Places

This was the second South Side headquarters of the powerful On Leong Merchants Association. In 1992 it was seized by the Federal Government, during a questionable but widely publicized prosecution for gambling. The Government later sold the building to the Chinese Christian Union Church, which made extensive alterations to the interior but left the exterior untouched. Comparison with early photographs shows not only that the.exterior is unchanged but that it is in remarkably good condition.

This page features places -- buildings, streets, landscapes, etc. -- that matter in the history of Midwestern Chinese-Americans. In the present version of the page most such places are in the South Side Chinatown, but in the future we plan to add sections on the earlier Clark Street Chinatown and on locations outside those two Chinatowns, both in the Chicago area and elsewhere in the Midwest.

For photos of historic people click on People. For photos of historic objects, click on Objects. For background, click on Research - 19th century and Research - 20th century. For photos of our own historic museum building, click on Quong Yick. For more World's Fair pictures, click on Fairs

Earliest South Side Chinatown: A Forgotten On Leong Building, ca. 1912 Last revised 14 July 2005

The well-known On Leong Building on Wentworth Avenue, now called the Pui Tak Building, is actually the second large structure built by or for the On Leong Merchant's Association. The first one, long forgotten by local architectural historians, is shown below. It is located in the 200 block of West Cermak Avenue, in those days called West 22nd Street. It included (and still includes) a number of ground-floor shops, with street addresses from 217 to 249, all on Cermak.

The building was started in 1912, the year that Chinese businesses began to move from the old Loop Chinatown to the new South Side Chinatown. The deed holder was Jacob J. Kern, a former State's Attorney. His clients, presumably the wealthy and powerful On Leong Association, announced that they would spend $200,000 on a structure large enough for 15 stores, 30 flats, and space for a "club." The club may not have been finished until 1914 when On Leong began to list 235 W. 22nd St. as its regular address.

The architect, H. J. Swanson, designed the building specifically for its future Chinese occupants. While the overall design was not unusual by early 20th century Chicago standards, it had distinctively Chinese features: (1) white glazed tile trim decorated with dragons in a quasi-Chinese style, and (2) a third floor balcony of the kind favored by Chinese associations in other early Chinatowns -- for instance, in San Francisco. This balcony marks On Leong's former headquarters. As the 2005 photograph shows, the balcony was later replaced by windows and masonry. The dragon trim -- now washed to its original whiteness -- still exists.

The building currently houses 17 ground-floor stores and other businesses. It no longer has stairs on the street leading down to other businesses in the basement. A pair of Western-style lion heads between the 2nd and 3rd floors marks the location of the former On Leong balcony. Tall doors with high transoms stand at the street entrance to stairs to the upper floors. Only one such door and transom are in their original condition.

Near the eastern end of the building is the sign of the now-defunct Ming's Enterprise, one of Chicagoland's finest surviving Chinese shop signs in the classic 1920s-30s style.

Credits: Chuimei Ho was the first to connect the historic photograph and the present-day building. The date and architect's name are from the City of Chicago's on-line Chicago Landmarks website. See also Chicago Tribune 8/20/1912.and Lakeside Annual Directories, 1912-1914.

The decorative tiles on the walls of the building are American, not Chinese, made by the Teco Pottery Company in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Teco vases and flower pots had similar glazes and are now considered to be highly collectible. Note that none of the motifs are truly Chinese -- they were designed by a creative European-American who had seen very little real Chinese art or architecture

Won Kow Restaurant, 1927-28, 2233-2239 S Wentworth Avenue Last revised 30 Sept 2005

Architects: Michaelson & Rognstad. Designed by the same team and built at the same time as the On Leong/Pui Tak Building, the Won Kow Building differs in being a private, commercial structure. Commissioned by a restaurateur named Moy, the second floor has been a restaurant since it first opened. The ground floor has housed (and still houses) shops while the third floor has recently been converted to office space. Like the On Leong/Pui Tak Building, this one is constructed of brick and ornamental tile, has open second and third floor balconies, and features a partial tile roof supported by Chinese brackets. Further, it shares with the On Leong building the motif of an M-shaped pai lo gateway that the architects seem to have liked especially. But the overall effect is as much Moorish as Chinese -- the architects may have been influenced by designs for the many exotically decorated movie theaters and ballrooms built in Chicago during the 1920s. Urns on top, in spite of their funereal symbolism, were common enough on Chicago buildings of the period.

