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demospectator · 2 years

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Scenes of Waverly Place: Then and Now

As the first quarter of the 21st century draws to a close, change is in the air for Waverly Place (天后廟街; canto: “Tin Hauh miu gaai”), one of San Francisco Chinatown’s iconic small streets.

In his book San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to its History & Architecture, historian Phil Choy wrote about the small street as follows:

“Waverly Place was originally known as Pike Street. Since the 1880s, local residents called it “Tien Hou Mew Guy” after the Tien Hou Temple located there. In the 1890s, the street was also home to the Kwan Kung Temple of the Ning Yung district association. On the opposite side of the street (22 Waverly) sat the Sing Wong Mew (Temple of the City God), while the Tung Wah Mew (Temple of the Fire God) was at 35 Waverly. . . .

“B 41. Chinese Josh-House, S.F., Cal., c. 1885. Photograph by I.W. Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). The adjacent buildings appear to be of wooden construction and far different than the temple’s neighboring structures on Waverly Place in the following decade.

“Westerners have often referred to Chinese temples as “Joss Houses” although the Chinese word for temple (in Cantonese) is actually Mew. The word joss is a corruption of the Portuguese word Dios for God, stemming from the time of Portugal’s colonization of Macau in 1557. ...

“The street was also known as “Ho Bu’un Guy” or “Fifteen Cent Street,” because of the barber shops providing tonsorial services for the price of fifteen cents.

The pulse of life on Waverly Place remained a popular subject for the photographers of the 19th century. I have written previously about the photographs of two of the principal and famous occupants of the street before and after the 1906 quake, namely, the Tin How Temple (to read more see here) and the Ning Yung district association’s headquarters (to read more see here).

“3546 The New Chinese Joss House, Waverly Place, San Francisco” c. 1887. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). The photograph supposedly taken in 1887 by I.W. Taber shows the new Ning Yung headquarters at 25-35 Waverly Place (the construction of which other sources report was completed in 1890). Seen at the top is the temple containing a shrine to Guan Di (關帝; canto: Guān daì implies deified status) or "Lord Guan" (關公; canto: Guān Gūng), while his Taoist title is "Holy Emperor Lord Guan" (關聖帝君; Guān Sing Daì Gūan).

Detail from the city of San Francisco’s “vice map” of July 1885 (from the Cooper Chow collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America).

In this article, we will view some of the other street photographs which researchers seldom examine in any detail.

A view north on Waverly Place along its eastern side and toward its T-intersection with Washington Street, c. 1880s. Photographer unknown. An approximate year for this rare photograph can be ascertained by a study of old San Francisco Chinatown’s pawnshops which occupied both sides of the 800-block of Washington Street during this era. In this photo, a sign possibly inscribed with the characters 寶興押 (canto: “Bow Hing aap”) appears on the second floor balcony of the building at the end of Waverly. According to the Langley directory for 1883, a “Bow Hing & Co. general merchandise” store operated at 820 Washington Street, which would be consistent with the signage and indicate an additional pawnshop business. The light façade of the Chinese Grand Theater at 814 Washington Street appears in the center background of the image.

“B2694 Chinatown, S.F. Cal. The Joss Temple” c. 1889. Photo by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). Some online sources date this photo as c. 1900, but the “Pacific Coast Scenery -- Alaska to Mexico Catalogue published by Taber in 1889 included this numbered “Boudoir” series image.

In this view of the Tin How temple at 33 Waverly Place taken from an elevated position on the south side of the street, several men can be seen hovering over a fortune teller’s divination table on the sidewalk in front of the temple. The large banner signage seen at the street level advertises the fortune-teller’s use of the 卦命 (canto: “gwah ming”) as his method of divination.

The temple of the Gee Tuck Tong (pinyin: ”Zhide tang;” 至德堂) can be seen at the right of the above photo at 35 Waverly Place. The Gee Tuck temple, dedicated to the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heavens, was reportedly founded during the mid-1880s.

Tien Hou Temple on Waverly Place, c. 1890 – Photo by Willard E. Worden In this view of the west side of Waverly Place looking north to Washington Street, the top floor of the Gee Tuck Society (至德堂; canto: Gee Duck Tong) at 35 Waverly Place can be seen at the right: this temple had supposedly operated since the mid-1880s. By the time Worden took this photo, the wooden buildings adjacent to the Tin How Temple (天后古廟; canto: “Tin Hauh gǔ miu”) , seen at the left of the frame, had been replaced with masonry structures.

The view north from Clay Street up Waverly Place to its intersection with Washington Street in the distance, c. 1898. Photograph by Edwin Stotler (from the Edwin J. Stotler Photograph Collection / Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives).

The view north from Clay Street up Waverly Place to its intersection with Washington Street in the distance, c. 1900. Photograph by Willard E. Worden. The sign for the Sze Yup Association can be seen above the balcony of the second floor of the 820 Clay Street building seen at left on the northwestern corner of the intersection with Clay Street.

The northeast corner of the intersection of Waverly Place & Clay Street, c.1900. Photograph by Willard E. Worden. The view north on Waverly Place, back from cobblestone-paved Clay Street. The Yoot Hong Low restaurant building at 810 Clay Street can be seen at right.

For a closer look at the eastern side of Waverly Place in old Chinatown, see my article about the series of photos taken by Oscar Maurer and D.H.Wulzen of the more northerly end of the street here.

A mother and two children at the northwest corner of Waverly Place and Clay Street in San Francisco Chinatown, c. 1900 (Courtesy of the National Archives; photo also in the collection of the California Historical Society). The signage of a basement eatery for workers,芳記 (canto: “Fong Gay”) appears at left.

Variously entitled “The Mountebank,” “The Peking Two Knife Man,” or “The Sword Dancer,” c. 1896-1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Library of Congress).

“Genthe used various titles for this portrait of Sung Chi Liang, well-known for his martial arts skills. Nicknamed Daniu [canto: “dai ngau” or 大牛] or “Big Ox,” referring to his great strength, he also sold an herbal medicinal rub after performing a martial arts routine in the street. This medicine tiedayanjiu [canto: “tit daa yeuk jau” or 铁打雁酒]), was commonly used to help heal bruises sustained in fights or falls. The scene is in front of 32, 34, and 36 Waverly place, on the east side of the street, between Clay and Washington streets. Next to the two onlookers on the right is a wooden stand which, with a wash basin, would advertise a Chinese barber shop open for business. The adjacent basement stairwell leads to an inexpensive Chinese restaurant specializing in morning zhou [canto: “juk” or粥] or rice porridge.”

From Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown -- Photographs by Arnold Genthe -- Selection and Text by John Kuo Wei Tchen.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the northern end’s east side of Waverly Place attracted less attention from Genthe and the photographers of the day. However, a closer study of the work of Oscar Maurer and D.H. Wulzen (as discussed here), allows researchers to place several of their photographs in the context of life and work on Waverly Place.

Untitled Chinatown street, c. 1898. (Photograph by Oscar Maurer (from the collection of the Oakland Museum of California, Museum Income Purchase Fund). Until now, no commentators were able to identify the location of this street scene on Waverly Place.

Fortunately for the researchers of old Chinatown, Maurer captured two crucial pieces of signage in his untitled 1898 photograph in the Oakland Museum which help in identifying the precise location in Chinatown of the buildings seen above. The first example can be seen in the vertical sign appearing at the left of the frame, containing the characters 致和堂參茸藥材 (lit.: “Gee Wo Ginseng Medicinal Herbs;” canto: “gee wo tong sum yung yeuk choy;” pinyin: “Zhì hé táng cān rōng yàocái”). The Horn Hong & co. Chinese business directory and lunar calendar for 1892 shows the Gee Wo Tong company located at 124 Waverly Place.

Detail from the Horn Hong & Co. Chinese directory for 1892 for the Gee Wong Tong company.

By the publication of the 1895 Langley directory the Gee Tau Hong & Co. and Gee Wo Tong & Co. shared the premises at 124 Waverly Place. The 1905 Sanborn map for this Chinatown street confirmed the presence of, and use of the property by, the Chinese herbalists. Having established the street on which the herbalists operated, the location of the basement eatery whose entrance signage can be seen in the center can be located with equal precision.

Moreover, by comparing Maurer’s photo with one by D.H. Wulzen of the same basement entrance, the full tradename of the eatery can be discerned as “Wah Ying Lung” 華英隆(canto: “wah ying loong”), a name which could also constitute literal shorthand for Chinese/English (or Chinese American). When viewed together, Mauer’s photo corroborates the partially-obscured address plate in the Wulzen photo as located at 120 Waverly Place.

Restaurant worker returning from a delivery to a basement eatery, c. 1900. Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). The last two digits of the address at 120 Waverly Place can be seen over the door to the basement entrance. The right portion of the sign advertises literally seasonal, i.e., 時款 (canto: “see foon”) food.

Having established the address of the Wah Ying basement eatery at 120 Waverly Place, the men seen in Maurer’s photo are standing on the landing of the stairs to 116 – 118 Waverly Place. Occupying a lot on the east side of the small street, and across from the Tin How temple and the headquarters and shrine of the Ning Yung district association, the building served as a boarding house. The 1905 Sanborn map confirmed its use as “lodgings.”

Detail showing Waverly Place in San Francisco Chinatown from the 1905 Sanborn Insurance Map (Vol. 1, Page 39-40) of San Francisco, prepared by the Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Limited, of New York.

A detail from “Waverly Place - April 9, 1900” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). This close-up looks north on Waverly Place from the intersection with Clay Street. Magnification of the center portion of the image shows the building elevation, the partial signage for the basement entrance to the Wah Ying eatery, and the stairs on which the trio of Chinese men stood for Oscar Maurer’s photo in 1898.

“The First Born” Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Library of Congress) The above photo was taken on the east side of Waverly Place with the Tin How Temple in the background. According to historian Jack Tchen, “[h]eaddresses were often red with pearls or jewels and a red fluffy pompom on top. Sometimes bells were attached so that when the child moved they would make a noise. Silk tassels often hung down on both sides. The difference between the headgear of boys and girls was that girls’ headdresses came down and covered their ears, whereas boys’ did not. Girls’ holiday clothing generally had embroidered edges absent from comparable clothing for boys.”

Whether by design or negligence, the street signage for Waverly Place only bears its Chinese name, 天后廟街 (canto: “Tin Hauh miu gaai”) on the standard located at the north end of the small street in 2022. Nevertheless, the name remains a tribute to a 170 year-old tradition of veneration of a Chinese pioneer deity. Photograph by Doug Chan.

Today, Waverly Place retains its legacy as a distinct, Chinese American street.

Waverly Place, October 9, 2021. Photograph by Doug Chan

“On Waverly Place,” wrote historian Phil Choy, “ there is a unique concentration of buildings that represent the different types of traditional Chinese organizations. Architecturally the contiguous line of buildings combining classical motifs with Chinese elements and color created a Chinese streetscape neither East nor West bur rather indigenously Sen Francisco.”

“A Bit of Old China, San Francisco, 1905.” Oil painting by Edwin Deakin (from the collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco).

[updated 2022-12-2]

#Waverly Place #San Francisco Chinatown #Tin How Temple #Ning Yung Association #Gee Tuck Tong #Phil Choy #Arnold Genthe #Willard Worden #I.W. Taber #Oscar Maurer #D.H. Wulzen #Wah Ying basement restaurant

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demospectator · 2 years

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“Chinatown, San Francisco California, 1895.” Photograph by Wilhelm Hester (from the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections). This photo shows a view north up Washington Place, a.k.a. Washington Alley (“Fish Alley” to English speakers) or “Tuck Wo Gaai” (德和街) to old Chinatown’s residents.

Washington Place: Chinatown’s “Fish Alley” 德和街

The street on which one of my grandmothers was born in 1898 had already begun to acquire a rich photographic legacy as an iconic alleyway whose south-north axis connected Washington to Jackson Streets in San Francisco’s old Chinatown. Prior to the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the city had designated the short street as “Washington Place.”

The photographers of old Chinatown often called the street (which would later be re-named Wentworth Place after the quake), as Washington Alley and “Fish Alley.” Chinatown residents referred to the alleyway as “Tuck Wo Gaai” (德和街; lit.: “Virtuous Harmony St.; canto: “Duck Wo gaai”), the name of a well-known business which was located at least as early as 1875 on the southwest corner of the “T” intersection of Washington Place with Jackson Street.

Fish Alley must be considered one of old Chinatown’s most famous streets, the images of which were captured by various photographers and artists during the 19th century. While far from complete, this article attempts to identify the businesses at each identifiable address from photos that are available online. The businesses operating on Washington Place during the latter decades of the 19th century established the small street as one of the iconic alleyways of the pre-1906 community. The photos are grouped roughly in the order they would have appeared to a pedestrian walking north on Fish Alley from Washington to Jackson streets.

“In the Heart of Chinatown, San Francisco, California” c. 1892. Photographer unknown, stereograph published by J.F. Jarvis (from the Robert N. Dennis collection, New York Public Library).

“In the Heart of Chinatown, San Francisco, U.S.A.” c. 1892. This enlarged photo from the original stereograph looks north up Washington Place or Alley, a.k.a. “Fish Alley,” from Washington to Jackson Street.

At least one motion picture of life on the street has survived to this day, a “Mutoscope” from April 1903. (See, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53DTuc6-1hI&ab_channel=LibraryofCongress)

A portion of the hand-drawn map by immigration officer John Lynch from 1894. Washington Street at the southern end of Washington Place appears at the top of the image.

The attempts by local historians to identify various places on Fish Alley has also been helped by the preservation of a hand-drawn immigration officer map from 1894 (the “1894 Map”), as well as numerous business directories showing the names and addresses of the businesses operating on this street prior to the destruction of the neighborhood in 1906.

“Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal.” C. 1890. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). This photo was taken from Washington Street looking north up Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley) toward Jackson Street.

“Street in Chinese Quarter – San Francisco” c. 1870s. Photograph possibly taken by the studio of Thomas Houseworth & Co. Image courtesy of Wolfgang Sell of the National Stereoscopic Association. This stereocard shows Emperor Norton (at right) on Chinatown’s “Fish Alley” a.k.a. Washington Place (looking north toward Jackson Street).

By the 1870’s, Fish Alley or Washington Place had already acquired its status as a destination to view in old Chinatown. No less than a local celebrity such as Emperor Norton would pose for a photo on an ever-busy fish and poultry venue.

Untitled photo of Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley), no date. Photo produced by the studio of Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the California Historical Society). The Tuck Hing meat market appears at the left on the northwest corner of the T-intersection of Fish Alley and Washington Street. The identity of the photographer holding his camera and tripod at the left-center of the image is unknown.

“B 2689 Provision Market in Alley in Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1891. Photograph probably by Carleton Watkins but printed as a [I.W.] Taber Photo (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). This photo shows a view north up Washington Place (a.k.a. Washington Alley or “Fish Alley” to English speakers) or “Tuck Wo Gaai” (德和街) taken sometime between 1880-1891. In a travel book in which the photo “The Provision Market [etc.]” appeared, the writer observed that the market “supplies a better class of food to customers than the markets in China itself. In China the shops sell, rats, mice, dogs, cats and snails; poultry is sold by the piece – so much for a leg, so much for a wing. In San Francisco food is more easily obtainable and money is not so scarce, so that the Chinaman lives better than in his own country… .”

“Chinatown at Night” published by Britton & Rey (from the collection of Wong Yuen-Ming). The postcard image was derived from the Taber Photo “B 2689 Provision Market in Alley in Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1891.

The above photo and derivative postcard in this series was sold by Isaiah West Taber under the title “Provisions Market in Alley in Chinatown, San Francisco,” but the image was probably captured by Carleton Watkins and acquired by Taber in the aftermath of Watkins’ bankruptcy. The identity of the store shown at the left in the photo is well-known as the Tuck Hing meat market. The market appeared frequently in Chinatown directories from that era and the living memories of Chinatown’s oldest residents.

Listing for the Tuck Hing meat market at 746 Washington St. from the Horn Hong & Co. Chinatown Business Directory and lunar Calendar for 1892.

According to the directories and 1894 Map, the corner market was operated under the name “Tuck Hing Butchers” in a brick building at 746 Washington Street and its alley address at no. 2 Washington Place (in the Langley directory of 1895). The Tuck Hing meat market operated for about a century from 1888 to 1988 at the same northwest corner of the intersection of Washington Street with Washington Place (later named Wentworth).

Across the street from Tuck Hing, on the northeast corner of the intersection of Washington Place and Washington Street, a visitor to Fish Alley around the turn of the century would see another corner store, the Sun Lun Sang Co. at 1 Washington Place.

Fish Alley, no date. Photograph by Turrill & Miller from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). The Sung Lun (or Lung) Sang, a.k.a. Sun Lung Sing (新聯生; canto: “Sun Luen Saang”) general merchandise store appears at right.

Listing for the Sun Lung Sang market at no. 1 Washington St. from the Horn Hong & Co. Chinatown Business Directory and Lunar Calendar for 1892.

