The Hidden Chinatown of San Francisco

 There are plenty of merch out there about Chinatown, and artists can simply upload a picture, and setup a "print-on-demand" (POD) place for t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and whatever you can print a picture on, setup a listing, and sell those items without spending money up front.  But are you buying the RIGHT item? Let's just say some artists (and I use the term loosely) clearly didn't verify the pictures fit the description. Which implies they didn't create the pictures they uploaded.  Just for fun, I did a search for "San Francisco Chinatown Merchandise" on Google, and while most of the items are correctly depicting San Francisco Chinatown, there are a few that clearly are NOT San Francisco Chinatown, even though they are labelled as San Francisco Chinatown.  Here is one such example on Amazon. Do you see the problem?  A sweatshirt for sale on Amazon labeled as San Francisco China Town That's right, they are driving on the "wrong side". ...

When it comes to San Francisco history, William Richardson is not exactly a popular name. Today, it is time to shed some light on this individual mostly forgotten by history.  William Anthony Richardson via Wikicommons William Anthony Richardson, as I had previously covered in this blog , is an officer on a British whaling ship Orion . His exact position is either first officer or fourth mate, it doesn't really matter, only that he's not the captain. In 1822, his ship arrived in today's San Francisco Bay, just as Mexico had won its independence, and reversed the long-standing Spanish policy of isolation. Instead, the Mexican ports will be open to trade... as long as it gets its fair share in taxes and transactions are properly recorded.  Richardson met Maria Antonia, as imagined by Bluewillow Mr. Richardson was sent ashore as he has a knowledge of Spanish, and he was promptly escorted by soldiers to see their Comandante, Ignacio Martinez, who invited him to the fiesta he wa...

Most of you who checked the origin of Caesar's Salad probably accept the story that it was invented in Mexico by Caesar Cardini at Caesar's Grill, in Tijuana, Mexico. But the story has MANY San Francisco ties. (Its ties to Chinatown will be explained in a second) The first person who put the Caesar salad into the American culture was none other than Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, in his column on August 27th, 1946, and even Caen mentioned that the salad had been well established by then, believed to have been invented 2 decades before. The Cardini version does NOT have anchovies, but instead, has Worcestershire sauce. And it is usually mixed at the table by the server or the chef.   However, San Francisco has a different story. There was also a Caesar's Grill in San Francisco during the prohibition, and may have existed as far back as 1911. Historians can find no link between Caesar Cardini and the San Francisco Caesar's Grill though. And this Caesar...

At one end of Spofford Alley stood a community mural, and one of the phrases on top is "Tape vs. Hurley". What you probably do not know was this was the EARLIEST court victory against school racism dating back to 1885, 70 years before Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, and 11 years BEFORE "Plessy vs. Ferguson" (1896).  Mural at Washington side of Spofford Alley, Mary Tape, Tape v Hurley 1885 courtesy author Joseph Tape was born in Guandong, in Southern China. He came to San Francisco, as a teenager in 1864, and worked as a servant to a dairy farmer, and steadily moved up to delivery wagon driver. He met and married Mary McGladery in 1875. Mary originally came from Shanghai as a teenager a few years after Joseph did, and MAY have been trafficked, but was rescued and placed with the Ladies' Protection and Relief Society's shelter, and chose to take her caretaker's name as a symbol of her rebirth. When they married, they both took the German su...

This First Chinese Baptist Church stood unique among all Chinatown buildings in that it incorporates clinker bricks in its facade. Originally built in 1888, it was rebuilt after the 1906 Earthquake and fire. The congregation, with assistance from other Baptist churches across the US, was able to rebuild, and they chose a very western choice: walls studded with that's known as "clinker bricks". These bricks are darker, and gnarled, and are named for the sound they make when you clink them together.  First Chinese Baptist Church, 15 Waverly Pl, SF CA 94108 courtesy author Close-up of the gnarled clinker bricks among regular bricks Clinker bricks are made by exposing unfired bricks to hotter fire for longer so the surfaces sintered and thus are SEALED, unlike regular bricks which are porous. Therefore, the clinker bricks barely absorb any water, and are denser and heavier than regular bricks, thus more stable.  NOTE:  Some claim the clinker bricks were reclaimed from the rub...

Waverly Pl was far more than just an alley in San Francisco. During the earliest days of San Francisco, it was apparently known as "Pike Street", at least until the 1906 Earthquake. I cannot find any historical references on when the name was changed. Many references imply state "Waverly Pl, (formerly Pike St.) while other references imply stated Pike St. Even from the earliest days in Chinatown, it was known as a place of brothels, and allegedly both Bella Cora and Ah Toy, the two most famous madams of Chinatown, have brothels at or very close to Pike St. (later Waverly Pl). For a while, the brothels co-existed with barbers on the same street, where sailors and miners can get a haircut and a shave for 5 cents, and later, 10 cents. So the area was also known as Five Cent Street or Ten Cent Street for a while. But the street remained mired with vices.  A "crime map" prepared for SF City Supervisors in 1885, note the blue and red vices mapped.  courtesy Cornell U...

Previously, we have mentioned Hang Ah, the first dimsum restaurant in the US . But what exactly is dimsum, and its related activity, known as "yum chaa" (lit: drink tea, in Cantonese)?  Dimsum is the Cantonese pronunciation of 點心 (dian-xin). One version of the origin story was that dimsum was originally meant as smaller snacks presented as thank-you gestures, from the expression gratitude 點點心意 (lit: bits of our thoughts/gratitude) which got shortened to 點心. The other version cited writing from the Tang Dynasty that used the term 點心 as a verb... "(gently) point at the heart" as in "barely fill the stomach".  Modern dimsum is usually associated with "yum chaa" (drink tea), which is basically a "dimsum brunch". When someone told you in Cantonese "請你飲茶" (chen-nae-yum-chaa), they are not inviting you to tea, but a dimsum brunch.  Family Style Dimsum with 9 dishes (via Wikicommons) The term "dimsum" itself did not appear i...