For years, local groups in Chinatown have worked to draw large crowds to the neighborhood, to help revitalize it in the aftermath of the pandemic. They finally pulled it off last Wednesday with help from the new mayor and his team: Daniel Lurie’s inaugural party, a banquet and nearby night market, drew thousands of attendees to the streets.
Videos of the DJ party, set against the backdrop of red lanterns and neon Chinese signs, flooded social media. Some key figures in the community hope that the night was a turning point for Chinatown, helping it shift from being a tourism destination to a hub for art, culture and outdoor events that attract locals. Yet some others are skeptical, questioning whether the energy will last and noting that continued investment is needed to keep bringing people to the area at or near this scale.
The night’s events stood out from others in Chinatown’s recent past, not just due to turnout. Lurie’s team, and the momentous occasion, brought together dozens of local groups that don’t often collaborate.
“It takes having the mayor come back to Chinatown for us to realize that we have to work together,” said Donald Luu, president of the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Ed Lee was the most recent mayor to visit Chinatown for a big celebration, upon becoming the city’s first Asian American to attain the office.
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Many organizations share a common goal of revitalizing the area, “but it’s hard to communicate with each other because we all have different ideas, and sometimes there’s some history that makes it difficult for us to talk,” Luu said, acknowledging decades-old disagreements among groups over political issues, from the local to the international.
“I have folks that consider me to be on the other side of the aisle,” Luu said. But for the inaugural event, “They came to me and said, ‘let’s work together, let’s come to this side of the aisle.’”
Some of that collaboration began during the pandemic, as groups put on smaller events, said Malcolm Yeung, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center. He praised Lurie for being “very, very attuned” to the neighborhood’s many organizations, including their histories, frictions and interests.
In recent years, local groups have hosted activities and opened art and museum spaces along Grant Avenue, a historically popular tourist corridor known for its pagoda-style buildings and iconic street decoration. Their goal has been to attract residents of San Francisco and nearby cities to replace the foot traffic that dissipated after COVID-19 slowed down tourism.
Edge on the Square, a Chinatown contemporary art hub, began hosting an annual summer art festival on the street three years ago. Last year, new nonprofit BeChinatown launched a series of monthly night markets, offering people a taste of local food. One of the organization’s goals was to help people feel safer in the area, in response to concerns about anti-Asian hate.
Despite that work, “These days, Chinatown has been quiet,” said Lily Lo, BeChinatown’s founder.
By contrast, last week’s event appeared to be a booming success, and might help the public see the area differently, as an accessible place where anyone can have fun.
“We hope that the celebration will bring a lot of visibility and people,” said Jenny Leung, executive director of the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, at the event. That appears to have happened, with multiple local news outlets covering the event and videos of it garnering major engagement on TikTok and Instagram.
Luu, of the Chamber of Commerce, echoed the sentiment: “I hope this is the defining moment for us to really revitalize Chinatown.”
At the night market, attendees told the San Francisco Public Press that, after enjoying the food there, they planned to return to the area’s restaurants in the future. In fact, there was so much demand for food that most vendors sold out by 9 p.m. With many restaurants closed for the festivities, some of the neighborhood’s visitors had to go elsewhere to find something to eat.
The outdoor party featured a free performance by Grammy-nominated electronic musician, vocalist and disk jockey Zhu, a major draw for people.
“I’ve worked here for 10 years, and tonight I’ve seen the most people on this street,” said Qing Yep, who operates a convenience store on Jackson Street, less than a block from the stage where Zhu performed. There were so many people standing in front of her store that she had to remove her merchandise from the sidewalk to make space for them to enjoy the music. She said the event boosted her sales.
Yip hopes there will be more events like this in Chinatown, but she’s wary about the odds that will happen. The world-class DJ made this night unconventional for the area. Other merchants held similar skepticisms, pointing out that hosting events of this size is costly and doesn’t necessarily benefit their businesses, which mostly sell souvenirs to tourists. A gift store owner, who asked to remain anonymous, said that only a few people stopped by to browse his products that night — unlike in the neighborhood’s heydey when he often had lines out the door.
Ed Siu, president of the Chinatown United Merchants Association, also criticized the event’s organizers for pulling it together at the last minute without giving shop owners enough time to provide input. Some businesses probably saw depressed sales that night, he said, because the street had closed early in preparation, making it difficult for customers who drove to the area to find parking so that they could shop there.
Chinatown faces multiple challenges in addition to its generally emptier streets, said David Ho, a political strategist and longtime activist in the area. Vacant storefronts persist, and workers can struggle to afford the cost of living with their meager wages, he said.
“It’s not a magic wand where a one-off is going to bring a complete revitalization,” Ho said, referring to the inaugural event.
Leung, of the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, recognized that the path to the area’s recovery may not be a quick one.
“This is just the beginning,” she said.