“One Washington Place,” c. 1892-1896. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). The store signage for Sun Lun Sang company (新聯生; canto: “sun luen saang”) appears along the left of the frame. The trees of Portsmouth Square and the tower portion of the Hall of Justice are visible through the open, south-facing window along Washington Street frontage.

Historian Jack Tchen identified the store at the northeast corner of Fish Alley and Washington Street as the Sun Lun Sang Co. (新聯生; canto: “Sun Luen Saang” ) “Caged chickens are clearly visible on the right,” Tchen writes. “The photograph was probably taken during New Year’s, because the children are dressed in fancy clothing. The simply dressed woman looking on is probably a house servant to a wealthy merchant family.”

“One Washington Place” c. 1897. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). “In this view, taken sometime after 1897,” Jack Tchen writes, “the store sign reads ‘Yow Sing & Co., No. 2.’The man in the basement stairwell is holding a Chinese scale (cheng). The wooden panels on the left are used to board up the storefront after business hours.”

“Chinatown – fish market, circa 1900.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). A fishmonger talks to a young shopper while cleaning a fish at his sidewalk cutting board probably at no. 5 or 6/12 Washington Place, a.k.a. Fish Alley.

“Fish Market, two men,” c. 1900. Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). The same fishmonger talks to a male shopper in front of the store at 5 Washington Place. The window of the barbershop has been scratched out at the right of the frame.

D.H. Wulzen’s photos of a fish store serving a child customer and a lone man fortunately captured a faint images of its business signage, i.e., 昌聚魚鋪 = (lit. “Prosperous Gathering”; canto: “Cheung Jeuih yu poh”; pinyin: “Chāng jù yú pù”). The small store had apparently established itself after the preparation of the 1894 immigration map and by the turn of the century, its address at no. 5 or 6-1/2 Washington Place can be determined by its neighbor, whose business name on its window can be read as 同德 (canto: “Tuhng Duck”), a barbershop located at no. 3 Washington Place.

Listing for the “Tong Tuck” barbershop at 3 Washington Place from the Horn Hong & Co. Chinatown Business Directory and lunar Calendar for 1892.

Several photos of Arnold Genthe provide the basis for a reasonable guess about the Chung Hing & Co. poultry store’s probable occupancy of the space at no. 4 Washington Place.

“Fish Alley, Chinatown, San Francisco” a.k.a. “Booth, Fish Alley, Chinatown, San Francisco” undated [c. 1895- 1905]. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). “Freshly killed chickens are hanging from the rack,” writes historian Jack Tchen, “with wooden chicken crates visible in the background. Fish as redisplayed on the table to the right. An American-made scale is hanging in the upper left-hand corner of the photograph.”

In addition to his Fish Alley photo which appeared in two editions of his photos of old Chinatown, Arnold Genthe took at least two other wider-angle images of the Chung Hing & Co. store.

“Two women and a child walking down a sidewalk between crates, Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1896- 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division).

This clumsily-named photo of a man and probably two daughters walking past a poultry store appears to be the same shop depicted in Genthe’s “Fish Alley” photo, at no. 4 Washington Place. Although two large lanterns adorn the entryway, the work table (at left), the scale and the basket of eggs suspended to the left of its entrance are identical.

“Vendors and a horse and cart on a street, Chinatown, San Francisco,” c. 1896- 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). This photo represents the third image captured by Genthe of the poultry store probably located at no. 4 Washington Place, a.k.a. Fish Alley. The presence of the pair of lanterns over the entryway to the store indicates that it was taken closer in time to the preceding photo of a man and his daughters walking past this store.

Genthe’s photos from across the alleyway affords a better view of the building elevations. The “Vendors” photo probably depicts the west side of Washington Place or Alley on which the poultry stores operated. From left to right, one sees the Fish Alley store occupying the larger opening of a brick building, followed by a narrower entry opening, presumably leading to a stairway to the upper floors. The horse cart is parked in front of a wooden structure which abuts a two-story brick building with a light façade which, in turn, is adjacent another brick building. This combination of buildings, i.e., “brick-wood-brick-brick” more closely fits the line of structures starting at no. 4 Washington Place and proceeding sequentially as noted on the 1894 Map sketched by immigration officer John Lynch (the “1894 Map”).

“Fish Market, Two Men,” circa 1901. Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). Wulzen’s photo depicts the same poultry store seen in Genthe’s “Fish Alley” and related photos. The store’s poultry cages against the left wall of the interior are more visible in the background. The stairway to the upper floors appears more clearly in the center, and the Wulzen photo confirms the wooden construction of the adjacent building at right.

Fortunately, Dietrich H. Wulzen, Jr., shared with his photographic peers a fascination with the businesses which operated on old Chinatown’s Fish Alley. Viewing both images of the same store by Genthe and Wulzen allows the viewer to understand better the context of the built environment of Fish Alley and, in particular, the location of the poultry store at no. 4 Washington Place.

“Clerk at poultry market, chicken hanging,” circa 1901. Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). Wulzen took another photo of the Chung Hing & Co. poultry store at 4 Washington Place from a different angle and into its interior. The “clerk” seen dressing a bird appears to be the same man seen in the background of the previous photo in this series.

In his book Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco, art historian Anthony W. Lee wrote about Wulzen and “Fish Market, Two Men” as follows:

“[Wulzen] was especially attentive to Genthe’s pictures of these spaces in the quarter more frequented by the working class. Of his fifty-five plates, more than forty were shot in the alleys, including Fish Market, Two Men … photographed on Washington Place. It closely resembles Genthe’s picture of the same subject …, differing primarily in the angle of approach and the wares (fish, not poultry) that the vendor has displayed. Wulzen even carefully registers the sloping table and the slight angles of the two washbasins beneath it, just as Genthe had done.”

Unlike the case of several of his prominent contemporaries, Wulzen’s glass plate negatives escaped the destruction caused by the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, and his son Frank donated the negatives to the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) on the 90th anniversary of the disaster. The SFPL added Wulzen’s Chinatown scenes to its online offerings in 2016. Born in 1862, Wulzen became a pharmacist in 1889, studying at the Affiliated Colleges on Parnassus Heights. In the 1890s, according to the SFPL, he became interested in photography and added a Kodak Agency to his drug store. Wulzen joined the California Camera Club and became known for a photographic style which was “straightforward and realistic, unlike the dominant ‘artist’ photography of the club.”

“Chinese Fish Peddler, San Francisco Chinatown” c. 1900. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Monterey County Historical Society). This hitherto unidentified photo also appears to be the same shop at no. 4 Washington Place which had attracted the interests of photographers Genthe and Wulzen.

The 1894 Map identifies the shop at no. 4 Washington Place as the “Chung King poultry & fish” store, but the business listings of the day, such as the Horn Hom & Co. directory of 1892 lists the name as “Chung Hing” (祥興; canto: “Cheung Hing”), and the 1895 Langley directory denotes the name as “Chong Hing & Co., 4 Washington Alley.”

“The Fish Market” undated [c. 1895- 1905]. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). A print of this photo is also known by the title “Fish Market Scales” (without attribution to Genthe) in the collection of the California Historical Society. Based on the small sign appearing above the doorway on the right of the image, historian Jack Tchen identified the location of this scene as the Chong Tsui store (昌咀; lit. Prosperous Assemblage”; canto: “Cheung Jeuih”) at 5-½ Washington Place.

Examination of images by other photographers and the Horn Hom Co. business directory of 1892 indicate that Jack Tchen misidentified the store in his book about Arnold Genthe’s photographs. The Chinese signage over the main storefront entrance of the store shown in Genthe’s photo reads from right to left as 廣興 or Quong Hing (canto: “Gwong Hing”). The Quong Hing store was located at 7 Washington Place.

Listing for the “Qung Hing” meat market at 7 Washington Place from the Horn Hong & Co. Chinatown Business Directory and lunar Calendar for 1892.

Untitled photo of the Quong Hing store located at 7 Washington Place, c. 1892. Photographer unknown (from a private collector item on eBay). The sign for the store appears more clearly in the upper-right corner of this photo than as shown in the Arnold Genthe photo of the same store.

“Chinatown market, San Francisco California, 1895.” Photograph by Wilhelm Hester (from the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections). The sign appearing in the left of the frame reads 恆昌棧 (canto: “Hun Cheung Jan”; lit. “Lasting Prosperity store”), which occupied the space at no. 7 Washington Place or Alley.

To some readers, the Chinese character “棧” could also be interpreted to be an “inn” or a boarding house. However, the Langley directories of 1894 and 1895 (the same year during which Wilhelm Hester took his photograph of a group of men gathered outside this storefront), lists a fish purveyor, “Hung Chong John, 7 Washington Alley.”

Hester is perhaps best known for his documenting the maritime activities of the Puget Sound Region and his time spent in Alaska during the gold rush of 1898. According to the University of Washington archivists, the bulk of his photos of the early history of ships and shipping in Washington State were taken between 1893 and 1906. Born in Germany in 1872, Hester moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1893. He established successful photo studios in Seattle and Tacoma, principally taking and selling photographs of maritime subjects, as ships from around the world and their crews docked at various Puget Sound ports.

The listing for the Hung Chong John store in the Langley directory of 1895

It appears that the Hung Chong John business shared the same address as the Quong Hing store. The address-sharing was not uncommon for this building. At least as early as 1885 (when the city prepared its “official map” of Chinatown), the building at no. 7 Washington Place was subdivided by three businesses all with the same address.

Detail showing the subdivision of the building at no. 7 Washington Place in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors official map of Chinatown, July 1885 (from the Cooper Chow collection at the Chinese Historical Society of America).

Untitled photo of the west side of Washington Place (a.k.a. “Fish Alley), probably in the morning. Photographer unknown. The wooden structure at left probably served as the shop spaces for the Kim Kee and Man Hop stores occupying the addresses at no. 6 - 8 Washington Place.

Unfortunately, the Langley directory of 1893 omits a separate Chinese directory and appears to have excluded Chinese businesses from its general listings. Based on its omission from the Horn Hong & Co. directory/calendar of 1892, the Hung Chong John store’s 1894 listing validates the year of 1895 during which Wilhelm Hester reportedly took his set of photos of Chinatown’s Fish Alley along Washington Place.

“Chinatown – fish market, c. 1900.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). D.H. Wulzen’s no-nonsense approach produced vivid images of one store in particular, the Hop Chong Jan company, located at 12 Washington Place.

D.H. Wulzen took at least three versions of his “Fish Market” photo (one of which is reversed on the SF Public Library website). The business sign on the middle column of the storefront reads as follows: 合昌棧 (canto: “Hop Cheung Jaanh”; pinyin: “Hé chāng zhàn”). According to the 1894 Map, a business named “Hop Chong Jan & Co.” was located on the east side of the street at no. 12 Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley).

Detail from 1894 map of Washington Place or Alley by immigration officer John Lynch (from the collection of the National Archives).

Listing for the Hop Chong Jan market at 12 Washington Place from the Horn Hong & Co. Chinatown Business Directory and Lunar Calendar for 1892.

“Chinatown – fish market, c. 1900. Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). The business sign on the middle column of the storefront in this image is more faint, but the Chinese characters of 合昌棧 (canto: “Hop Cheung jaanh”; pinyin: “Hé chāng zhàn”) can be discerned.

The Hop Chong Jan company store also inspired other camerapersons to photograph its daily operations. The upper level of the building in which the Hop Chong Jan company at no. 12 Washington Place featured a wrought-iron balcony. The balcony grillwork enhanced interest in this building, as it figured prominently in other photographs and postcards from that era.

“Fish Alley, Chinatown” c. 1900. Photographer and postcard artist unknown, published by Edward H. Mitchell of San Francisco). Although unidentified, the postcard depicts the Hop Chong Jan company at no. 12 Washington Place. The details seen in the card are extraordinary, as they include sidewalk items seen in the photographs of the same building by D.H. Wulzen.

Untitled, San Francisco Chinatown, c. 1900. The sign on the column of the storefront 合昌棧 (canto: “Hop Cheung jaanh”; pinyin: “Hé Chāng zhàn”) can be seen in the center for the Hop Chong Jan fish market at no. 12 Washington Place.

“Chinatown market, San Francisco California, 1895.” Photograph by Wilhelm Hester (from the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections). In this view of two men in front of the store at no. 12 Washington Place, looking toward the southeast from the middle of the alleyway, the sign on the column (in the right half of the frame) faintly reads 合昌棧 (canto: “Hop Cheung jaanh”; pinyin: “Hé Chāng zhàn”) for the Hop Chong Jan fish market.

“Chinatown market, San Francisco California, 1895.” Photograph by Wilhelm Hester (from the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections). In this closer view of two Chinese and one white man in front of the store at no. 12 Washington Place, looking toward the southeast from the middle of the alleyway, the store’s sign cannot be seen. The presence of two lanterns from under the balcony’s overhang indicates that this photo was taken of the Hop Chong Jan (合昌棧; canto: “Hop Cheung jaanh”; pinyin: “Hé chāng zhàn”) market at a different time. Certain details such as the window at left, the hanging scale, and the display shelves are identical to Hester’s other photos of the store.

“Chinatown, San Francisco California,” c. 1895. Photograph by Wilhelm Hester (from the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections). In this street scene showing two Chinese American men and a child in front of a market, the view is of no. 12 Washington Place, looking south down the east side of the alleyway toward Washington Street. Certain details such as the window at left, the hanging scale, and the display shelves are identical to Hester’s other photos of the Hop Chong Jan 合昌棧 (canto: “Hop Cheung jaanh”; pinyin: “Hé Chāng zhàn”) market.

Untitled photo of Washington Place, a.k.a. Fish Alley, in pre-1906 Chinatown. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). The photo shows almost the full elevation of the building at no. 12 Washington Place on the east side of the short street, looking north toward Jackson Street. To the right of the store frontage, a door and an interior stairway appears in virtually all images of the building at no. 12 Washington Place. The stairs presumably lead to the upper floors of the building. My grandmother, Lillian Hee, was born in one of upper apartments above this store on October 31,1898.

“Chinatown – fish market on Dupont Street, circa 1900.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library).

Wulzen’s photo of a fish market fortunately included the signage for “Hop Sing – clams” in the left of the frame. The San Francisco Public Library’s information that this market was located on Dupont Street is probably erroneous for at least several reasons. The 1894 Map by immigration officer John Lynch placed a “Hop Sing fish" company as located at No. 13 Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley), on the west side of the street. Lynch also included a notation that the building was of “wood” construction, and Wulzen’s photo supports that conclusion. Moreover, the low-rise aspect of the building in the photo appears inconsistent with the higher elevation structures on Dupont Street in Chinatown. The Langley business directory of 1895 tends to support Lynch’s finding, although it lists a “Y Sing & Co.” at 13 Washington Alley, which might have been a typographical error.

“Chinatown – fish market, circa 1900.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). For this close-up shot of the same Hop Sing market (no. 13 Washington Place), the San Francisco Public Library has produced no evidence backing its claim of a Dupont St. location.

“Fish Market, One man sitting, "HOP SING CLAMS" sign,” circa 1900.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). This third shot of the Hop Sing market (at 13 Washington Place shows its operator during a lull in customers. The San Francisco Public Library also incorrectly identifies the location of the market on Dupont Street.

“Chinatown – fish market, circa 1900.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). Fortunately, the photograph shows a portion of the business sign above the man holding a scale and which was largely obscured by the store’s awning. According to the 1894 map and the Horn Hong & Co. directory of 1892, the Quong Shing (廣城; canto: “Gwang Sing”) store was located at no. 15 Washington Place. The 1894 map described the “Quong Shing & Co.” as a small general merchandise store.

“Fish Market, a woman watches a man weigh fish,” c. 1900. Photograph by D. H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). From a slightly different angle as the preceding photo, Wulzen took a second shot of the Quong Shing (廣城; canto: “Gwang Sing”) store was located at no. 15 Washington Place.

“Fishmonger.” Photographer unknown from the collection of the California Historical Society). The proprietor of a fish store provides an unusual smile in this photo taken on old Chinatown’s Fish Alley. The only clue to the store’s location are provided by the business signage in the upper center of the image and above a handwritten number “22” on the inside left wall of the shop entrance: a fanciful Chinese name 老倌祥城魚棧客 (lit.: “Old Shepherd Felicitous City Fish Store”; canto: “Low gwun cheung sing yu jahn haak”; pinyin: Lǎo guān xiáng chéng yú zhàn kè).

The store at no. 22 Washington Place was located almost in the middle of the block on the eastern side of the street. Unfortunately, only the prior occupant of the storefront space was not noted on the 1894 Map, and the name of a predecessor business (“Tong Yuen Hing”) appears in the Horn Hong & Co. directory of 1892 at the address.

The middle portion of the hand-drawn map of Washington Place or Alley by immigration officer John Lynch from 1894. The southerly end of the alleyway appears at the top of the image.