Ping Tom Park Pavilion, 1999 23 June 2005

One of the most attractive structures in Chinatown, this open-air pavilion was built as the central feature of the five-acre Ping Tom Park, bordering the Chicago River directly north of the Chinatown Square townhouses. The architects (Robert Sit and Ernie Wong) and structural engineers (Joe Farruggia and Bill Wong) all have long-standing Chinatown connections. Although they failed to convince the Chicago Park District to make the park's plants and layout look as Chinese as they may have hoped, they succeeded splendidly with the pavilion. It has become an important Chinatown landmark in the eyes of residents and tourists.

The Moy Association Building, 1928 & 1932, 2238 South Wentworth Avenue.

Last revised 30 Sept 2005

The Chicago Landmarks website says that Henry Sierks was the architect and that the building was started in 1912. However, this seems to us impossible. Sierks, whose buildings go back to the 1880s, must have retired before the 1920s, and yet until then there was no Chinese activity on Wentworth Avenue south of 22nd Street. Hence we believe that Sierks cannot have designed this particular structure, and certainly not as early as 1912 when Chinese had just begun to move to the South Side Chinatown. Perhaps another building is meant -- conceivably the one that was demolished to make space for the Moy Association Building.

[The AIA Guide to Chicago confirms this. It says the present building was erected in 1928 with the upper floors being added in 1932. The architects were Michaelson and Rognstad.]

The Moys' building bears a number of similarities to the Won Kow Restaurant and the Pui Tak/ On Leong Building, including an impressive third-floor balcony and the use of Midwestern tile in quasi-Chinese style (probably also from the Teco Co.) to decorate a brick facade. The green, yellow, and white of the densely ornamented tiles against the buff color of the brick produce a striking effect, making the Moy Association Building one of the most handsome in Chinatown.

Between 1933 and the 1980s, the ground floor of the building housed the for-profit Ling Long Museum, some of whose exhibits have come to the Chinese-American Museum. It is now the Emperor's Choice Restaurant

South Side Chinatown in 1916, looking west

Reincke's map shows the Wentworth-Archer-22nd Street area only five years after On Leong-affiliated businesses moved south from the old Loop Chinatown. Many of the three- and four-story buildings on the left may not have existed -- the mapmaker's artist seems to have felt free to invent generalized structures to fill built-up spaces for which he had no specific information. On the other hand, the major structures -- factories, warehouses, bridges, etc. -- are drawn with distinctive details and must have been more or less as the artist depicted them. The original On Leong building (see below) had already been built. The same is true of the Chinatown Lift Bridge, which still survives. The building that now houses the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago was already in existence (it was built in 1896) but the artist did not draw it accurately. He may never have actually seen it.

Cermak-Wentworth Pavilion, 1990s 3 July 2005

Built with funds from the Taiwan government and local sources, this small open pavilion regularly appears in television commercials and in newscasts of the annual Chicago Marathon, which passes right in front. The land, at the northeast corner of Cermak and Wentworth Avenues, was donated by the Chinatown Parking Corporation.

Pui Tak Building (formerly On Leong Building), 2216 S Wentworth Avenue Last revised 7 August 2005

Built in 1926-27. Architects: Michaelson and Rognstad. Designated a Chicago Landmark (the only one in Chinatown thus far) in 1993. The official Landmarks web site says that "the Oriental-style design was derived from the architecture of the Kwangtung [= Guangdong] district of China" but this is not true. The design is more Orientalizing than Oriental, representing a Westerner's reinterpretation of Chinese architectural forms. That Westerner, presumably either Michaelson or Rognstad, was highly creative. However, as these images show, he did not include many purely Chinese structural concepts or decorations.

