium/Ritz Carlton, Archstone-Smith, Metropolitan, Kensington, State Street Financial, Lincoln Place and now the Dainty Dot.

Past developers would meet with City Hall, get their tacit approval (wink, wink) and then host a public meeting for community comments. What makes Ron a little different than other developers has been his energy and commitment to winning community support for the Dainty Dot. Even though he has a team of lawyers and consultants, it is Ron who does most of the talking. It also seems like he is everywhere in Chinatown, going to the meetings and banquets for: The Chinatown Coalition, Safety Committee, Chinatown Main Streets, Leather District Neighborhood Association, Chinatown Neighborhood Council, and the Chinatown Residents Association – and this was before Ron filed a Project Notification Form (PNF) with City Hall stating his intent to build. The public meeting for the PNF will occur on April 12 at the Double Tree Inn hotel.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet him at some of these events. Ron has consistently stated that he doesn’t want any problems and he is here to work with the community. In his words, “If there was a lawsuit, I would not build it.” He then told me a bit about his history, how he left war-torned Israel to seek a better life here in the U.S. He has two kids, one of whom is going to college.

Word On the Street:
“Too big,” one said. Another person said, “It will set a precedent for other projects. Ron Druker who owns the building next to it will want to build something similar if Ori Ron gets the approval.”

An interesting twist to the story is that the Dainty Dot is adjacent to the Chinatown Gateway Park, also known as Parcel 23D, which links with the Rose Kennedy Greenway throughout the city. A person at the Leather District meeting spoke that the neighborhood had endured years of the Big Dig and traffic to get the Chinatown Gateway Park. Now that the Park is almost completed, the Park has inadvertently increased the value of the adjacent Dainty Dot. What was not said but implied was – is this what we waited for, a 30-story tower?

However, not everyone sees it this way. A long-time Chinatown activist said, “It’s good for Chinatown because they are offering to build more affordable housing.” In order to win community support, Ron purchased several parking lots on Essex and Oxford Streets to build the affordable housing. When the affordable units are built, a Chinatown agency will manage the project. It seems like there will be different opinions – both for and against the proposal.

We will continue to monitor the situation and report back with further news.

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