The last third of the hand-drawn map of Washington Place or Alley by immigration officer John Lynch from 1894. The northerly end of the alleyway at Jackson Street appears toward the bottom of the sketch.

A portion of “No. 145. Chinese Restaurant, San Francisco. Cal.” c. 1875. Stereograph by J.J. Reilly (from the collection of the Oakland Museum of California). The barely discernible Chinese characters on the glass lanterns of the second floor balcony further attest to the restaurant’s name as 聚英楼 or, Cantonese pronunciation, “Jeuih Ying Lauh”). The Bishop directory of 1875 confirms that the English rendering of the restaurant’s name was “Choy Yan Low,” and its address listing read as follows: “restaurant SE cor [sic] Washington alley and Jackson.”

According to the maps of that era, the southeast corner of the intersection corresponded to the address of 633 Jackson Street. As indicated by the 1894 Map, gambling establishments dominated the northern end and eastside of Washington Place (as the pattern that appeared in the “vice map” prepared by the city in July 1885). Not surprising, three men can be seen standing on the eastside sidewalk of Washington Place (at right); they are positioned near the entrances to the gambling parlors.

Detail of the north end of Washington Place from the July 1885 “vice map” of prepared by San Francisco.

Untitled photo of the northern end of Washington Place, a.k.a. Fish Alley or Tuck Wo gaai, looking south from Jackson toward Washington Street, c. 1890s. Photographer unknown. The Tuck Wo (德和) market for which the short street of Washington Place was named by the Chinese, occupied the southwest corner of the intersection partially seen in the foreground and to the right of the frame (at 635 Jackson Street). The entrances to gambling parlors were located along the east side of the alleyway at the northern end of Fish Alley and across from the alleyway frontage of the Tuck Wo market.

“The Butcher, Chinatown, San Francisco” undated [c. 1895- 1905]. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). Genthe mistakenly titled this photo, as the man working over the table is fileting fish from his storefront on Washington Place, a.k.a. Fish Alley.

“Fish Alley, Chinatown. San Francisco, California” c. 1905. Postcard probably based on a photograph by Charles Weidner. The view appears to look north on Washington Place, a.k.a. Fish Alley, in old Chinatown.

The status of Washington Place as “Fish Alley” as a fish and poultry destination appeared to have endured until the earthquake and fire of 1906. The small street suffered the same fate of obliteration as every other street in old Chinatown. As Will Irwin wrote about this lost street of old Chinatown (while offering nothing substantial about the Chinese themselves): “Where is Fish Alley, that horror to the nose, that perfume to the eye?”

“Fish Alley, Chinatown” c. 1898. Drawing by A.M. Robertson (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). In this artist’s rendering the markets on Washington Place of old Chinatown, the building at no. 12 is seen in the center, the birthplace of my grandmother in the same year this drawing was published.

In Chinatown today, the sign for the old alleyway still bears the old Chinese street name from the pioneer era.

The street sign for Wentworth Place on the northwest corner of its intersection with Washington Street, June 22, 2022. Photo by Doug Chan. The sign still bears the Chinese name for the small street,德和街(canto: “duck who gaai”), the name of an old Chinatown business which occupied the southwest corner of the “T” intersection of Wentworth Place and Jackson Street from at least 1875 to 1906.

Wentworth Place, May 14, 2021. Photograph by Doug Chan. The city renamed Washington Place, a.k.a. Washington Alley or “Fish Alley,” to Wentworth Place after Chinatown was rebuilt in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Since at least 1875, Chinatown’s residents have called this small street connecting Washington to Jackson streets as “Tuck Wo Gaai” (德和街).

Recollections of the now-legendary Fish Alley of old Chinatown have faded from living memory. Many, if not most, Chinatown residents are unaware of the street name’s origin.

Former Supervisor, Board of Education commissioner, and attorney Bill Maher on Wentworth Place between the rainstorms contemplates the small street of my grandmother's birth in 1898 as a third-generation Californian, Jan. 4, 2023. Photograph by Doug Chan. Once known as Washington Place and “Fish Alley” to English speakers, the street sign still bears the old Chinese urban pioneer name of “Tuck Wo St.” (德和街; canto: "Duck Wo gaai") for today's residents of San Francisco Chinatown.

The vitality of the small street, however, not only lives on with the stories and the old images of its past, but Wentworth Place also serves as the home of the “Lion’s Den Bar and Lounge.” As the first genuine nightclub to open in almost a half-century in Chinatown, its establishment might one day be regarded as one of the events which sparked an economic revival in the neighborhood.

Fish Alley: it’s where we began; it’s where we’ll begin again.

[updated 2023-1-6]

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demospectator · 2 years

Photo

“Dupont & Clay Sts. San Francisco, Cal” c. 1900. Postcard probably published by Britton & Rey, San Francisco (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-Ming).

The Painted Balconies of Yoot Hong Low on Clay Street

The photographers of old San Francisco Chinatown displayed a fascination with the north side of Clay Street between Dupont Street and Waverly Place. Unfortunately, the black and white photos of the late 19th and early 20th centuries impart little about the true appearance of what photographer Arnold Genthe would call a “street of painted balconies.” The artwork found on the tourist postcards at the turn of the century conveys some sense of the building façade that regaled visitors to this particular block of Chinatown before the disaster of 1906.

“Dupont Street, Principal Thoroughfare of Chinatown, S.F.” Postcard (466), dated May 17, 1904, published by Britton & Rey, San Francisco (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-Ming). The photographic record for this colorful building at 810 Clay Street shows clearly that the postcard’s caption misidentified the street. Other variants of the card corrected the postcard’s caption in subsequent or other printings. The handwriting on the card from 1904 by the original purchaser and sender of the card informs the recipient: “This is where we had Chinese tea yesterday.” Moreover, the small pennant, hanging from the left corner of the second floor (or first story) balcony -- more visible in photographs from this era -- confirms the presence of a tea house (茶居; canto: “cha geuih”).

The building at 810 Clay Street in Chinatown, San Francisco, c. 1890. The photograph has been attributed to I.W. Taber (from the Cooper Chow collection at the Chinese Historical Society of America). This photo shows the presence of an engraver's business name on the storefront window that would help date the photo to the late 1880′s or earlier. This photograph is frequently identified as a “joss house.” However, the presence of a restaurant on the upper floor is already evident during this period. The vertical signage appearing along the length of the left store window advertises 包辦酒席占点心餅食俱全 (canto: “bau bun jau jik jeem dim sum behng sihk geuih chuen”) or 包辦酒席 = arranged banquets; 點心餅食 = dim sum bakery; or 俱全 everything or complete.

Prior to 1900, the striking décor of the building at 810 Clay Street had already attracted the attention of photographers who often mistook its only use to be a joss house or temple. The identification as a joss house might have been correct for the pre-culinary uses of the structure or as an ancillary use. Moreover, researchers of the temples of pre-1906 Chinatown have speculated that an unknown temple operated somewhere in the 800-block of Clay Street at the approximate location as noted as location #17 on the 1885 map at this website: https://peterromaskiewicz.com/2020/06/02/map-of-temples-in-san-franciscos-chinatown-1850s-1906/

“Clay St. bet. Dupont & Stockton Sts. 1885.” Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). Assuming that the year indicated on the border of the photo is correct (the Bancroft Library’s title contains a discrepancy, i.e., a 1895 date), this would have been the same 800-block of Clay Street between Dupont and Waverly Place as viewed by the special committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors published its public health map of Chinatown in July 1885.

Detail of the 800-block of Clay Street between Waverly Place and Dupont Street from the July 1885 map published by a special committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (from the Cooper Chow collection at the Chinese Historical Society of America).

Prior to 1900, the Chinese restaurant located at 810 Clay St. was probably the Quen Fong Low restaurant which had been operating even before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ special committee published its Chinatown map of July 1885. The documentary record indicates that a restaurant had operated in the building at 810 Clay Street well before 1885. The Wells Fargo Chinese business directory of 1882 shows a “Quen Fong Low, Restaurant” operating at 810 Clay Street (as does the Langley directory of the same year (but listed as “Qun Fong Low”).

The listing for “Quen Fong Law, Restaurant” from the “Wells Fargo Directory of Chinese Business Houses” 1882. Courtesy of the Wells Fargo Bank History Room. The Chinese portion of the listing reads: 羣芳楼茶居酒宴企利街 810号 (canto: “Quen Fong lauh cha geui jau yeen kay lay gaai no. 810“), or “Quen Fong tea house and banquet 810 Clay St.”

“Oriental Building” c. 1890-1891. Stereograph by Charles R. Savage (from the Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University, L. Tom Perry Special Collections). Although the street number of “810” can be seen clearly in the right storefront window, this stereograph and its cropped version of the photo has reposed for decades in the BYU archive without any sufficient identification of the building. The Chinese signage also indicates the location of a restaurant, i.e., 包辦滿漢葷素戲筵酒席 (canto: “bau bun wun hon fun so hay yeen jau jik”; pinyin: “Bāobàn mǎn hàn hūn sù xì yán jiǔxí”) or “banquet arrangements for Manchu and Chinese meat and vegetarian food.”

Several newspaper articles during the period from 1884 to 1895 mention restaurant operations at 810 Clay Street and imply that another eating establishment shared the premises with the Quen Fong Low restaurant. The Daily Alta California on November 21, 1884, reported as follows:

“The Chinese are not to be outdone by their American admirers in the matter of restaurants, as the new Chinese restaurant of San Fong Low, at 810 Clay street, is receiving such gorgeous decoration that it is said that when it is completed and the house is furnished the total expense will approach $20,000.”

The quoted value of the decorative improvements to the restaurant would cost approximately $584,981.44 in today’s dollars. Thus, it was hardly surprising to read a year and a half later that disputes about the furnishings and furniture of the restaurants spawned litigation. The Daily Alta California reported on March 20, 1886, reported the following item about a property repossession gone awry:

“Suit for recovery of property and costs, or damages in default thereof, has been begun through his attorney, David McClure, by Chin Ah Tim against Peter Hopkins. The property, valued at 20,000, is the contents of a large Chinese restaurant at No. 810 Clay street, which defendant, it is alleged, unlawfully attached or took into his possession. If a return of the property is made, the plaintiff will be satisfied with $3,000 damages and costs, the former being by way of recompense for the loss of business sustained since the 4th.”

“Chinese Store San Francisco” c. 1890-1891. Cropped photograph by Charles R. Savage (from the Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University, L. Tom Perry Special Collections). An important clue appears above the street number 810 which can be seen in the right display window, i.e., the name of the business of “Q_?_n Fong.” The contemporary business directories list a restaurant under the name of Quen Fong Low or Qun Fong Low during the approximate period during which the photo was taken. The lanterns, window enframements, and other decorative additions to the upper balcony comprise a striking appearance and represent perhaps the highpoint of the building facade’s adornments. The lanterns themselves provide an additional clue about the name of the restaurant; the lower character appears to be 芳, i.e., one of the characters in the Quen Fong restaurant name (羣芳楼; canto: “Quen Fong lauh”).

“S.F. Chinatown 1894. C-14” (Photographer unknown from the Martin Behrman collection and the San Francisco Public Library Historical Photograph Collection. The California Historical Society attributes the photo to I.W. Taber.) Two men walking in opposite directions pass each other on Clay above Dupont Street and in front of the building at 810 Clay, c. 1894. A variant of the large vertical sign that would denote the presence of a restaurant for decades is partially obscured, as it reads包辦酒席点… (canto: “bau bun jau jik dim …”) or “arranged banquets and dim [sum] ….” Unlike later photos, the lanterns in front do not bear the name of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant. However, the Chinese character for Yoot Hong Low, i.e., 悅香樓, appear on a wooden sign above the more visible white vertical sign. Ascribing to the photo the year 1894 appears to conflict with newspaper reports and the absence of any directory listing for the year.

By the mid-1890’s, the ownership or operation of the restaurant at 810 Clay Street appeared to have changed. In the circa 1894 photo in the San Francisco Public Library collection (seen above), the lanterns have been changed at the ground floor level, and the Quen Fong Low name is nowhere evident. Assuming that the year written on the 1894 photo from the Martin Behrman collection is correct, the Yoot Hong Low restaurant had established itself in 810 Clay St. as early as 1894. However, the name appears nowhere in the 1894 and 1895 Langley directories for Chinatown. Moreover, the names of other restaurants appear in newspaper reports for the address at 810 Clay Street, such as a 1896 report mentioning a “Yet Ting How” restaurant (which could be a white reporter’s corruption or mishearing of a Chinese name).

Moreover, a newspaper account about a series of police raids as reported in The San Francisco Call newspaper on January 25, 1895, indicates that whatever restaurant was operating at 810 Clay Street may have also shared the building with one or more tongs.

WAR GODS IN PRISON.

The Police Dethrone Them in Chinatown. TO SUPPRESS HIGHBINDERS. -- Chinese Merchants Menaced by the Hatchet Men. SO MANY RAIDS ARE MADE IN TIME. -- Headquarters of Seven Gangs of Desperadoes Demolished in Presence of Their Occupants.

The Chinese god of war was made to bite the dust last night in more places than one, while horrified highbinders looked on in amazement. It was the grand inauguration of New Year festivities in Chinatown. The streets were bright with colored lanterns and the pungent odor of burning punk ascended from a hundred shrines. Every nook and corner was packed with Mongolians and white visitors, and the many highbinders were preparing for a veritable harvest of blackmail and its inevitable accompaniment in Chinatown murder.

In seven places these outlaws were gathered. Some of them had built altars and enthroned idols decked with grotesque metal ornaments, urns and gorgeous oriental embroideries. Only the war god, the fierce unconquerable hero who presides over the destinies of all belligerent Chinese, was thus honored by them, but hardly were the altars finished before squads of policemen with axes in hand dashed in and demolished them.

This wholly unexpected action of the police created consternation among the binders. Sergeant Gillan and his men made a similar raid about ten days ago when informed by Chinese merchants that unless prompt measures were taken to suppress the desperadoes an outbreak might occur any day before the present festive time came to a close. Several signs and insignia of the highbinders were then confiscated. Sergeant Gillan was told early yesterday that the respectable element of Chinatown was greatly excited by an influx of well-known highbinders from Stockton and Fresno.

"I received notification," said the sergeant, "that gangs of desperate characters had arrived and a systematic blackmail of merchants was in order. The object was to get money for the New Year orgies and to support several highbinder societies. So I made an investigation quietly and found that the highbinders had hung out signs and opened headquarters. I also saw enough to convince me that these fellows meant business."

The police waited for night to come before making a simultaneous raid on the hatchet men's headquarters. Policemen McManus, Lynch and Ellis raided the Dock Tin Tong, at 810 Clay street, and captured a war joss, which the Mongols tried to hide. The altar, code of laws and other paraphernalia were confiscated. At 35 Waverly place the Say Teen Tong resort was broken into and denuded of its signs and papers. The Hig Sig highbinders, at 70-1/2 Spofford alley, were next raided.

At the same time Sergeant Gillan and Policemen Tuite and Duane surprised the Sam Ducks at 6 Ross alley, the Ben On Tong at 815-1/2 Jackson street, the Wah Ting Sang Tong at 1018 Dupont street, and the Kai Sen Shea Tong at 819-1/2 Washington street. The Kai Sen Shea highbinders had an elaborate joss house. Their altars were decorated with costly metal vessels, vases and candlesticks and draped with magnificently embroidered silks, and all around were condemnatory pictures and signs in frames.

While the police were gathering up everything portable the highbinders hid their war god beneath an ebony table. But the police knew from experience that it breaks the spirit of the ruffians to carry off the joss and a hunt for the god followed. A howl of imprecations burst from the maddened outlaws when the joss was found and confiscated.

No more desperate society exists in Chinatown than this same Kai Sen Shea, which, the police say, has a bad record. The Ben On Tong is similarly dreaded by the peaceable Chinese, for its hatchet men bear a reputation for absolute disregard for life and law.

The San Francisco Call newspaper on January 25, 1895

A news item about a double homicide as reported in The San Francisco Call newspaper on October 6, 1896, contains a clue about the name of the restaurant which had replaced Quen Fong Low in 810 Clay Street. The Call reported that one of the victims had been gunned down while on a delivery run for a “Yet Ting How restaurant.”

The San Francisco Call newspaper on October 6, 1896, containing the full story of “Two Murdered by Pagan Assassins” and the shooting of a waiter from the Yet Ting How restaurant at 810 Clay Street.

Clay Street, looking west up the hill from Dupont Street, c. 1900. (Photographer unknown from a private collector).

The restaurant at 810 Clay Street can be seen in the background, left of center. The lack of visible Chinese characters on the two lanterns above the entrance to the building suggest that the photo was taken during the same period as the preceding photo from the Martin Behrman collection. Thus, the photo probably predates 1900.

The northeast corner of Waverly Place and Clay Street, c. 1890s. Photographer unknown from a private collector). The restaurant at 810 Clay can been seen in the right side of the frame. In contrast to later photos of the restaurant building no lanterns have been hung above the entrance to the building. Thus, the photo probably predates the late 1890’s.