Earliest South Side Chinatown: 2143 South Archer Avenue, before 1915 3 July 2005

When most of Chicago's Chinatown moved south from the loop in 1912, its shops, associations, and apartments (it included very few restaurants) were located on both sides of the 200 block of West 22nd Street and on the south side of the 2100 block of Archer. At that early stage there were no Chinese shops on Wentworth Avenue south of 22nd Street.

Of the buildings on Archer known to have been inhabited by Chinese in those days, only one remains: the former Wah Wing Lung & Co. That company is listed in the 1915 edition of the Lakeside Annual Directory. In more recent times, the building has housed various other Chinese businesses, including The Junk, a well-known restaurant of the 1970s-90s

Vanished Chinatown Landmarks, 1910s-1930s 9 July 2005

Several parts of the old South Side Chinatown have been lost. One is the group of buildings in the 150 block of West 22nd Street [Cermak Ave.], between LaSalle Street (itself now replaced by a freeway ramp) and Wentworth Avenue. That block was completely demolished by two events: by the widening of 22nd Street for the 1933 World Fair and then by the construction of the Cermak feeder ramps to the I-55/I-90/I-94 freeway system in the 1960s. During the 1920s, however, the blocks east of Wentworth were integral parts of Chinatown.

Among the most important buildings in that area were that of the Parisian Novelty Co., which sold its building for demolition in 1927 when 22nd Street was widened, and the Chinese Merchandise Mart or Emporium, a large Art Deco structure that was built near or on the site of the former Parisian Novelty building. The Parisian Novelty Co. is interesting not only because the company still exists (it is a leading manufacturer of corporate promotional items) but because it employed a number of Chinese-American workers in the 1920s, a period when most historians say that Chinese-Americans never worked in factories. The Chinese Emporium may have been the largest souvenir/curio shop in the history of Chicago's Chinatown.

Nine Dragon Wall, 2004 11 July 2005

A shortened version of a famous glazed tile wall in Beijing's Forbidden City, sponsored by the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. Although meant as a focus of community pride and as a tourist attraction, the wall serves another function in the eyes of traditionalists. The wall lies across the exit of the I-55/I-90 feeder ramp which, as the map above shows, is positioned so as to produce much bad feng shui if not for the powerful protective influence of a wall with no fewer than nine imperial dragons. The tiles were made in China and construction was by specialists from that country.

Hoy On Building, 1919 Revised 7 August 2005

At the northwest corner of Cermak and Wentworth, the building is a landmark because of its key location and size rather than its architectural elegance. That it was built for Chinese-American clients is shown by its open third-floor balcony, but its design otherwise is entirely Chicagoan. It has undergone numerous changes since it was built: the balcony was eventually replaced by a row of windows, the lower two floors were covered with pink material, and the main entrance, formerly on the corner, was moved north on Wentworth.

The top floor houses the Hoy On Association, whose members once came from a village of that name in Toisan, Guangdong province. The Association owns the building. In the 1920s the first floor housed the Singapore Restaurant. Both lower floors of the building are currently occupied by the Three Happiness Restaurant.

Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, 1956-58 15 July 2005

While the Chicago branch of the CCBA was founded in 1906, its current building at 250 West 22nd Place was not begun until 1956. The date is interesting, as this was a time when the population of Chinatown was static and new construction activity was minimal. The design of the central portion of the building not only emphasizes the owners' ethnicity but shows that the architect was familiar with traditional Chinese architectural concepts. The roof tiles must have been imported from East Asia, perhaps Taiwan or Hong Kong. There is a 400-seat auditorium behind the balcony that was formerly used for performances of Cantonese opera.

