Washington DC first Chinatown on south side Pennsylvania at 4 1/2 Street
Posted by Cunningb2 | Posted in Pennsylvania Avenue | Posted on February 25, 2020
Great post from the blog Streets if Washington about "Little China " and Chinese restaurants in DC. This is MM White's exact block on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Rediscovering DC's Earliest Chinese Restaurants LINK
According to sociologist Esther Ngan-ling Chow, the first Chinese resident of Washington was a man named Chiang Kai, who settled on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1851. D.C.’s Chinatown, or “Little China” as it was originally called, began to develop in the 1880s. It was little more than a block long, on the south side of Pennsylvania at 4 1/2 Street NW, a stretch of road that now separates the National Gallery of Art’s east and west buildings. By the late 1890s, it was a small, self-contained community, and this is where the city's first Chinese restaurants opened.