810 Clay Street appears in the center of the photo of the north side of Clay Street between Waverly Place and Dupont Street, c. 1890s. Photographer unknown. The photograph offers important clues about the name of the restaurant which preceded the better-known Yoot Hong Low restaurant, as the signage above the groundfloor entrance and on the second floor balcony bears a fanciful name, 一品香 (canto: “Yat Bun Heung”) or literally, “one fragrant taste.” During this time, and according to the Langley directory of 1895, a “Yoo Hing” bakery was also located at 810 Clay Street, probably on the ground floor or in the basement.

Clay Street between Waverly Place and Dupont Street, c. 1899-1900. Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection). This photo served as the inspiration for at least two color tourist postcards by Britton & Rey. The name “Yoot Hong” appears above the address number 810 on the left storefront window. Below the street number appear the words “General Merchandise.” The Yoot Hong name appears and in Chinese characters on the two large lanterns hanging above the building’s entrance photo, and this suggests that the business name of Yoot Hong may have originally denoted a store, and not a restaurant use, on the ground floor prior to 1900.

“Chinese Joss House before the Fire.” Photographer and precise date are unknown. The caption reflects the common and mistaken identification of the building at 810 Clay Street often depicted in photo archives and books as a temple. A fragment of the business name, i.e., “Yoot,” can be discerned in the left storefront window, indicating that the photo may have been taken sometime during 1900 when the Yoot Hong Low restaurant had begun operations in the building.

By the summer of 1900, the Yoot Hong Low Restaurant (悦香酒樓; canto: “Yuet Heung Jauh Lauh”) was operating in the building at 810 Clay Street. Yoot Hong Low reportedly occupied several floors; its basement typically served simple dishes to workers at simple wooden tables; and the top floor dining rooms were typically reserved for enjoyment by the more prosperous merchants and their guests. The writing on the lanterns identifies the ground floor as 悦香酒樓 or Yuet Heung Restaurant.

“The Street of Painted Balconies” c. 1900. Photo by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). By boosting the lighting of this Genthe photo of the restaurant from the Library of Congress, the small sign suspended on the second floor balcony denotes that part of the building as a 茶居 (canto: “cha geui”) or tea house.

The long vertical sign at the left vertical frame of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant’s façade shows the final form of the advertisement that appeared in photos during the 1900-1906 period, i.e., 包辦酒席占点心餅食俱全 (canto: “bau bun jau jik jeem dim sum behng sihk geuih” etc.) or 包辦酒席 = arranged banquets; 點心餅食 = dim sum bakery; or 俱全 everything or complete. With the advent of telephone service through the Chinese Exchange, the directory for the year 1900 listed the phone number for the establishment as “China 26 Yoot Hong, restaurant 810 Clay.”

“The Crossing” c. 1900. Photo by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). When Genthe photographed three children in holiday attire crossing Clay Street from the southeast corner of its intersection with Waverly Place, he also captured the image of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant with its large lanterns in the left background. The storefront windows have been covered by wooden shutters, indicating that the restaurant perhaps on that day was closed for the New Year holiday. The Clay Street streetcar tracks are visible in the street; the railway posed a potential hazard to children crossing the street, and the older girl has held both of the younger children close.

“A Family from the Consulate, Chinatown, San Francisco,” c. 1900-1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

A father and son (with a balloon), attired as befitted a merchant family, walking west on the north side of Clay above Dupont Street. More modestly-dressed passersby stare at the pair, perhaps in recognition of the man’s status as a consular official. The long vertical signage parallel to the drainpipe in the left-hand part of the image has been damaged. Other photos from this period show the complete sign as 包辩酒席占点心餅食俱全 (canto: “bow bin jau jik tin dim sum behng sihk geuih chuen”) or 包辦酒席 “= can host banquet;” 點心餅食 “= dim sum bakery;” 俱全 “ = both or complete.” The shuttered storefront of Yoot Hong Low restaurant’s premises at 810 Clay Street indicates that the building is closed for the New Year holiday.

The north side of Clay Street near Waverly, c. 1900. Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection). This photo served as the inspiration or template for at least two postcards published by the Britton & Rey company of San Francisco. The name of the restaurant Yoot Hong Low appears in the left storefront window above the address number of 810 Clay Street. The typical restaurant signage of the day of 包辩酒席占点心餅食俱全 (canto: “bow bin jau jik tin dim sum behng sihk geuih chuen”) or 包辦酒席 “= can host banquet;” 點心餅食 “= dim sum bakery;” 俱全 “ = both or complete” is partially obscured by a pedestrian walking east, down the hill. A small pile of wood can be seen at curbside in front of the restaurant, indicating the eatery’s reliance on wood for its fuel.

This photo of unknown provenance (and briefly seen on the eBay website), captures the delivery of wood to the Yoot Hong Low restaurant on the north side of Clay Street, c. 1900. The deliveryman appears to be waiting for admission to the premises and carrying his load of wood by use of a carry-pole. Wood carriers were a common sight in old Chinatown. The city of San Francisco attempted to ban the use of carry-poles on sidewalks as early as 1870, but workers often found a way around the law by simply walking in the street with their loads.

A view west from the southeast corner of the intersection of old Dupont and Clay Streets, c. 1900. Up the hill, and in the left half of the frame, one can see the intersection of Clay St. and Waverly Place. The Yoot Hong Low restaurant’s balconies can be seen in the left-center of the frame (and a couple of doors down from the intersection of Clay Street with Waverly Place. This lantern slide by an unknown photographer reposes in the collection of the Oakland Museum of California. Unfortunately, the OMCA has displayed a reverse image here, thereby baffling viewers of the pre-1906 photographic record of Chinatown for decades.

D.H. Wulzen photographed the distinctive building facades along the north side of Clay Street (between Waverly Place and Dupont Street) perhaps at the height of the glory. With the paint scheme of the buildings’ facades now lost to memory, one can only speculate about how Arnold Genthe’s “street of painted balconies” dominated this block of Clay Street. Wulzen’s images were particularly clear, and the details of the buildings as seen from across the street and angled toward the downward slope of the street in the easterly direction captured Chinatown on a sunny day. At the far right of the frame, the trees at Portsmouth Square park can be seen.

The writing on the lanterns suspended at the ground floor level read 悦香酒樓 or Yoot Heung Low (restaurant) and the second floor signage seen in earlier photos remains, i.e., 茶居 (canto: “cha geui”) or tea house. The top floor was usually reserved for the merchant elite and their guests.

“Chinatown – Clay Street toward Dupont Street, August 24, 1901.” Photograph by D. H. Wulzen from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. The long vertical sign at the left vertical frame of the restaurant’s façade (the last character of which is blocked by a bundle of materials), advertises 包辩酒席占点心餅食俱 (“bow bun jau jik dim sum behng sihk geuih” etc.) or 包辦酒席 can host banquet; 點心餅食 dim sum bakery; 俱 both.

Wulzen’s photos of the north side of Clay Street in 1901 indicated that little had changed in terms of the land use for this 800-block of Clay Street during the preceding two decades. In July 1885, the city’s public health map had recorded, in descending order from the northeast corner of Waverly Place and down to Dupont Street as follows: street number 814 (general merchandise), 812 (residential entrance), 810 (restaurant), 808 (barber shop), and 806 (general store). The address for the building at the northwest corner of Clay and Dupont served as a general merchandise store with its entrance located around the corner at 801 Dupont St.

“Returning Home, Chinatown, San Francisco” or “After School, Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1900 -1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. In that era, children often roamed unaccompanied around the neighborhood. Again, the shuttered restaurant storefront indicates that the building was closed for a holiday, probably the New Year. The child, accompanied by a father, holds the holiday treat of a balloon, and they follow the pair of children in the center of the photo. The photographer Genthe stood in practically the same place on Clay Street, looking toward 810 Clay St., and from where he took his other photograph titled “A Family from the Consulate.”

“Chinese Restaurant” c. 1902. Illustration by J.T. McCutcheon for the travelogue “To California and Back” by C.A. Higgins. The building elevation of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant was included without identification among drawings inspired by contemporary photographs.

A view east along the north side of Clay Street between Waverly Place and Dupont Street, c. 1903. Photograph William Baylis from “A trip to California : [a series of fine western pictures from original photographs in Colorado, Utah, California, the Pacific coast, Yellowstone national park]” from the collection of the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

Clay near Dupont Street, c. 1905. The view east on the north side of Clay between Waverly Place and Dupont Street. The Clay Street cable tracks appear in the foreground. Colorized photograph by an unknown photographer (courtesy of a private collector).

Clay Street & Waverly Place, Mar 12, 1906. (Photographer unknown, from a private collector). In this view east on Clay Street on the eve of the 1906 disaster, a cable car can be seen in the distance, traveling west up the hill on its track from Portsmouth Square. Two men are looking over Clay from the roof of the building at the northwest corner of the intersection with Dupont Street.

Unfortunately, neither the building at 810 Clay Street nor its notable restaurant, Yoot Hong Low, would survive the great earthquake and fire of 1906.

The view east along Clay at Dupont Street in April 1906. Photographer unknown (from a private collector).

810 Clay Street (center building) on March 20, 2024. Photo by Doug Chan. The building’s painted balcony of the post-1906 complements the eave of the “Oriental City” building architecture; its upper floors now serve as the headquarters of the Bow Hon (保安) county association.

[updated 2024-3-31]

#Yoot Hong Low #Quen Fong Low #810 Clay Street #Chinatown #Wells Fargo Chinese business directory #Arnold Genthe #Charles Savage #Waverly Place #D.H. Wulzen #J.T. McCutcheon

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demospectator · 3 years

Text

“Chinese Fortune Teller, Chinatown, San Francisco, Calif.” c. 1900. Postcard copyright Stanley A. Piltz (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming)

Fortune Tellers and Letter Writers of Old Chinatown

The photographers of old Chinatown captured images of the professional letter writers and fortune tellers who made the sidewalks of America's Chinatowns their offices, especially during the first half-century in the lives of those communities.

In 1993, Mr. Chinn sat down with Ruth Teiser for an interview that was published under the title of "A Historian's Reflections on Chinese-American Life in San Francisco, 1919-1991: Oral History transcript/Thomas Chinn" for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley In this excerpt from an interview, he described how Chinese immigrants communicated with friends and family in China, using a system of letter writers, small Chinese-owned businesses, and messengers:

"I must tell you how the Chinese in America, in the beginning, managed to maintain correspondence with their folks in China. When they first arrived here, unable to understand English or how to start making a living, it was through the handful of Chinese who were able to speak some English who guided the new arrivals and helped them get started. These "interpreters" were also the ones who helped those Chinese who were unable to write letters to their families back in China to do their letter writing for them. Of course, they charged for this service, but generally not much.

Letter writer/fortune teller practicing his art on the sidewalks of old San Francisco Chinatown, c. 1900. Photograph by E.N. Sewell, based on the signature in the lower right-hand corner (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). The two-character poster on the wall above the sidewalk table for the fortune tell/letter writer states that he practices the 相命 (canto: “seuhng ming;” pinyin: “Xiangming” ) style of divination.

"Then there was the matter of letters from China. How were they addressed, when their men were constantly moving around in their need to make a living as well as to send money home? That is where the Chinese stores come into play. The Chinese generally looked for business houses run by relatives or people from their own village in China. These business houses also acted as "bankers," receiving money from busy laborers who had "messengers" from small Chinese groups working too far away to come into town to run their errands. These messengers would deliver the money or letters to the business house designated to act for these laborers. The address written from China used the business house address and then kept these letters until the addressee was able to come to the store to pick up the mail. In return, aside from actual cost of stamps or money orders, etc., which was naturally reimbursed to the store, it was expected of each laborer that he would patronize the store for all of his needs."

-- From “Chinese Immigrants Maintain Ties with Home,” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed April 23, 2021, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/990.

As Chinn recounts, the letter writers performed a vital service for the single, often illiterate, male workers who comprised the bulk of the population of Chinatown; they served as the sole communications link to home villages through revolutions, a world war, civil war, communist liberation, the Cold War, and Cultural Revolution. Through all that, many families considered the letters from America as worthy of safekeeping, separated as they were by exclusion.

“No. 40″ c. 1904-1905. Photograph by the Goldsmith Bros.(from the collection of the Bancroft Library) and cataloged as “Shop Scene.” A small sign in the upper left-hand corner of the fram advertises the Chung Sai Yat Po newspaper (中西日報; canto: “zung1 sai1 jat6 bou3″).

I can attest to the simple power of correspondence from America. When visiting my ancestral village in Zhongshan, I was given a letter that my grandfather had written to his brother (who had remained in the village), almost a half-century earlier -- bearing a return address from 652 Sacramento St. in San Francisco.

Letter Writer c. 1900. Photographer unknown. The above image shows the same individual whom D.H. Wulzen had photographed as a somnolent, professional letter writer who made his piece of sidewalk his office al fresco. Moreover, the letter writer – without pen in hand -- appears to be plying his other skill of fortune telling. The large, lighter-colored scroll hangs to the left of the client declaring 相命 or “Xiangming” (canto: “seuhng ming”) in large, bold characters. FB friend Wong Yuen-Ming believes that this Yijing (易經)-based method of divination may rely more on ascertaining one’s fate by way of face-reading.

In contrast, the four-character wall advertisement for traditional adult and pediatric medical care (大小方脈) that appeared in the following D.H. Wulzen photo appears to have been removed, indicating that this photo was taken at a different time.

Letter Writer -- c. 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. The letter writer in this image takes a quick nap at his sidewalk table in between clients. The large, lighter-colored scroll hanging above his table shows one half of a bold, two-character sign declaring 相命 or “Xiangming” (canto: “seuhng ming”) method of divination. This Yijing (易經)-based method of divination may rely more on ascertaining one’s fate by way of face-reading.

Thanks to the sharp eyes of Wong Yuen-Ming, one can interpret the significance of the four-character text of the wall advertisement appearing just above the somnolent letter writer’s head.

The wall ad prominently reads as follows: 大小方脈. The signage represents an ad for a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine applying his skills, according to Wong, "the old subjects of paleo-medicine, the cure of adult miscellaneous diseases and the cure of children's disease (i.e. pediatrics).”

Wong writes as follows: 古醫學舊分十三科，治大人雜病的稱大方脈，治小孩病的稱小方脈(即小兒科)。合稱 “大小方脈” In English terms, he clarifies that ancient medicine is divided into 13 departments. The treatment of adult diseases is called Dafangmai (i.e., 大方脈 or canto: dai fong mak), and the treatment of children's diseases is called “Xiaofangmai” (i.e., 小方脈 or canto: siu fong mak).

Although the term for the branch of Chinese pediatrics can literally translate to the phrase "small and small square pulses," the 方in 方脈 does not mean “square” in this context. As Wong explains, the fang ideogram is drawn from the full term of doctor or 醫方 (canto: yee fong) which is derived from an older term, 方士 (canto: fong see), which denoted proto-medicine or alchemy). Moreover, to identify a Chinese doctor as a 方脈 would refer to a doctor (方) who would know how to read the pulse (脈) in caring for a patient. Thus, the ad’s reference to a 大小方脈 informs the public that the practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine could care for both adults and children.

“Chinese Fortune Teller” by Charles Weidner (copyright registered March 26, 1900) [Photo from the Chinese Historical Society of America collection. This fortune-teller has advertised 卦命 (canto: “gwah ming”) as his method of divination.

Many pre-1906 photographs of old Chinatown were reproduced in the tourist postcards and cartes de visite. In many instances, the postcard image represents the only surviving image from its photographic source. Fortunately, some examples of both the photographs of sidewalk fortune tellers and corresponding postcard artwork have survived.

“San Francisco. Chinese Fortune Teller, Chinatown” Photograph by Charles Weidner prior to 1906 and replicated in postcard format post-1906 (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming).

“845 -- Chinese Joss House. Astrologer.” c. 1875 Stereograph by Eadweard J. Muybridge (from the Robert N. Dennis collection). The location of the temple remains unknown, but the entryway is identical to one seen in Muybridge’s photo of a Taoist priest from 1875.

Chinese fortune telling, better known as Suan ming (算命; pinyin: Suànmìng; canto: “suen ming”) lit. “fate calculating”) has utilized many varying divination techniques throughout the centuries, particularly since the Ming dynasty. The banner signage probably represented a short-hand way of referring to Wen Wang Gua (文王卦; pinyin: Wén Wáng Guà; canto: “Mun Wong Gwah”), the method of interpreting the results of I Ching divination that was first described in writing by Jing Fang (78–37 BC) in Han dynasty China. It is based on correlating trigrams to the Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches of the Chinese calendar, and then using the stem and branch elements to interpret the lines of the trigrams and hexagrams of the I Ching. The method is popular in South East Asia and known by various names.

“Chinese Joss House Tauist [sic] Priest In Full Costume” c. 1875. Photograph by Eadweard Muybridge from the collection of the Bancroft Library.