Most American Chinatowns have a branch of the CCBA, called Zhong Hua by local Chinese-Americans and in San Francisco once known to the English-language media as "the Six Companies." The CCBA's members are not individuals but organizations, including all of the family surname ("clanship") associations. Although the Zhong Hua of Chicago seems often to have been overshadowed by the local On Leong and Hip Sing Associations, it has filled several essential functions since its founding. In earlier days, it oversaw the locating of new Chinese laundries (and restaurants as well?) to ensure that they would be far enough apart to minimize competition. It is supposed to have been assigned this task by the famed Chinese ambassador Wu Tingfang. The modern Chicago Zhong Hua still retains another of its traditional functions: it leases a portion of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in suburban Stickney and re-leases burial plots to Chinese families.

The Confucius statue just east of the front door was dedicated in 1998. The government of Taiwan and the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) paid part of the cost.

Chinatown Gateway, 1975 16 July 2005

Designed by Peter Fung, this all-steel gateway was built across Wentworth at its junction with Cermak. It marked Chinatown's revival in the 1970s after three decades of sleepiness and decline. The need for it to look modern explains the lack of the kinds of ornamental detailing that one sees on the gateways of other Chinatowns. While some claim that it has become a bit shabby, the problem can be solved by sandblasting and painting. The gateway has many years of life in it yet, serving as both a symbol and a billboard for announcing civic events.

The Al Capone Connection, late 1920s Revised 27 Apr 2006

The headquarters of Alphonse Capone and his men during most of the Prohibition Era were first the Metropole Hotel on 23rd St and Michigan Ave and then the Lexington Hotel on 22nd St and Michigan, a few blocks east of the South Side Chinatown. Because 22nd (now Cermak Ave) was one of the few east-west streets to cross the many north-south railroad tracks in this part of the city, Capone's gang must have often followed it, especially when attending church on Sundays (Madonna Incoronata Church on Wentworth Ave and Alexander St, now St. Therese Church -- see below -- was the closest Italian-speaking Catholic church to the Lexington Hotel) and going out for Chinese food, which some of the gang (though perhaps not Al himself) are said to have liked.

The two structures shown here played a role in this story. The building in the photographs in the center and left housed the famed Guey Sam Restaurant on the corner of Wentworth and 22nd, a favorite of law-abiding citizens as well as a few gangsters. The small building just east of it on 22nd, shown here on the right, is said by some to have been where gang members left their guns while attending church and visiting friends in the Italian neighborhood in the southern part of the area that is now Chinatown (source 1). Others say that the guns were left in the ground floor shop below Guey Sam, in the space that later was to house first the Haylemon Restaurant and then the Penang Restaurant.

The Metropole and Lexington Hotels have been demolished, and so have many other structures associated with Chicago's gangster era. But the restaurant and supposed gun storage buildings still exist. The latter, now Overseas Art and Travel, is the only survivor among the 30+ Chinese-inhabited buildings east of Wentworth. All the rest were destroyed in the 1950s and 1960s by the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, the planned Franklin Bypass, and the CTA's Red Line.

WE HAVE RECENTLY LEARNED (source 2) THAT A STATUE OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS IN ST THERESE CHURCH WAS DONATED BY TERESINA CAPONE, AL'S MOTHER!! MORE INFORMATION ON THIS CAN BE FOUND FURTHER DOWN ON THIS PAGE.

Sources: (1) oral information given to Chuimei Ho by a European-American businessman, now in his late eighties, whose family once owned several buildings in Chinatown. (2) oral information from a knowledgeable member of St Therese (formerly Madonna Incoronata) church.

CASL's Kam Liu Center, 2004 Revised 23 Aug 2005

The Chinese American Service League, called "castle" by everyone in Chinatown, has become the community's leading social service agency. In earlier times, the CCBA and On Leong provided whatever help was available for the old, young, and poor. Now most such services are felt to be the responsibility of CASL.

