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Chinatown leaders favor destruction of the 'Chinese Wall'
By Mark Brakeman


Chinatown is bursting at the seams, and its rallying cry to find room for its growing population could be "Go north, young man."
North after all, is the only way to turn since all other options for spreading the neighborhood’s boundaries re blocked by the Gallery on the South, the Convention Center on the west and Franklin Square Park on the east.

In its quest for new, affordable housing, the neighborhood’s leaders are looking beyond Chinatown’s traditional boundary north of Vine Street. Already, new residences have been built near Ninth and Vine in what civic leaders are calling "Chinatown North," but full development of the area is stymied by the presence of the hulking, abandoned Reading Viaduct.

John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), said that the overhead railway – which in its day carried trains to points north and east of the city – slices diagonally across developable parcels of land, making building on them impractical.

In addition to expounding affordable housing north of Vine Street, Chin also said PCDC wants to spread Chinatown’s business sector in the area.

"That’s really, really hard with the Viaduct there."

He said the PCDC proposes to have the Viaduct razed between Noble Street to Spring Garden Street. It’s the section that would most hinder development of Chinatown North. Besides, most of the remaining railway rests the on support of solid rock rather than more easily removable steel I-beams.

That option would keep intact two sections of the current structure: one piece between Vine and Noble and another from Spring Garden to the Viaduct’s terminus at Eighth Street and Fairmount Avenue.

First, though, the property must be acquired from its owner, Reading Entertainment, an owner and operator of movie theaters, before anything can be done to or with the trestle.

Chinatown is not the only group with designs on the future on the Viaduct, though. A group calling itself Friends of Viaduct Park would like to see the structure kept where it is but with an urban park developed atop it.

But one person’s playground is another person’s elephant in the living room. Andy Toy, a longtime advocate for Chinatown’s interests, said the feeling in that community about the Viaduct is "tear down that ‘Chinese Wall.’"

Sarah McEneaney, one of the founders of Friends of Viaduct Park, said "there is so much vacant land in the area, there’s plenty of room for development and the park."

She said her group supports the construction of new housing but feels part of the area’s renewal should be a park.

Chin said the controversy over the future of the viaduct boils down to "the basic needs of the community versus an amenity…. That’s the debate for me."

He also bristles at the notion of non-residents of Chinatown pushing projects that affect development in his neighborhood. Chinatown has for years withstood the municipal government directing development on Chinatown with its own development projects (such as the commuter rail tunnel that replaced the viaduct’s service, the Vine Street Expressway and the Pennsylvania Convention Center), he said.

But non-governmental influences are a new twist on an old story than Chin has a hard time accepting. "With all the things the [city] government [has done], we never thought other neighborhoods would tell Chinatown what its best interests are. I find that offensive."

A park atop the viaduct as it now exists, Chin added, would not be accessible from the ground, only from a few buildings that abut against it.

"I don’t think that’s family friendly."

The discussion over what to do with the viaduct has been conducted without considering the needs of the people of Chinatown, he added. "There’s a disconnect to the people of this community. That’s very bothersome to me."

He is also concerned about the very unsafe shadowy area beneath the viaduct. Development of the area, he added, would drive out the drug activity and prostitution that exists there now.

Chin said the financial deterrent to razing the entire viaduct would not apply to PCDC’s proposal. A 2004 study of the practicability of destroying the viaduct found that removing the entire structure, from Vine Street to Fairmount Avenue, would cost $35 million. But demolition of just the section PCDC recommends would cost only $9 million, he added.

With the city trying to find additional sources of revenue wherever it can, Chin said, one part of the solution is encouraging community growth.

"If the city is such dire straits for revenue, this is the way to do it…. If we develop homes, the government would benefit from real estate and wage taxes."

Chin said PCDC was started in 1966 (and incorporated in three years later) in response to the city’s plans to demolish houses in the neighborhood to make way for the SEPTA underground rail tunnel.

The trend of the loss of pieces of the neighborhood for development projects continued more recently with the construction of the Gallery at Market East, the Convention Center and the Greyhound bus terminal at 10th and Filbert Streets.

"The city took away a lot of houses and land," Chin said.

Toy, who is also the executive director of the Business Enterprise Center, said that although PCDC understands the need for developments, the CDC wishes planners would consider the needs of Chinatown when considering projects in their area.

"The neighborhood is tired of the government telling us what to do," Chin said.

Normally reserved Chinatown was given a boost by the youth movement in the 1960s, and that helped PCDC assert itself, according to Chin.

With the nationwide rise in youths themselves becoming more accepting of different ethnicities ands lifestyles and to push the country in the same direction, young people began to move into the neighborhood, the PCDC director said.

The ideals of the youth movement of that era also began to spread to the community, he continued.

"Chinatown got caught up in the civil rights movement." Contrary to older residents’ idea that you can’t fight city hall, he added, younger people thought you could and should do so.

"If that had never happened, we wouldn’t have the Chinatown we have today."

But life is not easy for much of the neighborhood, he said.

For instance, 38 percent of Chinatown families live at or below the poverty level, and versus a city-wide home ownership of 50 percent, in Chinatown the figure is 15 percent.

Chinatown today, said Chin, is not just a neighborhood, but the hub for the city’s Asian community.

He said that Chinatown’s strengths, even beyond its value as a cultural center for the city’s Asian community, lies in its diversity.

He pointed to the neighborhood’s generous mix of business and residential uses and the mixed income levels of its residents. "Other communities don’t know how to create the mixed-use [model]."

Toy said Chinatown is a good neighborhood for new Chinese immigrants since the language of their homeland is used freely and newcomers do not have to learn a foreign tongue.

"It’s an important place, and we have to grow it."