“B2694 Chinatown, S.F. Cal. The Joss Temple” c. 1889. Photo by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). Some online sources date this photo as c. 1900, but the “Pacific Coast Scenery – Alaska to Mexico Catalogue published by Taber in 1889 included this numbered “Boudoir” series image.

Similar to the Muybridge photos of two decades prior to the Taber photo, the fortune tellers and astrologers worked in proximity to, or in conjunction with, the temples’ religious functions.

“Chinese Fortune Teller” c. 1890. Photograph probably by R.J. Waters and from the original archive or collection of dealer T.E. Hecht (now reposing in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library). The image has also been cataloged as “”255 Fortune Teller” in the collection of the Bancroft Library.

“155. Chinese Fortune Teller” Postcard based on a photograph by R.J. Waters (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming).

As seen in the next several photos, photographer D.H. Wulzen returned to the same location out in front of the Tin How Temple at 33 Waverly Place and found a fortune teller/letter writer still plying his trade in the same location as shown by I.W. Taber’s photo taken at least 11 years prior to Wulzen’s study.

"’Letter writer’ sitting at table, customer standing,” c. 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). Based on the style of the rounded stone steps at the lower left corner of the photo, a portion of the faux marble façade, and the woodwork seen behind the letter writer’s table, this pre-1906 image appears to have been taken in front of the Tin How Temple on Waverly Place.

“‘Letter writer’ sitting at table, with two Chinese male customers standing, one in American suit and hat,” c. 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library).

"’Letter writer’ sitting at table with pens and books; two other men,” c. 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library).

Wulzen’s sequence of at least three photographs informs the viewer that the fortune teller and letter writer’s sidewalk table served a steady stream of customers for the services provided by a literate member of the Chinatown community. Moreover, the spot outside of 33 Waverly Place must have been coveted, given the patronage of the Tin How Temple. Given the age of the divinator seen in Wulzen’s photos, the man behind the desk could have been the same individual whose visage was unfortunately hidden in Taber’s overwatch photo taken circa 1889.

“The Fortune Teller.” No date. Photograph possibly by Joseph Hoffman (from the collection of the San Francisco Library). The signage seen at the left of the photo advertises the fortune teller’s use of the 卦命 (canto: “gwah ming”) as his method of divination.

Fortune teller. No date. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). The street seen in the background indicates that the photographer was facing south on a less traveled block of Waverly Place toward the steep incline of Sacramento Street.

A fortune teller/letter writer site in front of his banner advertising the fortune teller’s use of the 卦命 (canto: “gwah ming”) method of divination. No date. Photograph attributed to Carleton Watkins (from a private collection). The wooden panels seen at left served as after-hours security coverings for store windows and building entrances.

The Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 destroyed Chinatown. However, fortune tellers and letter writers reappeared on the sidewalks of the rebuilt neighborhood.

“In the Immense Network: Consulting the Oracle’s Red Sticks.” Drawing by Cyrus Cuneo for The Illustrated London News, Feb. 3, 1912 (from a private collection). Cuneo’s description of the scene captured in his drawing describes the use of Kau Cim (求籤; canto; “kow cheem”), the shaking of a bamboo cylinder, which results in at least one modified incense stick leaving the cylinder from which the fortune teller interprets the stick’s inscription. The artist, Cuneo, was born into an Italian American family of artists and musicians which lived on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco's Italian American neighborhood of North Beach.

“The Fortune Teller.” c. 1913. Photograph by Arnold Genthe from the collection of the Library of Congress.

"Street fortune-tellers sitting at their collapsible wooden tables were a fairly common sight in Chinatown. Gamblers would often consulted these men. The sign announces to passersby, “Divine your life.” Many tourists frequented these fortune-tellers, and postcards often featured them. They shook cylindrical boxes until one of the sticks marked with divinatory signs spilled out.” -- Jack Tchen

The letter writer/fortune tellers of Chinatown used Kau Cim (求籤; canto; kow cheem), the shaking of a bamboo cylinder, which results in at least one modified incense stick leaving the cylinder. The Chinese characters inscribed on the stick would analyzed by an interpreter such as the one depicted in the above photo by Genthe. The prediction is short range, as it covers one Chinese calendar year.

“Chinese Merchants, Dupont St., Chinatown. Characteristic Scene Peculiar to this Portion of San Francisco” c. pre-1906, Photographer unknown, postcard published by Britton & Rey (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming). The image incorrectly identifies the man seated behind the folding table at the left as a merchant, which he is not. The boldly highlighted signage declares the fortune teller’s use of the 卦命 (canto: “gwah ming”) as his principal method of divination (in addition to face reading and some medicinal practice, as indicated the smaller six-character signage).

A wider-angle version of the fortune teller and sidewalk vendor image, published in “Quer durch Amerika Wanderungen in Kalifornien und Kanada” (1906), shows the fortune teller’s full name as 廣安邦 (canto: “Quong On Bong;:mando: “Guang Anbang”).A wider-angle version of this image published in “Quer durch Amerika Wanderungen in Kalifornien und Kanada” (1906) shows the fortune teller’s full name as 廣安邦 (canto: “Quong On Bong; mando: “Guang Anbang”). According to researcher Wong Yuen-ming, the two main couplet on the sides (partially) read 不忮不求 “without rivalry nor contention” and 無榮無辱 “without honor nor disgrace” (i.e., indifferent to fame or shame). The couplets draw on classical poetry and Confucian texts.

As the late historian Judy Yung wrote, the fortune tellers performed an important dual function in old Chinatown. “For a small fee, the Fortune Teller would help those who were illiterate write letters home. It was customary for Chinese immigrants to periodically send remittances accompanied by a letter, to their families in China.”

“No. 238. Chinese Fortuneteller and Letterwriter. Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal.” no date. Photographer unknown, postcard (from a private collection).

[updated 2023-12-8]

#Fortune tellers of old Chinatown #Letter writers of old Chinatown #Tin How Temple #Gee Tuck Tong #D.H. Wulzen #Arnold Genthe #Eadweard Muybridge #Thomas Chinn #Wong Yuen-ming collection #Judy Yung #I.W. Taber #Goldsmith Bros.#Chung Sai Yat Po #Quong On Bong

2 notes · View notes

demospectator · 3 years

Photo

“3002 Balcony of the Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco,” c. 1885. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery).

Legendary and Entrancing: Woey Sin Low Restaurant

The photo by Isaiah West Taber titled: “Balcony of the Chinese Restaurant” has entranced the viewer for more than a century and a quarter. From the photographer’s view at one end of the balcony from an upper floor, one can look south down old Dupont Street toward the downtown area of San Francisco. No human figure appears in the frame. Instead, an elaborately-carved large wooden medallion is seen in the center of the balcony’s expanse. Below the ornate centerpiece, a stone panel is set into the façade at knee-height.

Large glass and paper lanterns are suspended overhead. Potted penzai (盆栽; canto: "poon joi;” Jpn: bonsai) in planters are placed just beyond the low wooden railing lead to the end where a small sign which appears to advertise 包辦酒席 or banquet arrangements (canto: “bau baan jau jik”) is suspended from a pole. The glass of the lantern appearing closest to the viewer and in the upper center of the frame provides only a partial clue as to the name of the restaurant in the form of two Chinese ideograms.

Fortunately, photographing the exterior façade of the restaurant proved irresistible to I.W. Taber and other photographers of pre-1906 Chinatown.

Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont St., c. 1900. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).

Other photos show an archetypical four-level restaurant building at the height of its prominence, and its name, Woey Sin Low or 會仙樓 (canto: “Wui Seen Lauh”), appears clearly in the windows of its ground floor store frontage at no. 808 Dupont Street. The configuration of the building’s floors would have probably followed the typical pattern: stairs leading down from the sidewalk to a basement level commissary for laborers, the main and second floors would serve general and banquet customers daily, and an ornate, top floor dining room would serve as a dining venue for Chinatown’s merchant elite to entertain their peers and city hall politicians including police commanders, as remains the custom of such establishments until recent times.

“A Chinese Restaurant” c. 1888. Photograph Sam Partridge (?) or W.B. Tyler, publisher of Views in Chinatown (from the collection of the California State Library). Workers waiting on Dupont St. in front of the Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont Street.

Based on the city’s 1885 street map of Chinatown, one can determine the restaurant’s location on the east side of the block between Clay and Washington Streets. Given the building’s height, Taber’s photo from the balcony off of the grand dining room looked down at the intersection of Dupont and Clay Streets, and the northwest corner can be in the lower right-hand quadrant of the photo. The general merchandise store at the northwest corner of the intersection in the lower-right corner of the photo was the Chong Jin Long Kee grocery and general merchandise store at 801 Dupont St.

Moreover, it appears that Taber wasn’t alone on the balcony that day when he took his popular photo; a young restaurant worker apparently stood behind him, holding a broom and proving a rare smile for the camera lens – rare for that era. One can surmise that the hat on the stool in the right of the frame is Taber’s – where he had placed it before taking the iconic balcony shot.

Untitled photograph (probably by Isaiah West Taber), courtesy of The Bancroft Library, which provides no information about the photo. The young worker who joined I.W. Taber on the balcony of the Woey Sin Low restaurant is the same individual who appears in the alternate print held in the California State Library’s collection.

“3003 Grand Dining Room of the Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco” photo by I.W. Taber c. 1882 (from the collection of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley). In her pictorial book San Francisco Chinatown (published in 2006), historian Judy Yung asserted that the image by Taber depicted “The top floor of Hang Far Low Restaurant – replete with inlaid panels, carved screens, and hardwood tables and stools imported from China – was reserved for the Chinese elite and their guests.”

Later architectural historians have questioned the accuracy of Yung’s caption. The Bancroft Library’s online entry remains silent as to the location of the photo, and tourist postcard derivatives similarly omit any mention of the restaurant for which this lavish interior was constructed. The number “3003″ of the “Grand Dining Room” as provided by the Taber Photo company, however, is instructive, as the photo was apparently taken in sequence after photo 3002 and before 3004 of Taber’s pair of “Balcony of the Chinese Restaurant” photos. Thus, one can more plausibly conclude that the “Dupont Street” restaurant’s grand dining room was, in fact, located in the Woey Sin Low at 808 Dupont St.

“3004 Balcony of the Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco” c. 1885. Photograph by I.W. Taber (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). This shot depicts the view north on Dupont Street from the street’s eastern side.

As an eatery, Woey Sin Low at 808 Dupont Street appears to have occupied as prominent and lengthy a place in old Chinatown’s restaurant universe as Hang Far Low (one block south on the 700-block of Dupont). Perusing the business directories for the last quarter of the 19th century discloses that the restaurant had commenced operations at least as early as 1871 when Wells Fargo Bank included a Chinese business directory listing for that year.

The right-to-left listing for 會仙樓 or Woey Sin Law restaurant from “Instructions to Agents and Employes of Wells, Fargo & Co’s Express with Tariffs [etc.],” April 1, 1871

The restaurant appears under the name “We Sin” in 1875 when the D.M. Bishop & Co. published its first sub-directory for Chinatown. The restaurant appears (with minor variations in the spelling of its name), in these and later editions of the SF Public Library’s copies of the Bishop and Langley directories as follows:

1872 Langley directory listed as “We Sin Lon’ (Chinese) 808 Dupont”

1875 D.M. Bishop & Co. listed as “Wee Sin, restaurant 808 Dupont”

1877 D.M. Bishop & Co. listed as “Wauy Sin Low, 808 Dupont” 1878 D.M. Bishop & Co. listed as “Wauey Sin Long, 808 Dupont” 1879 Langley Directory listed as “Wauy Lin Long, groveries, 808 Dupont” 1880 Langley listed as “Woey San Low, restaurant, 808 Dupont” 1881 Langley listed as “Wauey Sin Long, restaurant, 808 Dupont” 1882 Langley listed as “Woey San Low, restaurant, 808 Dupont”

Listing for the Wauy Sin Low Restaurant in Wells Fargo Bank’s 1882 listing of Chinese businesses.

Woey Sin Low would maintain Langley business directory and Chinese Exchange telephone listings (at “China 242”) up until the 1906 earthquake and fire.

“B 3. Chinese Restaurant, S.F., Cal.” c. pre-1872. Photograph by O.V. Lange from the collection of the Bancroft Library. The photo was published by MacDonald & Dowe and I.W. Taber as a “Taber Photo.”

The Chinese signage from right to left reads 會仙樓. The photo appears to predate alterations to the building’s upper facade that extended its balconies across the entire width of the store frontage as seen in the next photo.

“Dupont St. S.F. 1872 – East Side N. Clay St.” Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection/Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives).

“3120 Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco.” c. 1880s. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the California State Library). The Woey Sin Low restaurant’s name can be discerned clearly in the ground floor’s storefront windows.

A less conventional view of the 800-block of Dupont Street looking south, c. 1880s. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). The lantern-adorned balconies of the Woey Sin Low restaurant can be seen right of center. The Old St. Mary’s church rises above the roofline in the background.

A horse-drawn cart appears in front of the Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont Street, c. 1880s. Photographer unknown (from a private collection).

“View in Chinatown” c. 1890. Photograph by T.E. Hecht (from a private collection). A flag flies above the Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont Street. By this time, the low-rise structure at the northeastern corner of the intersection with Clay Street had been replaced by a masonry building.

Northeast corner of Dupont and Clay Streets, c. late 1890s. Photographer unknown (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming). In this photo taken from the near the southwestern corner of the intersection of Clay and Dupont Streets, the Woey Sin Low restaurant appears in the center background on the east side of Dupont. The iron balcony leading to the front façade’s fire escape, and often seen under the third floor windows of the adjacent building at right, is absent. Only three structural supports appear instead, which suggests that the installation of the fire escape was imminent. Moreover, the utility pole seen in the photos of this frontage, c. 1900, on Dupont Street is absent.

“Midnight in Chinatown” copyright 1904. Photograph taken by Willard E. Worden c. 1903 (from the Cooper Chow Collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). In a stunning and rare nighttime shot looking north on old Chinatown’s Dupont Street (at Clay Street) the illuminated lanterns of the Woey Sin Low restaurant can be seen at right.

Thanks to the telephone directory published by the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, from February, 1903 through October 1905, the Woey Sin Low, with its telephone number of “China 242” in the Chinatown phone exchange would operate up to the day of the great earthquake.

“No. 14 San Francisco, California. Chinese Restaurant. Destroyed by earthquake and fire Apr. 18, 1906” postcard by Charles Weidner. The image depicts a view of the ornate dining room of Woey Sin Low restaurant from a different angle looking into the room from the outside balcony of the building’s top floor.

Based on a photograph by Charles Weidner of the same grand dining room of a “Chinese Restaurant,” the above postcard expresses poignantly what Chinatown and the City had lost as a result of the disaster in 1906.

The restaurant that had served pioneer Chinese California for more than three decades would not survive. Whether its owners continued in the business is unknown, although the PT&T phonebook of Dec. 1910 would show a “Woey Sun Low, Chop Suey, Tea Restaurant, at 681 Jackson St.” in the new Chinatown, a mere architectural shadow of its former glory.

“100 San Francisco, California. Chinatown by Night” c. 1904. Postcard based on photograph by Willard E. Worden (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-Ming).

[updated: 2023-5-27]

#Woey Sin Low restaurant #Isaiah West Taber #808 Dupont St.#Grand Dining Room of the Chinese Restaurant #Dupont Street #Charles Weidner #Willard E. Worden #D.H. Wulzen #Sam Partridge #W.B. Tyler

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demospectator · 3 years

Photo

“Man with long opium [sic] pipe, in doorway” c. 1900-1901. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (SFP 40) of the San Francisco Public Library).

A Cellar Door’s Story

When I began a project to analyze the pre-1906 photographic record of old Chinatown, I declared my cousin, Albert Cheng, the presumptive winner of the effort to decipher the culinary signage seen in a photo by D.H. Wulzen of a worker taking a smoking break (and definitely not an opium pipe as fancifully described).

Readers of this blog may recall that the fragment of the signage seen in Wulzen's photo advertises “. . . 生肉粥常便” (or roughly "raw meat congee/simple meal” lit. “often”). Cousin Albert indeed made the best guess that the partial, topmost character was “fish” or 魚. Thus, in context, the establishment served raw fish or 魚生 (canto. “yu saang”) with its congee or “jook” all day. Other photos discovered since then have provided more signage details of the offerings by the basement commissary, usually reserved for the working class men of old Chinatown.

The basement entrance configuration and street topography in the Wulzen photo provide sufficient clues to tie it to two variants of Arnold Genthe photos of children that he published under the title "The Cellar Door."

“The Cellar Door,” c. 1896-1906. Photo by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress). The signage behind the children reveals that wonton (雲吞), and 魚生肉粥 (canto: “yu saang yuhk jook”), can be discerned from the image.

