Similarly, Dim Sum Garden on 1020 Race Street draws in hungry eaters daily Penang’s - a Malaysian restaurant on 117 N 10th Street - does the same, with many rushing in to have Roti Canai, steaming Pad Thai noodles and crispy spring rolls. Restaurants like Pho Calí - a Vietnamese restaurant on 1000 Arch Street - continue to thrive. Nevertheless, the neighborhood’s ethos emulates immigration ideology: resilience, hard work, and community orientation. The highway cuts through Chinatown, resulting in children and community members living in unsafe public spaces, with cars, highway traffic, and big loading trucks as everyday phenomena in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. In 2020, over 100,000 cars and trucks traveled along the expressway daily, according to state traffic counts. Officially known as Interstate 676, the expressway has split the neighborhood in half, causing a stint in Chinatown’s community development and significantly contributing to air and noise pollution in the area. In the coming years, the Asian American community battled against urban renewal plans such as the Vine Street Expressway in the 1960s. After World War II, loosened immigration policies toward the Chinese metamorphosed Chinatown into a family-oriented community. So, for many decades around the 900 block of Race Street, a concentration of Chinese businesses emerged – the cluster soon becoming Chinatown. At the same time, laundries and restaurants near Philadelphia’s commercial harbors emerged due to Cantonese immigration to Philadelphia. The beginning of Philadelphia’s Chinatown is marked by Lee Fong, a sojourner, who was one of the many who fled “anti-Chinese sentiment in the west” and relocated east to form small “bachelor societies” as recorded by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC). As a bustling hub of restaurants, K-beauty stores, and Asian supermarkets, Chinatown represents Hong Kong, Cantonese, Fujianese, Northern Sichuan, and Taiwanese cultures, with an addition of Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Burmese, Vietnamese, and American ideology mixed in the pot. Born in 1870, Philadelphia’s Chinatown’s parameters extend across Arch Street to Vine Street and from 11th Street to 8th Street. But, to the more than 3,000 people who live there - and thousands more who count on it for cultural connection - it’s home. For some, Chinatown is a place to visit: you can grab a cup of boba, pick up a box of steaming takeout noodles, and buy dragon fruit.
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