In the late 1990s, CASL's leadership made the decision to build a new headquarters and, moreover, to build one that was not in traditional style, without green tile roofs, upswept eaves, and Chinese motifs on the walls. Studio Gang Architects received the commission. The result was a striking piece of contemporary architecture, perhaps the first landmark-quality building to have been built in Chinatown since the second On Leong Building was completed in 1928. In 2005 it received the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Architectural Excellence

Chinatown Square Plaza, 1997 23 June 2005

The plaza is in the southern central part of Chinatown Square, a block-long pedestrian mall built by a group of visionary Chinese-American businessmen in the 1990s. The mall almost failed but finally caught on when one of its founders had a bright idea: they would offer shops to shop-owners for one year rent-free. Shop-owners came and then shoppers, and the rest was history. Today Chinatown Square equals Wentworth Avenue in economic activity and importance to local residents.

Earliest South Side Chinatown: Hong Mun Building, 1890s/ 1920s Last revised 7 August 2005

The Hong Mun Association, often called the Chinese Freemasons Society, has roots that go back several hundred years in China. For most of its history, the Hong Mun was a secret society with a political agenda. Its declared mission was to take China back from the alien Manchu conquerors and restore the rule of the native Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Its overseas offshoots, including the one in Chicago, played an active role in the revolution of 1911 that resulted in the founding of the Chinese Republic under Sun Yat-sen.

The Hong Mun's revolutionary days are now long past and its Chicago branch exists peacefully in its South Side Chinatown headquarters on Cermak Road. It maintains ties with other Hong Mun branches in the U.S. and Asia as well as with European-American Masonic lodges. Though its current building, built in the 1890s, was first used by Chinese in 1912, the Hong Mun did not move there until the 1920s.

Chinese Christian Union Church, 1950 (founded in 1903) 28 July 2005

The CCUC was founded in 1903 by missionaries and converts from the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Baptist churches. First located in the Loop Chinatown on Clark Street, the church followed its worshipers as they moved to the new South Side Chinatown after 1912. In 1950 ground was broken at the corner of 23rd St and Wentworth Ave for the construction of the present church building. It has remained one of Chinatown's most important religious and social centers ever since.

At 218 West Alexander Street just west of Wentworth Avenue, the church building was originally consecrated as Santa Maria Incoronata Church and had a largely Italian-American congregation, many of whose ancestors came from Ricigliano near Salerno. In the 1950s the church began to attract more and more Chinese Catholic worshipers while the Italian congregation declined in numbers. In 1963 the building was passed on to St. Therese Chinese Mission, founded in 1940 and at first based in a rented store on Wentworth.Avenue

Inside, St. Therese has a number of distinctively Chinese features, including gold-on-black inscriptions and an altar with a Chinese-language tablet to honor ancestors. The interior is one of the most beautiful of any church in Chicago.

Chinatown Fire Station, 212 W Cermak, 1936 22 Aug 2005

Designed under the supervision of Paul Gerhardt, the city architect, and funded by the federal government's Depression-era WPA (Works Progress Administration), the station features two fire trucks, one ambulance, and no fewer than three brass firemen's poles. One of the trucks and the ambulance bear Chinese as well as Arabic numerals, along with a dragon logo created especially for the Chinatown Station.

Earliest South Side Chinatown: the future Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, 1896 5 Sep 2005

The building that houses the present-day museum was built in 1896, as a warehouse with shop space downstairs. In 1912, the year that Chinatown moved south to its present location from Chicago's Loop, the building housed the Chapman Manufacturing Company's medicine factory.

For the next 40 years the history of the building is obscure; it is said to have served as a (non-Chinese) retail and wholesale pharmacy during part of that time. In 1948, the building was bought by members of the Lee family. They made it the headquarters of the Quong Yick Wholesale Trading Company, the second largest Chinese foodstuff wholesaler in the Midwest. Quong Yick also made its own bean curd and grew its own bean sprouts in its basement. The ground floor was for business while the upper floors served to warehouse foodstuffs and provided beds for staff.

The Quong Yick Company, in decline during the 1980s and early 1990s, finally closed its doors in 1998. It was bought from its long-time owners by Jeffrey Moy, of an old Chinatown family. He removed most of the internal features of the building -- partitions, refrigeration equipment, etc, -- in preparation for conversion to other uses. Then, in April of 2004, he decided instead to sell the building to the Chinatown Museum Foundation.