Genthe’s photos of the restaurant proprietor’s children at the cellar door also serve, perhaps unintentionally, as a visual counterpoint to the “sojourner” mythos propounded by a generation of historians who essentially blamed the Chinese for their inability or unwillingness to assimilate. The mere presence of three children of working class parents signifies a deeper desire and contrarian narrative of Asian settlers on California’s urban frontier. This family, at least, put down roots to produce a native-born generation of Chinese Americans.

“Three children in front of a cellar door,” c. 1896-1906. Photo by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress).

Not surprising, Genthe’s omission or cropping of the above image for publication omitted the partial, but important, detail of a man holding a pot at the left of the frame. In an era before disposable containers, Chinatown residents as a custom would bring their own pots for restaurants to dispense take-out food items. Although my family had long moved out of Chinatown after WW II, my father continued to buy ready-to-eat food and present his own pot to his favorite eating establishments well into the 1960′s.

“Scene in Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1900. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). The Chinese characters 常便 (canto: “seuhng bihn”) indicate conveniently served all day. In this photo, the children appear to have aged negligibly, if at all. Their engaging presence assured the capturing of their images forever as part of old Chinatown’s streetscape.

Research as to the precise location of the basement eatery continues.

#The Cellar Door #D.H. Wulzen #congee #raw fish jook #Arnold Genthe #sojourners vs. settlers

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demospectator · 2 years

Photo

Northeast corner of Dupont and Clay Streets in San Francisco Chinatown, c. 1880. Photograph by Kilburn Brothers (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection).

A Storied Corner of Chinatown -- Then and Now

The announcement by the new Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative (“CMAC”) that it has acquired title to a building located at 800 Grant Avenue recalls the history of one of San Francisco Chinatown’s well-known corners and a key intersection.

CMAC was formed in 2020 by a consortium of a half dozen Chinatown nonprofit organizations to develop, in its own words, “a welcoming, innovative contemporary arts destination in San Francisco Chinatown for residents, regional communities and global visitors that explores ideas and questions that shape and inspire us all.” The CMAC organizers hope to highlight the “creativity of the Chinese American and Asian American diaspora, and its profound impact on all communities both nationally and worldwide, through a wide range of visual and performing arts that educate entertain and are relevant to a twenty-first century audience.”

The photographic record of Chinatown’s northeast corner of Clay Street and Grant Avenue (formerly Dupont St.) represents a storied history of commerce, persistence, and survival across centuries.

Elevated view of the east side of Dupont Street near the northeast corner of Clay Street, c. pre-1872. Photographer unknown (courtesy opensfhistory.org). The Chinese restaurant “Woey Sin Low” (會仙樓) with its large lanterns in the third floor balcony appears in the center of the frame. Some website sources date the photo to circa 1880, but the photo appears to predate alterations to the Woey Sin Low building’s upper facade that extended its balconies across the entire width of the store frontage as seen in the next photo. The 800 Dupont St. building at the corner appears at right.

“Dupont St. S.F. 1872 – East Side N. Clay St.” Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection/Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). The photograph of a young man in a bowler hat in the foreground, standing on the northwest corner of the intersection of Dupont and Clay Streets, shows the remodeled Woey Sin Low restaurant and its iconic, exterior woodwork on its now-extended third floor balcony. The streetlamp on the northwest corner is identical to the one shown in the preceding photo of this series. Seen partially at right, the corner building on the northeast corner at 800 Dupont remains dilapidated.

“Chinatown St. – Dupont St., S.F., N.E. Cor” c. 1880. Photograph by Kilburn Brothers from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection.

The building at 800 Dupont Street on the northeast corner of Dupont and Clay Street shows a small billboard above the ground floor, advertising the Fook Woh Bazaar (located a block south at 707 Dupont). The lantern-decorated balconies of the Woey Sin Low restaurant can be seen in the left of the frame in the adjacent building at 808 Dupont.

The photographs of the intersection of Dupont and Clay Streets document the northeast corner of the intersection as a busy commercial micro-hub in old Chinatown. The Langley and Bishop business directories show a “Sou Kee” and “Tuck Sing” grocery stores operating from the 800 - 802 Dupont address during the late 1870’s, to be succeeded by Quong Sou (or “Sau”) Kee grocers listed at 800 Dupont in the Langley directories from 1881 to 1883.

In the early 1880’s, no fewer than four businesses would have occupied the spaces between the grocer “Quong Sou Kee” (a.k.a., “Quong Sau Kee”) which operated at 800 Dupont from 1881 to 1883, and the Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont. The Langley directory of 1881 shows a “Tuck Sing, groceries” at 802 Dupont; “Lin Man & Co., barbers” at 806 Dupont which had operated there at least since 1875); “Gim Hi Co., jewelers,” at 804 Dupont (also an occupant since 1875); and “I Yick, general merchandise” and “Lin Man, varieties,” both at 806 Dupont.

“Chinese Quarter” c. 1880-1885. Photograph by Carleton Watkins. Based on the appearance of the Fook Woh Bazaar ad placard above the ground floor, the photograph probably depicts the northeast corner of Dupont and Clay Streets. A portion of the Clay Street frontage included a sidewalk seller’s stall, a ubiquitous feature of pre-1906 Chinatown’s street corners. To see a photo montage of Chinatown sidewalk stalls, go here: https://demospectator.tumblr.com/post/671833318381305856/chinese-quarter-c-1880-1885-photograph-by

“B. 58. Chinese Quarter, S.F. Cal.” c. 1885. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). In this view north up Dupont St., a police officer can be seen at right, standing watch near the curb in front of 800 Dupont St. at the northeastern corner of the intersection with Clay Street. The small street signage can be seen just under the street lamp fixture seen at the far left of the frame.

Detail from the Official Map of Chinatown commissioned by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and issued in July 1885. The corner building at 800-804 Dupont Street at the northeast corner of the intersection with Clay Street appears at lower left. (From the Cooper Chow Collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America)

“View in Chinatown” c. 1890. Photograph by T.E. Hecht (private collection courtesy of opensfhistoryorg). As was the custom of other photographers, Hecht took this photo while standing on the northwest corner of the intersection of Dupont and Clay Streets with a view centered on the distinctive façade of the Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont, and over which a flag can be seen flying. By 1890, the 800 Dupont building at the northeast corner (and seen at right) had been replaced with a brick structure.

Children crossing Clay Street and its streetcar tracks from the northeastern corner of the intersection with Dupont Street, c. 1890s. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). The sidewalk sales stand or stall on the Clay Street side is visible in the background. Based on the taller girl’s headdress, the photo may have been taken during the Chinese New Year.

“Chinatown - Dupont Street at Clay Street, April 9, 1900.″ Photograph by D. H. Wulzen from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. The balconies of the Woey Sin Low restaurant at 808 Dupont appears to the left of the frame in the above photograph. The signage for the dental office of Dr. Charles S. Lee can be seen at street level and the corner of the building. (To read more about the dentists of old San Francisco Chinatown go here.)

A view north at Dupont and Clay Streets after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. A police officer walks south on Dupont past a sign advising the temporary location of the Canton Bazaar. The charred and twisted tower of the Hall of Justice on Kearny and Washington Streets can be seen in the right quarter of the frame. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).

A view from Clay Street toward what had been the northeast corner of the intersection at Dupont Street after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. The fallen tower of the Hall of Justice on Kearny and Washington Streets can be seen in the left background of the frame. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).

A view looking northeast across the intersection of Clay and Dupont Streets in April 1906. The ruined Hall of Justice can be seen in the center background. Photograph by Charles Bailey (who probably appears in the photo) from a private collection.

Sing Chong Co. store at 800 Grant Avenue, c. 1915. Thomas Chinn, in his book, Bridging the Pacific, wrote about the above photo as follows: “Sing Chong Co., a prominent Chinese general merchandise store and butcher shop at the northeast corner of Grant Avenue and Clay Street, ca. 1915. The man with the cleaver at the butcher block was the owner, Louie Dick Chuen. His store operated for over sixty years at this location. [Photo courtesy of Sally Joe.]

After the earthquake, the “fancy goods” store, Wing On Wo (which had formerly operated at 607 Dupont during the 1890’s), occupied the post-1906 building at 800 Dupont Street (before the street’s renaming to Grant Avenue). When the international directory of Chinese businesses was published in 1913, the “Shing Chong Co.” had started business at 800 Grant Avenue as a general merchandise store.

The Sing Chong (成昌) store at the northeast corner of the intersection of Grant Avenue and Clay Street, c. 1937. Photograph by Orene Ken Cathcart (courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle).

A view of the northeast corner of Grant Avenue and Clay Street in the 1940’s. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). The delivery truck of the Sing Chong Co. (成昌) is parked outside the entrance to 800 Grant Avenue. The now-iconic business sign is in the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America.

The view north on Grant Avenue toward the intersection of Grant Avenue and Clay Street, c. 1940. Photographer unknown.

By 1940, Chinatown had entered a fourth decade as a tourist theme park of the iconic “Oriental City,” complete with ornamental street lamps lining Grant Avenue. Most Chinese American baby boomers can recall Shing Chong Co. (seen at the right of the photo), which operated at the northeast corner of the intersection for more than a half century. One of Shing Chong’s business signs (seen in right side of the frame), reposes in the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America.

Members of the press and representatives of a half dozen Chinatown-based community organizations gather at 800 Grant Avenue building on the northeast corner of Grant Avenue and Clay Street on October 7, 2021, to announce the establishment of a new media and arts center. Photograph by Doug Chan.

In the first quarter of the 21st century, a new chapter in the history of the northeast corner of Grant Avenue and Clay Street will be written. A new nonprofit Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative will create an arts and media hub. The program for the new facility aims ambitiously to help attract visitors back to San Francisco Chinatown and help repair a neighborhood economy that was hit hard during the pandemic. (To read more about the project, go here: https://hoodline.com/2021/07/chinatown-is-getting-a-new-26-5-million-arts-and-media-center/)

Photograph by Doug Chan

Change is once more in the air, as a new generation awaits its turn.

[updated: 2023-7-15]

#800 Dupont St.#800 Grant Avenue #San Francisco Chinatown #CMAC #Sing Chong Co.#Woey Sin Low #Carleton Watkins #T.E. Hecht #Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative #D.H. Wulzen

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demospectator · 3 years

Text

The Chinatown Photos of D.H. Wulzen

In commemoration of pre-1906 Chinatown, I have posted almost the entirety of the SF Public Library's collection of D.H. Wulzen's photos of San Francisco's Chinatown during 1900 - 1901 ( the first years of the city's bubonic plague outbreak that would stigmatize the community).

The 1900 census shows that my great grandfather and his brothers operated a store at 1010 Dupont St. that year, and the candid scenes of everyday life captured by Wulzen reflect the daily lives of my SF ancestors to a greater extent than the more familiar, staged photos of Wulzen's more popular contemporary, Arnold Genthe.

Dietrich H. Wulzen, Jr., documented early 1900s San Francisco through photography. Born in 1862, D. H. Wulzen became a pharmacist in 1889, studying at the Affiliated Colleges on Parnassus Heights. Wulzen built a pharmacy building on the corner of Castro, Market and 17th streets. In the 1890s he became interested in photography and added a Kodak Agency to his drug store. Wulzen joined the California Camera Club and made several photography excursions to Yosemite National Park with other members. His style was straightforward and realistic, unlike the dominant “artist” photography of the club. Like fellow club member Genthe, Wulzen put aside his cumbersome 6 1/2” x 8 ½” tripod-bound view camera and took up a 4” x 5” multipack plate camera that he could hand-hold while attracting little attention from his subjects. The results are the candid scenes of Chinatown with people going about their daily routines in a natural un-posed way.

A few weeks after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, Wulzen, documented the aftermath in San Francisco. The D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (SFP 40) was donated by Wulzen’s son Frank E. Wulzen, also a photographer, in 1996. April 18, 2016, marked the online debut of the digitized glass plates of the aftermath of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. The Chinatown scenes were added on May 24, 2016.

To my knowledge, no one has yet undertaken the task to identify and discuss the persons and buildings seen in the Chinatown series of photos. I hope to be adding captions for as many of the photos as can be identified with some certainty.

Permission to use these images commercially must be obtained from the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. www.sfpl.org/permissions When using this image please credit D. H. WULZEN GLASS PLATE NEGATIVE COLLECTION (SFP 40), SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Chinatown clerk c. 1900 [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown – Clay Street toward Dupont Street, August 24, 1901.

Wulzen photographed the distinctive building facades along the north side of Clay Street (between Waverly Place and Dupont Street) from across the street at different places on the downward slope of the street in the easterly direction. At the far right of the frame, the trees at Portsmouth Square park can be seen.

We know from the 1885 Chinatown map prepared by the city’s public health department that several legitimate businesses occupied the even-numbered addresses of this 800 block of Clay Street in descending order from the northeast corner of Waverly and down this single block as follows: 814 (general merchandise), 812 (residential entrance), 810 (restaurant), 808 (barber shop), and 806 (general store). The address for a general merchandise store at the northwest corner of Clay and Dupont was a general merchandise store identified by a 801 Dupont St. address.

In the summer of 1900, the Yoot Hong Low Restaurant operated in the building shown in the center of the photograph at 810 Clay Street. Yoot Hong Low reportedly occupied several floors, and its basement typically served simple dishes to workers at simple wooden tables. The writing on the lanterns identifies the ground floor as 悦香酒樓 or Yuet Heung Restaurant and the second floor as a 茶居 or tea house. The top floor was usually reserved for the merchant elite and their guests. Wulzen’s contemporary, Arnold Genthe, published a close up of the sidewalk in front of the restaurant which was titled “The Street of Painted Balconies.”

Wulzen’s contemporary, Arnold Genthe, published a close up of the sidewalk in front of this same restaurant which was titled “The Street of Painted Balconies.”

The long vertical sign at the left vertical frame of the restaurant’s façade (the last character of which is blocked by a bundle of materials), advertises 包辩酒席占点心餅食俱 (“bow bin jau jik tin dim sum behng sihk geuih” etc.) or 包辦酒席 can host banquet; 點心餅食 dim sum bakery; 俱 both.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Wulzen’s contemporary, Arnold Genthe, published a close up of the sidewalk in front of this same restaurant which was titled “The Street of Painted Balconies.”

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown cobbler [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown cobbler - August 9, 1900

The signage above the cobbler in this photograph notifies the public that a doctor (方脈; canto: fong mak)Tam (谭) is moving his clinic to another location, the street name for which is indecipherable (but contains the character of 慎. Any guesses?

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Crab seller

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Dupont Street at the corner of Clay Street. The dentist's sign on the second floor identifies the building as 806 Dupont.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

The signage for this second photo of the Hop Sing fish market is barely visible in the frame. The library collection asserts that this business which apparently featured clams for sale, was located on Dupont St.

However, an immigration officer's map in 1894 places a "Hop Sing" company as occupying store frontage at No. 13 Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley), on the west side of the street.

(I've lodged in inquiry with the SF Library as to the provenance for the Dupont St. label for this photo.)

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

This photo of a fish market fortunately included the signage for the business "Hop Sing" which sold clams.

The library collection asserts that this business which apparently featured clams for sale, was located on Dupont St.

However, an immigration officer's map in 1894 shows a Hop Sing company occupying the store frontage at No. 13 Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley), on the west side of the street.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Fish Market c. 1900

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Fish Market c.1900 [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

The San Francisco Public Library’s D.H. Wulzen collection contains three versions of this "Fish Market" photo (one of which anyone familiar with Chinese writing can discern is flipped, and it's been deleted from this post).

The sign on the middle column of the storefront reads 合昌樓 (canto: "Hop Cheong Lauh"; mando: "Hé Chāng Lóu"). According to an immigration officer's map from 1894, a business named "Hop Chong Jan & Co." was located on the east side of the street at no. 12 Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley). Moreover, the balcony grillwork matches a Fish Alley building that figures prominently in other photographs and postcards of that era.

My grandmother was born above this store at no. 12 in 1898.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

The D.H. Wulzen collection contains three versions of this "Fish Market" photo (one of which anyone familiar with Chinese writing can discern is flipped, and it's been deleted from this post).

The sign on the middle column of the storefront reads 合昌樓 (canto: "Hop Chong Lauh"; mando: "Hé Chāng Lóu"). According to an immigration officer's map from 1894, a business named "Hop Chong Jan & Co." was located on the east side of the street at no. 12 Washington Place (a.k.a. Fish Alley). Moreover, the balcony grillwork matches a Fish Alley building that figures prominently in other photographs and postcards of that era.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

One of almost a dozen "Fish Market" photos taken by D.H. Wulzen (identification of the precise location of which is pending). Although the print in the collection was made from the entire negative, Wulzen's photography apparently makes little attempt -- unlike his contemporary, Arnold Genthe -- to obscure in darkness or etch out of the glass negative entirely any non-Chinese figures from the picture. Wulzen, thus, approached his subjects without the staging or the "artistic" license or conceit of displaying the Chinese quarter as an exotic and wholly foreign construct. [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Fish Market c. 1900 [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

The above photo is identified as the "Hung Ai Art Co. doorway, August 24, 1901" in the Wulzen collection.

The business address indicates its location at 832 Washington Street. Its name is euphemistic in that the prominent 押 character or symbol ('baat") denotes a pawnshop (as does the signage of the shop next door in the right of the frame). This symbol is actually a bat hanging upside down and holding a coin. The bat signifies fortune (fortune & bat have similar pronunciation in Chinese) and the coin signifies benefits.

The name of another pawnbroker’s establishment Hang Lee & Co., can be seen at 830 Washington in the right-hand part of the photo. This shop was located at the corner of Washington St and Stouts Alley – strategically situated within easy walking distance of gambling establishments.

The Chinese preferred to buy assets like gold or gems because of the relative ease with which they could arrange loans from pawn shops when they needed cash urgently. Pawn shops were common in old Chinatown and, as HongKongers will attest, everywhere in Hong Kong during the last century (with ubiquitous neon signage).

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Letter Writer, c. 1900

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

The photographers of old Chinatown (including D.H. Wulzen featured here), also captured images of the professional letter writers who made the sidewalks of America's Chinatowns their offices, especially during the first half-century in the lives of those communities.

One of the founders of the Chinese Historical Society of America, Thomas Chinn (1909-1997), was a keen observer and chronicler of the collective life of Chinese America. He also served as the founder, publisher, and editor of the Chinese Digest, the first English-language weekly newspaper for Chinese Americans in the United States, and later the Chinese News. In 1993, Mr. Chinn sat down with Ruth Teiser for an interview that was published under the title of "A Historian's Reflections on Chinese-American Life in San Francisco, 1919-1991: Oral History transcript/Thomas Chinn" for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

In this excerpt from an interview, he described how Chinese immigrants communicated with friends and family in China, using a system of letter writers, small Chinese-owned businesses, and messengers as follows:

As Mr. Chinn recounts, the letter writers performed a vital service for the single, often illiterate, male workers who comprised the bulk of the population of Chinatown; they served as the sole communications link to home villages through revolutions, a world war, civil war, communist liberation, the Cold War, and Cultural Revolution. Through all that, many families considered the letters from America as worthy of safekeeping separated as they were by exclusion. I can attest to their simple power. When visiting my ancestral village in Zhongshan, I was given a letter that my grandfather had written to his brother (who had remained in the village) almost a half-century earlier -- bearing a return address from 652 Sacramento St.

Chinatown - notices, c. 1900

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown c. 1900

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown c. 1900

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown c. 1900

Thanks to my cousin Albert Cheng and his scholarly friend, Louis Chan, the signage over the entrance of the eating establishment to which this deliveryman appears to be returning prompts some observations about the emerging politico-culinary culture of Chinatown -- 15 years after, and as a direct response to, the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Heather P. Lee of NYU writes for scholars.org writes about the restaurant industry and its centrality among the strategies used by Chinese America to avoid the immigration ban as follows:

“The vast majority of Chinese originally came to the United States from a small cluster of counties in Southern China, whose economic fortunes became tied to opportunities in North America after the 1849 Gold Rush in California. Young men went to the United States to work, sent money back to relatives in China, and periodically made temporary trips home. But this cycle of work and visits became much harder to execute after the United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This draconian law barred the entry of Chinese laborers, yet also ended up stimulating the formation of Chinese businesses through a system of visa preferences. Owners of particular businesses could obtain “merchant status,” which enabled them to enter the United States and sponsor relatives. After a 1915 court case granted these special immigration privileges to Chinese restaurant owners, entrepreneurial people in the United States and China opened restaurants as a way to bypass restrictions in U.S. immigration law. Flows of newcomers from China were diverted into the restaurant industry.

“The number of Chinese restaurants in the United States exploded during the early twentieth-century. . . Chinese laundries had once been the largest employers of Chinese workers, but by 1930 restaurants became more likely employers of Chinese workers – and retained that distinction thereafter. . .

“For the workers, Chinese restaurants were complex sites of chain migration and familial obligation. The average Chinese restaurant in New York City employed five waiters and four cooks, who were related by kinship or friendship to the primary investors. Family bonds complicated relationships between employers and employees, rendering conflicts between them qualitatively different from the sorts of conflicts found in non-family-run restaurants. For the sake of family, Chinese restaurant employees were expected to work for low wages and perform physically demanding labor without complaint. Consequently, the average employee in such restaurants earned 1/3 less wages than the national average for food service employees. This was true even though Chinese restaurant workers had to support kinfolk in China who depended on them to afford basic necessities such as clothing, food, and educational costs. . . .” (see: https://scholars.org/.../untold-story-chinese-restaurants...)

The signage itself (aside from the partially obscured English language menu board seen in the lower-right portion of the photo), suggests the adaptation that probably began with the beginnings of the community in the 1850’s of Chinese culinary practices to North American tastes and foodstuffs. The ideograms on the faded sign are written in traditional style -- from right to left. As Louis Chan (with Al Cheng’s concurrence and rewritten here in modern style from left to right), “seasonal western style cuisine” under the likely tradename of “Wah Ying.” Literally: 時款 [canto: see foon] = seasonal or current; 華英 [canto: wah ying] shorthand for Chinese/English (or Chinese American); 番菜 [canto: faan choy] literally “foreign (barbarian) dishes.

The characters seen on the partially obscured sign to the left of the worker read 隆麵 [canto: loong mein] reads as “prosperous noodles” which could denote, absent additional context, a particular brand name (describing grand, prosperous, thriving, eminent, or even intense) of noodles made on premises or elsewhere.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown c. 1900 [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown c 1900

The partial signage advertises 生肉粥常便 (or approx. "raw meat congee/simple meal" lit. "often"). My cousin Albert has probably made the best guess about the partial, topmost character as "fish" or 魚.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Chinatown - street clerk c.1900 [Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

Waverly Place - April 9, 1900

The view looks north from the intersection with Clay Street.

[Credit: D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

#D.H. Wulzen #San Francisco Chinatown

0 notes

demospectator · 3 years

Photo

“The Cobbler,” copyright April 24, 1900. This photo by Charles Weidner represents one of his early “ethnographic” portraits taken in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was first published in the May 1900 issue of Camera Craft.

Sidewalk Cobblers of Old Chinatown, San Francisco

"The streets of Chinatown were filled with itinerant peddlers and artisans -- tinsmiths, umbrella repairmen, pipe bowl cleaners, jewelers, and cobblers -- all plying their trades."

-- Judy Yung from San Francisco's Chinatown.

When the photographs of old Chinatown’s street cobblers were taken at the turn of the century, the once-thriving boot and shoe industry in California had declined largely due to competition from factories in the eastern US. At its height in the 1870’s, several thousand Chinese worked in the shoe factories.

Sidewalk boot and shoe repairman, c. 1885. Photographer unknown.

By 1904, a San Francisco Municipal Report (1904-1905) counted only 250 Chinese out of a total citywide workforce of 750 working in 16 factories. Little is known about where the displaced workers gravitated with the decline of the industry, but it would be reasonable to assume that older workers continued to ply their shoemaking craft among the other peddlers who worked on Chinatown’s streets.

Photographers of pre-1906 Chinatown such as D.H. Wulzen, Charles Weidner, and others caught sidewalk cobblers in action from which multiple images of at least two identifiable individuals appeared frequently in prints and tourist postcards based on the photography.

”Chinese Cobbler, Chinatown.” Multicolor litho postcard image based on Charles Weidner’s photo. Copyright April 24, 1900 (from a private collection)..

The above photo (c. 1900) by an unknown photographer appears to be the same individual cobbler working at the same location seen in the photos by D.H. Wulzen and a Willard Worden which are included in this set for comparison purposes.

Photographer unknown.[Credit: The San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library]

The above photo (c. 1900) by an unknown photographer appears to be the same individual cobbler working at the same location seen in the two photos by D.H. Wulzen that are included in this set for comparison purposes.

Cobbler -- August 9, 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

Photo of the same cobbler seen in the preceding photo. Photographer unknown from the collection of the California Historical Society).

Chinatown -- Cobbler c. 1900 by D.H. Wulzen from the D.H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

View of a cobbler sitting next to a basket and trunk, shoes hanging on the wall on the left, small cat on the sidewalk (left), published 1903. Photograph by Willard E. Worden (from the collection of the California State Library). .

Boot and shoe mender in San Francisco Chinatown. Date and photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).

Shoe mender in San Francisco Chinatown (Date and photographer unknown).

Although the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 destroyed old Chinatown, the sidewalk cobblers remained a feature of life in the rebuilt neighborhood, attracting interest of photographers and inspiring postcard illustrators.

Photographer unknown. c. 1910

“Chinese Shoe Maker, China Town, San Francisco, Cal. Postcard illustrator unknown (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-Ming).

[updated 2022-12-31]

#Cobblers of old Chinatown #sidewalk shoe repairmen #D.H. Wulzen #Charles Weidner #San Francisco Chinatown #Willard Worden

0 notes

demospectator · 2 years

Photo

“B 527 Chinese Quarter, S.F. Cal.” c. 1880. Photograph by I.W. Taber (from the collection of the California State Library. The sidewalk stall business was located outside of the Kong Kee hardware and lamps company at 810 Washington Street between Dupont Street and Ross (a.k.a. Stouts) Alley as listed in the Langley directories of 1882-1883 for Chinese businesses.

The Sidewalk Sellers and Artisans of Old Chinatown

In his book, San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to its History and Architecture, architectural historian Philip P. Choy writes about the sidewalk stalls which had evolved in San Francisco’s Chinatown from its earliest days. Phil wrote as follows:

“Before the 06 earthquake, there were sidewalk businesses alongside the buildings at major street intersections. Crude open cabinets with shelves were propped up against the building walls to display the merchandise. These businesses reflected modest enterprises in premium commercial space. . . .

The Chinese of old Chinatown vied for the sidewalk stalls and curbside spaces along with more mobile purveyors of goods and repairmen. Their activities attracted interest from early practitioners of the photographic craft, who left behind a vibrant legacy of images of the early Chinatown community.

“The streets of Chinatown were filled with itinerant peddlers and artisans --tinsmiths, umbrella repairmen, pipe bowl cleaners, jewelers, and cobblers – all plying their trades.”

– Judy Yung from San Francisco’s Chinatown.

“Jeweler” c. 1900 – 1901. Photograph by (from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library).

“Umbrella Repairman” c. 1900 – 1901. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library).

A sidewalk repairman conducts his trade from a modest work table outside of the store of the Tie Sang Tong wholesale and retail drug and money brokerage business store which operated at 929 Dupont Street from 1867 to at least 1895.

““Chinese Quarter” c. 1880-1885. Photograph by Carleton Watkins. The presence of the Fook Woh advertisement above the ground level indicates that the building was located at 800 Dupont Street on the northeast corner of Dupont and Clay Streets.

“B 2. Bazaar in Chinatown, S. F. , Cal.” c. 1885. Photograph by I.W. Taber for the Taber Photo company of San Francisco (from the collection of the Marilyn Blaisdell collection at the SF Public Library. A modest sidewalk sales stall is located at the corner of the store. As the storefront window signage reads, the photo shows the “Sun Kam Wah & Co. China & Japan Bazaar” at 714-1/2 Dupont Street, at the northeast corner of the T-intersection of Commercial and Dupont Streets. The Sun Kam Wah store had operated at 714-1/2 Dupont from more than a quarter-century before the 1906 disaster, selling “clothing and fancy goods” (according to the New City Annual Directory of 1875, published by the D.M. Bishop & Co.).

“Chinatown - street clerk” circa 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (Sfp 40), San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library).

Sidewalk flower seller, c. 1892. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). Sidewalk stalls also took the form of curbside tables for seasonal sale offerings. The flower stand seen in this image appears to be selling new year’s narcissus or [水仙花],(pinyin: “shuixianhua;” canto: “seui sin faa”).

Curbside poultry vendor, no date. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). The practice of produce and poultry suppliers selling from curbside points of sale continues (largely on Chinatown’s Stockton Street), often from parked trucks. The slope of the street indicated in this photo suggests a location on one of the east-west streets just below Dupont Street in old Chinatown.

“The New Toy” c. 1904. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division).

This photograph and the next two images show the sidewalk stall on Washington Street just up from the northeastern corner of the intersection with Dupont Street. As historian Jack Tchen observes, “[d]isplayed are peanuts in the shell, dried lychees, and numerous toys. The man with the cigar in this plate is demonstrating a noise-making papier-mache animal figure.”

“Toy Merchants: c. 1900. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division).

Jack Tchen: “Sheathed swords and maces hang from the string against the wall. These objects were facsimiles of those weapons as seen in Chinese operas performed at local theaters.” Tchen’s observation is well-stated, as the Grand Chinese Theatre was located just west up Washington Street on which this sidewalk stall was located.

“New Year’s Shoppers, Chinatown, San Francisco” 1904. Photograph by Hugo B. Goldsmith (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).

Photographer Hugo Goldsmith took the above photograph of the same stall at Washington and Dupont Streets. The box on which the salesman is sitting appears identical to the one on which the vendor in the preceding photo is perched.

“The Toy Peddler” c. 1900. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division).

This retouched version of the above photo by Genthe shows an elderly man selling Chinese dolls sitting in rickshaws. Genthe retouched the blank sign seen on the sidewalk stall in the background to erase the words “Chinese/Candies/5 Cts./Per Bag” in an effort, as Jack Tchen states, “to make the stall appear more exotic and foreign.” The girls are dressed in New Year garb, and the box seen at the right contain seasonal narcissus for sale. The photo appears to have been taken on Dupont St.

“Clerk sitting, asleep, in open air market. Behind him are fruit and goods (candy?) in jars“ c. 1900-1901. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen from the D. H. Wulzen Glass Plate Negative Collection (SFP 40) of the the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

Again, from Phil Choy:

“After the Quake, the buildings were built to accommodate these businesses by recessing the wall about 16 inches deep and 24 feet in length. The shelves in the stalls were packed with an array of merchandise, from edibles like fresh sugar cane, sugar coconuts and melons, varieties of preserved plums, dried ginger, and olives, to dry goods like toilet paper, cigarettes, and cigars of every brand. One-inch-long dried salted water beetles for a typical tree. The favorite with women was "bun long," betelnut wrapped in the betel palm leaf with two-inch-long sticks of sugared coconut, sold two for a nickel. Chewing betel nut is a thousand-year-old tradition throughout Asia. For the kids, the favorite was chewing gum, one cent apiece, packed with a 2” x 3” card featuring Remington's paintings of the Wild West. These trading cards provided hours of recreation. . . .

A busy Chinatown street corner, post-1906. Photograph by Louis J. Stellman (from the collection of the Bancroft Library).

A Street Corner Merchant. Photograph by Louis J. Stellman (from the Bancroft Library: Roy D. Graves pictorial collection).

“The stalls, formerly at almost every intersection of Grant Avenue, were distinctive features in the streetscape of Chinatown.

“The two remaining stalls along Grant Avenue, at the northwest corners of Clay Street and Washington Street, are mere shadows of their former selves, selling mostly souvenir caps and t-shirts.”

The sidewalk stall at the northwestern corner of post-1906 Clay Street and Grant Avenue.

View of the northwest corner of Washington and Dupont Street from across the intersection, circa 1900. The sidewalk stall on the Washington Street side of the building is closed and obscured by the horse-drawn wagon. A painted wall ad for the Royal Photographic Studio at 806 Washington St. faces Dupont St. The studio of photographer W. F. Song occupied the upper floor of 800 Washington St., The banner signage for the Wing On Co. store can be seen at 903 Dupont to the right of the frame. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).

“Chin Kee and family, Chinese Street Merchant, Dupont and Washington Sts. Chinatown, San Francisco,” no date. Photographer unknown, published by Britton & Rey, Lithographers, San Francisco 515 (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming).

Peak sidewalk store display and retail format at the northwestern corner of Washington Street and Grant Avenue, September 1965 -- at the dawn of a new era for Chinese America and the effective sunset of the exclusion era. (Photographer unknown, courtesy of opensfhistory.org)

The COVID-19 pandemic and the crash of tourist visitations hit Chinatown hard, including the surviving sidewalk store space at the northwestern corner of Washington Street and Grant Avenue. The space has been closed more often than open during 2021-2022. (Photo by Doug Chan)

The stalls at the northwestern corner of Clay Street and Grant Avenue have remained shuttered as of June 23, 2022. (Photo by Doug Chan)

Neighborhood shoeshine stands also took advantage of Chinatown’s sidewalk stall format. Miniaturist Frank Wong shared Phil Choy’s sense of nostalgia for Chinatown’s shoeshine and newsstands in his evocative dioramas.

“The Shoeshine Stand,” on the day after FDR’s passing, April 13, 1945 (as indicated by the newspaper headline in the lower right corner of the frame) -- a San Francisco Chinatown diorama by Frank Wong. (Photo by Palma You for the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America).