Two months later, Raymond Lee, a member of the former owners' family who had himself lived and worked in the building as a young man, offered to donate its cost to the Foundation. Thanks to his generosity, work on conversion to a museum began in December 2004. The first floor of the new Chinese-American Museum of Chicago opened in May 2005.

Earliest South Side Chinatown: Amtrak Lift Bridge, 1915 Last revised 30 Sept 2005

The AIA Guide to Chicago says this railroad bridge was built in 1915. Reincke's map (see above) shows that it was definitely in existence by 1917. Vertical lift bridges of this type were patented by J. Waddell in 1893 and the first example was built on Halsted Street in Chicago in the following year. The movable center span, a riveted steel Pratt through truss, is 272 long and lifts 130 feet above the surface of the river.

The bridge still functions. Ping Tom Park (see below) provides a good vantage point for seeing it raise for barges and other watercraft. Normally it is in the lowered position as train traffic is heavy.

Sun Yat-Sen Park, 1976 5 Sept 2005

This small narrow park runs about a half block between West 24th Place and Interstate Highway 55, which runs in a wide trench just to the south. It seems to have been built as partial compensation for the loss of Hardin Park at 25th and Wentworth, destroyed when the Interstate was built. Traffic noise and exhaust fumes keep it from being a restful spot but it does provide some greenery for the community.

John C. Haines School 1990s (founded 1890s) 7 Sept 2005

Corner of 23rd Place and Princeton Avenue

The original Haines School was founded in the 1890s. It educated several generations of Chinese-American children after the community moved from the Loop to the South Side in 1912. Many of those children were in the kindergarten classes taught in the 1930s-1960s by Olga Huncke, a German-American who is still revered by her former students -- whether of Chinese, Italian, or other ethnic origins -- as a concerned teacher and inspiring advocate of cultural inclusiveness. The original brick building was replaced in the early 1990s by a larger steel-framed structure. It currently has 741 students in kindergarten through 8th grade, of whom more than 80 percent are Asian/Pacific Americans.

St. Therese School, 1955 (founded 1941) 7 Sept 2005

247 West 23rd Street

The institution has been in existence since 1941, but the current school building was not finished until fifteen years after that. Like Haines School, St. Therese School plays a major role in the education of Chinatown's children. It currently has about 300 students in kindergarten through 8th grade. About 95% of the students are Chinese-Americans.

18th Street Bridge, 1960s

18 Sept 2005

Thus far, we have not been able to find out much about this unusual, handsome structure that stands just east of the Ping Tom Park Pavilion. Most of the drawbridges in this area (and Chicago is said to have more such bridges than any other city in the world) have double leaves -- that is, the bridges open in the middle, proving settings for car chase scenes in innumerable movies and television shows. This one, however, has a single leaf, opening on one side and making car jumps impracticable. The bridge approved in 1963 and finished in the late 1960s, being built of imported Italian steel. It replaced an earlier drawbridge built in 1906 which in turn substituted for a center-pivoted swing bridge of 1880s vintage. The 1906 bridge is shown (inaccurately) on the Reincke map of 1917 (bridge #2).

An interesting non-Chinese feature is the large statue of Christ on the Cross donated to Santa Maria Incoronata by Teresina (or Therese) Capone, the mother of Al Capone. She is said to have been a devout woman who loved her son in spite of his faults. While she lived far south at 7244 Prairie Avenue during Al's heyday in Chicago, she evidently was fond of Santa Maria Incoronata. This may have been because the Riciglianese congregation spoke a Salerno dialect similar to that of her home town, Castellammare di Stabia. We do not know when she made the donation. It may have been after Al's imprisonment (in 1931) or death (in 1947). She herself died in 1952.

For more on the Italian and Chinese history of St, Therese Church, see http://www.sttheresechinatown.org/pageGen.asp?cat=About%20Us&page=History

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