The former shoeshine stand near the northeastern corner of Sacramento Street and Grant Avenue has been closed for years. It bears the address of 790 Sacramento on its door. As such, it symbolizes a bygone era of the Chinatown streetscape. (Photo by Doug Chan)

At present, the production of street fairs by various organizations in San Francisco Chinatown have tended to generate more foot traffic on Grant Avenue, and such events have induced the surviving sidewalk store space at the northwestern corner of Washington Street and Grant Avenue to open occasionally for business, May 6, 2023. (Photo by Doug Chan).

In 2023, the sidewalk stall Washington Street at Grant Avenue reopened for the Flower Fair on January 14, 2023. (Photograph by Doug Chan). Perhaps inadvertently, the remaining sidewalk stall represents a sort of bell-weather for the economic fortunes of the neighborhood as Grant Avenue’s retail sector faces an uncertain future.

[updated 2024-1-14]

#sidewalk stalls of Chinatown #sidewalk artisans of Chinatown #Sun Kam Wah #Washington Street sidewalk stall #Chin Kee and family #San Francisco Chinatown #Clay Street sidewalk stall #Frank Wong shoeshine stand miniature #Tie Sang Tong at 929 Dupont St.#Wing On

3 notes · View notes

demospectator · 3 years

Text

Tin How Temple of Old San Francisco Chinatown

The above photo is identified by the California Historical Society as a “street scene at corner of Waverly Place and Clay St.” The building's façade indicates that this was the Tin How Temple, which was located mid-block on Waverly Place between Clay and Washington streets.

The Tin How Temple lays claim to the distinction as the oldest extant Taoist temple in San Francisco's Chinatown, and, given its pioneer roots, represents one of the oldest operating Chinese temples in the United States.

Tin How Temple, no date. Photographer unknown and collected by T.E. Hecht (now in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

The photographers of pre-1906 Chinatown found the Tin How Temple (also spelled Tianhou Temple, in Chinese: 天后古廟; canto: “Tin hauh gǔ miu”) a compelling subject of their attention. While most historians concur that the temple was founded and built in 1852 by the Sam Yup district association (三邑會館), its original location, supposedly on Mason Street and Post remains in question.

By the 1890’s, the association had moved the temple to 33 Waverly Place. Commensurate with Its prominence in the life of the community, the Chinese referred to the street on which it was located as 天后廟街 (canto: “Tin Hauh miu gaai”) or “Tin How Temple Street.”

“In front of the Joss House, Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1896 - 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division).

By the time Arnold Genthe took the above photo of adults and children in front of the steps leading up to the Tin How temple at the turn of the 20th century, improvements had been made to the exterior façade of the building.

"The facade of Tianhou's temple is brick painted in pastel colors and veined to look like marble. The second floor, where the main altar was generally located, had a balcony with the names of several temples specializing in other deities. Genthe called this photograph "In Front of the Joss House." The term joss, a pidgin Americanization of the Portuguese deus ("god"), was used to describe Chinese temples. According to Ching Wah Lee, 'Chinese considered it incestuous to be intimate with a member of the opposite sex bearing the same surname. To avoid such embarrassments the ladies of the night will call themselves 'Daughter of Tien Hou,' and asked of their surnames will say 'I'm a Tien,' there being no such surname.'"

-- John Tchen, citing Ching Wah Lee, "Chinese temples in North America," in A History of the Chinese in California A Syllabus, ed. Thomas Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, 1969 pages 73 to 75. publ. Chinese Historical Society of America.

Detail from “Waverly Place at Clay Street,” April 9, 1900. Photograph by D.H. Wulzen (from the collection of the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library). In this enlargement of Wulzen’s photo of the building at the northeast corner of the intersection of Waverly Place and Clay Street, a worker on the second floor’s balcony is painting the exterior and veining the pattern to create faux-marble effect, similar to the Tin How Temple’s façade across the street. The signage at right, 富興貴 (lit. “Wealth and Prosperity;” canto: “fu hing gwai”) may denote a gambling house. The idea for the slogan, according to Wong Yuen-ming, “appears in various Confucian classics 富興貴是人之所欲也, i.e., wealth and honor is what people desire.”

“B2694 Chinatown, S.F. Cal. The Joss Temple” c. 1889. Photo by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of The Bancroft Library). Some online sources date this photo as c. 1900, but the “Pacific Coast Scenery – Alaska to Mexico Catalogue" published by Taber in 1889 included this numbered “Boudoir” series image.

In this view of the Tin How temple at 33 Waverly Place in old San Francisco Chinatown taken from an elevated position on the south side of the street, several men can be seen hovering over a fortune teller’s divination table on the sidewalk in front of the temple. The large banner signage seen at the street level advertises the fortune-teller’s use of the 卦命 (canto: “gwah ming”) as his method of divination. The temple of the Gee Tuck Tong (pinyin: "Zhide tang" 至德堂) can be seen at the right of the above photo at 35 Waverly Place. The Gee Tuck temple, dedicated to the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heavens, was reportedly founded during the mid-1880s

Tien Hou Temple on Waverly Place, c. 1890 -- Photo by Willard E. Worden

The top floor of the building in the right of the above photo is the Gee Tuck Society (至德堂; canto: Gee Duck Tong) at 35 Waverly Place: this temple had supposedly operated since the mid-1880s.

Researchers have recently been placing its location on the San Francisco public health map of 1885 as shown here:

(Location markers by Peter Romaskiewicz) For a more about Mr. Romaskiewicz”s project, please go to this link for other locations of San Francisco’s urban Chinese temples.

“Chinese Joss House, San Francisco, Cal.” photo by I.W. Taber (?) Fritz Muller postcard -- 1905 (from the collection of the California Historical Society)

"28. A Short Street, Chinatown San Francisco, Cal.” c, 1900 (Photographer unknown from the collection of the California Historical Society). The street on which this photo was taken has remained unidentified in the collection of the California Historical Society for years. However, the Tin How Temple is readily seen on the left, and the Gee Duck Tong building at 35 Waverly Place appears in the center of the frame.

“Boy formally dressed in Chinese outfit,” c. 1905. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). This confident boy (possibly a merchant’s son in New Year’s garb and who can be seen in at least two other photographs by Arnold Genthe), appears to have been taken outside of the Tin How Temple on Waverly Place.

Unfortunately, and as so many other individuals captured in the pre-1906 photos of the Tin How Temple, the identity of the boy in the above photo has been lost to historic memory. Forty years ago, in the preface to his book about the Chinatown photographs of Arnold Genthe, author and social historian Jack Tchen wrote about the one-who-got-away as follows:

". . . As a social historian, I am always painfully reminded of the fragility of the threads connecting our present with the past. When I first began my fieldwork in San Francisco, Mark Lai advised me to speak immediately with Soon K. Lai, a gentleman in his eighties who had been a prominent figure in San Francisco's Chinese community and who had a sharp, clear memory. "He can probably identify everyone in those photographs," I was told. After emerging from a few days of archival research, I discovered that in the interval Mr. Lai had stumbled on some steps, hit his head, and died.

"I did not realize how significant Mr. Lai's untimely death would be until I came to find very few Chinese who survived from 1906. Exclusion acts had prohibited the immigration of Chinese women, and anti-miscegenation laws had prohibited the marriage of Chinese and whites. This meant that those workers who were here could have no families and therefore had no descendants to pass on their life stories. Like most working people, the Chinese of that time left few written records of their lives. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed whatever documents did exist. Soon K. Lai was one of the few remaining threads...."

Tin How Temple. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Historical Society)

“The First Born” Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress) The above photo was taken on the east side of Waverly Place with the Tin How Temple in the background. According to historian Jack Tchen, “[t]he addresses were often red with pearls or jewels and a red fluffy pompom on top. Sometimes bells were attached so that when the child moved they would make a noise. Silk tassels often hung down on both sides. The difference between the headgear of boys and girls was that girls’ headdresses came down and covered their ears, whereas boys’ did not. Girls’ holiday clothing generally had embroidered edges absent from comparable clothing for boys.”

“31. Chinese Restaurant” c. 1900 - 1906. Postcard based on an image by an unknown photographer (from the collection of Wong Yuen-Ming). The postcard producers of the burgeoning postcard industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries cared little for accuracy in publishing tourist postcards of Chinatown.

As this 1911 advertisement shows, the Locomobile Company of America, an early American automobile manufacturer founded in 1899, came to San Francisco sometime between the Fall of 1901 and April 1906 to photograph its car in front of the old Tin How Temple on Waverly Place in Chinatown.

Modern-day residents and visitors to San Francisco Chinatown might assume that automobile shows such as the Chinatown Car Weekend Car Show in 2022 represented a relatively recent phenomenon. As this advertisement for a Locomobile shows, such an assumption would be erroneous.

Sometime after mid-August 1901, the Locomobile Company of America, an early American automobile manufacturer founded in 1899, came to Chinatown to photograph its steam car where the new could be juxtaposed with the ancient. For reasons that remain forgotten, the company or its ad agency chose to display its Locomobile Steam vehicle in front of the Tin How Temple on Waverly Place. The ad recites an event on August 12, 1901, when two Denver men named Yont and Felker drove to the top of Pike’s Peak. Their trip in a two-cylinder Locomobile Steamer took just over nine hours and was accomplished by pushing as well as driving to claim the distinction of being the first motorcar to reach the summit.

Until now, the precise location for the ad-shoot had also been lost to memory. Fortunately, enough of the temple's façade (including a portion of its vertical signage above and behind the driver's head), appeared behind the group of Chinatown onlookers. After comparing the ad with other photos of the pre-1906 temple, we now can identify where one of Chinatown's first car exhibitions occurred.

One of the few pre-1906 photographs of the Tin How temple’s altar, c. 1896-1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress). “The five-piece altar garniture,” longtime Friends of Roots head Albert Cheng observes, “symbolizes ‘Wuxing, i.e., five elements.” Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth comprise the wuxing system. The system (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: “wǔxíng;” canto: “Ng Hang”), often translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, represents a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study. Wuxing, developed sometime during the Han dynasty in the second or first century BCE, purports to explain phenomena such as cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines.

According to historian Jack Tchen, the Tin How temple’s altar was located “at the entranceway to the main altar directly behind it. Placed upon the two ornate teakwood tables are assorted pewter vessels and carved wooden cult objects. Contrary to Western forms of worship, the Chinese attitude toward religion was not denominational. A person could worship Buddha and several patron deities, and at the same time cite Taoist parables. The attitude was carried to some degree into the Chinese acceptance of Christianity.”

The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the entire building in which the Tin How temple was located.

“Ruins of the Chinese Joss House on Waverley [sic] Place, Chinatown” April 1906. Photographer unknown.

Newspaper reports indicated that the patrons of the Tin How and other temples on Waverly Place were able to salvage a few sacred objects from the ruins, including an image of the goddess, the temple bell, and part of the altar. A report from the San Francisco Bulletin of April 25, 1906, recounted the following events:

“CHINESE WORSHIP UPON RUINS OF CHINATOWN STRANGE CEREMONY PERFORMED IN ASHES OF FAMOUS JOSS HOUSE

“With unwavering faith in the Image of Heaven, twenty Chinese gathered at one desolate spot in the ruins Chinatown this morning and worshipped in full compliance with the rites of their religion. In the ashes of their temple they knelt and silently offered their prayers.

“Prostrate in the smouldering wreckage before them was the charred trunk of the graven image that once held the altar in the Temple of Shaie Tai. The fumes of fresh incense and sacred punks curled skyward. All the dainties obtainable under the circumstances were spread in the propitiatory offering to the devil that no offense to that deity might bring a recurrence of the disaster. No detail was overlooked by the faithful Chinese, who pleaded for mercy in behalf of the 35,000 of their countrymen made homeless by the holocaust.

“This unique and touching service took place in Waverly place, where once stood the richest Joss house of San Francisco's Chinese quarter. Last night the worshippers came across the bay from Oakland, bringing two priests of the temple with them. At dusk they tried to find the ruins of their Joss house, but were driven back by the military guards thrown in a wide circle around the locked mansions of Nob Hill. Devotedly, however, they stuck to their mission and went back as far as the ferry building, where they huddled together and remained without shelter until another should come and they could perform their trust.

“Early this morning they again made their way to Chinatown. A special policeman escorted them and after some parley got permission from the sentries for the performance of the ceremony in which the Orientals place their only hope of future safety and salvation.

“The ruins of the Joss house were soon found and the removal of a little debris uncovered the partly burned Joss. At first sight of the blackened wooden image the Chinese dropped to their knees. They remained silent for a moment and then arose, the priests chanting to the fallen Joss, while the others spread out the offerings of food that had been brought along.

“For an hour the Chinese remained in worship and then when they had completed their appeal to the spirit of the burned Joss they cautiously backed from the sacred wreckage of the temple and after one final prayer, muttered in unison, returned to the thousands of destitute Chinese in the cities across the bay. The feast for the devil was left. Some hungry refugee may chance to find it, but that does not matter to the faithful Chinese; they have humiliated themselves before all that is left of the Image of Heaven and will await the blessing their religion promises for such devotion.”

Above: the top two stories of the Tin How Temple building in 1910. [Photograph from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America]. Judy Yung, from San Francisco’s Chinatown by Judy Yung and Chinese Historical Society of America: “The Chinese called Waverly Place Tien Hou Miu Gai after the temple built in honor of Tien Hou, Goddess of Heaven and protector of travelers, writers, actors, sailors, and prostitutes. Erected in 1852 under the auspices of the Sam Yup Association, the temple was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and rebuilt on the top floor of the Shew Hing District Association building at 125 Waverly Place.”

The Sue Hing Benevolent Association (肇慶會館; canto: “Sue Hing Wuih Guhn”) acquired ownership of the property, reconstructed, and reopened the temple in 1910 on the top floor of a new four-story building at a re-numbered 125 Waverly Place. As families moved out of Chinatown, and its population dwindled (particularly its bachelor community), the association closed the temple in 1955. On May 4, 1975, the association reopened the temple; the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had re-populated San Francisco's Chinatown.

The Tin How Temple atop the Sue Hing Benevolent Association building - May 2, 2021 -- photo by Doug Chan

“Sometimes the highest floor of an organization was reserved as a sanctuary – to be as near the gods as possible. Such is the case with the Shew Hing [District] Association, one of the two oldest temples in San Francisco. Located on Waverly Place, this street has always been called by the Chinese T’ien Hou Miao or the Street of the T’ien Hou Temple.”

-- CHSA founder and former temple custodian, Chingwah Lee

As of the summer of 2022, the Tin How temple remained closed to the general public (and open only to its members). Photograph on June 24, 2022, by Doug Chan. The northerly adjacent building to the temple is the Yee Fung Toy Association building. The building with the green-painted façade serves as the headquarters of the Hop Sing Tong.

[updated: 2024-2-24]

A footnote about the temple’s missing stair-nosings:

For those who stare for hours at the photographs of the Tin How temple throughout the 19th century and up to 1906, the temple’s nine front stairs to its first floor over its below grade level provide a clue to fixing dates to such photos. The earlier images, including Taber's “Boudoir” series photo "B 2694 Chinatown, S.F.Cal. The Joss Temple,” show the bottom three stairs with tread nosing(s) overhanging the vertical risers.

“Exterior of Building in Chinatown,” no date. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). This image of the Tin How temple on the pre-1906 Waverly Place show the bottom three steps still have their original tread nosings.

However, later photos, circa 1890s (for example by Willard Worden, and Fritz Muller's postcard shot of 1905, and the photo posted above), show that the stair tread nosings for the bottom three stone stairs have been removed or chiseled off. I'm guessing that the work was done sometime in the very late 1890's. Unfortunately, information often accompanying photos from this period can be misleading, as collectors often affix inaccurate descriptions and dates to their holdings based on when they acquired to an image.

“Chinese Joss House Dupont Street bet. Sacramento & Clay Sts. 1898″ no date. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). This stereograph used the preceding photograph (from a private collection). The “1898″ year as written appears to be of doubtful value in determining the actual year in which the photo was taken..

Opensfhistory image wnp37.03766 (“Boy formally dressed in Chinese outfit,” c. 1905, and also shown above), provides some evidence that the stairs alteration work was performed later toward the end of the 19thcentury. The detail of the bottom three steps of the Tin How Temple can be seen clearly in this shot taken on the sidewalk in front of the left basement entrance (with missing tread nosings over the stair risers).

One wishes that the late architectural historian Phil Choy were around to address the question. Moreover, the documentary record, such as newspaper accounts, is lacking about the building alterations which may have occurred on site between the 1880's to 1906 when the Sam Yup Association operated the temple. Additional research and analysis await.

[updated: 2024-3-10]

#Tin How Temple #Waverly Place #Sue Hing Association #Arnold Genthe #I.W. Taber #Yee Fung Toy Association #Hop Sing Tong #Gee Duck Tong #Locomobile in San Francisco Chinatown #Chingwah Lee #Phil Choy #Judy Yung #Sam Yup Association

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