Troubled Times in Chinatown : Once a thriving place to dine, browse and socialize, Chinatown is fighting for its economic life

As Yiu Hai (Mama) Quon stares at her restaurant’s empty dining room, she reminisces about times she spent hours pan-frying chow mein and egg foo young for crowds of hungry customers.

Quon, 93, still whips up tasty meals at the 46-year-old Grand Star restaurant in Chinatown, but now she spends most of her afternoons greeting the restaurant’s scant number of customers from a worn vinyl booth near the main entrance.

Her son, Wally, is equally nostalgic. He likes to show off pictures of Charles Bronson, Tony Curtis and other movie stars who used to visit. And he still hands out copies of a 1969 newspaper review that raved about his mother’s Peking duck and winter melon soup.

In many ways, Mama and Wally Quon symbolize the old Chinatown that has lived through its heyday and is now trying to carve a new role for itself.

Once a bustling tourist hub and an almost exclusively Cantonese enclave, Chinatown is now a multiethnic and multilingual community struggling to attract enough visitors to keep its shops afloat amid a shaky economy and a continuing shift of Chinese residents and businesses to the San Gabriel Valley.

“Chinatown is losing ground economically, and the businesses seem not to have done anything to recapture it,” said Kenneth Yee, an assistant pastor at the First Chinese Baptist Church. “But I think Chinatown will continue to be the focus of educational, spiritual and social services for the Asian community.”

Though Chinatown’s destiny is far from clear, many hope increased development in the community and in the surrounding Downtown area will restore its faded glory.

Strolling past the mom-and-pop gift shops along North Broadway, Don Toy envisions a Chinatown with stylish condominiums and a variety of restaurants, theaters and stores that would draw young professionals and keep present residents.

“Chinatown has this reputation of being a place only for the immigrant population, but I think it can and will attract young people back,” said Toy, director of the Chinatown Teen Post, a nonprofit social services agency. “I think it has tremendous potential.”

But crime, a lack of parking, costly real estate and the population shift to the San Gabriel Valley pose constant obstacles to this community of about 13,000.

More than 158,000 people of Chinese descent now reside in the San Gabriel Valley, with the largest populations in Alhambra, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Rosemead and Hacienda Heights.

Many Chinese families moved to that area in the late 1970s and ‘80s because they were attracted to its good schools and affordable single-family homes. Business owners set up shop in the San Gabriel Valley because commercial space is about 50% cheaper than in the Chinatown area, according to analysts.

The First Chinese Baptist Church recently confronted a dilemma that many others in Chinatown face when it considered expanding in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than half the congregation lives. But after more than two years of soul-searching, Yee and other leaders elected to look beyond the economic factors and expand in Chinatown.

“We agonized over it for about two years because you’re talking about paying a difference between $50 to $60 a square foot to $120 a square foot in Chinatown,” Yee said. “But we decided that we want to be here to greet the immigrants. We want to be there to help them make the transition.”

But others note that convenience often takes precedence over loyalty to Chinatown.

Kelly Chan, whose family owns the Phoenix Bakery on North Broadway, remembers when people used to make a special trip to Chinatown just to pick up a box of his almond cookies or a strawberry cream cake.

Today, San Gabriel Valley residents have many Chinese bakeries, restaurants, grocery stores and shops in their own neighborhoods and have no need to come to Chinatown.

“We believe our product is superior, but is ours so much better that if you live in the San Gabriel Valley you are willing to drive half an hour to come to Chinatown when you have a bakery five minutes away?” Chan said. “It used to be that Chinatown was the only place you could find certain items, but now you can get a Chinese dinner just as good, if not better, in San Gabriel.”

But even though the San Gabriel Valley now claims most of Los Angeles County’s Chinese residents and businesses, many say Chinatown still plays an important role as a port of entry for immigrants and as a symbol of traditional Chinese culture.

Chinatown, which was established in the 1880s, originally was east of Olvera Street Plaza at what is now Union Station. New Chinatown, which opened in 1938, was built along North Broadway and Hill Street.

For many years, Chinatown was a homogeneous community whose residents mostly came from Canton and spoke the same basic dialect. However, the 1965 repeal of the Alien Quota Act brought in a stream of Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan; and many Indochinese refugees moved to Los Angeles after the Vietnam War.

Today, Chinatown is home to people from all over the world who share a common Chinese ancestry but speak a multitude of languages.

James Sun is one of five Chinese owners of the Ocean Seafood Restaurant on North Broadway. He comes from Korea and speaks Mandarin. One of his partners, Chui Lee, is from Canton, while their manager, David Fong, comes from Hong Kong and speaks seven languages. Other Chinese employees at the popular dim sum restaurant hail from mainland China, Taiwan, Laos and Vietnam and speak French, Indonesian, Spanish, Malay, Japanese and Vietnamese.

“When I first came here, I worked as a busboy in Chinatown and they said I was a foreigner,” Sun said. “They fired me because I didn’t speak Cantonese. Now, there are people from all over the world who speak all kinds of languages.”

Although many residents are optimistic that their community will prosper in the next decade, they realize that Chinatown must overcome many obstacles.

Jimmy Phan, a Vietnamese-Chinese who owns three clothing shops in Chinatown, remembers when he was able to sell about $2,000 in clothing in one weekend. Now, Phan says he is lucky if he brings in $500. “If this continues, small shops will close,” he said. Business owners say many tourists have stopped coming to Chinatown because they perceive it as too crime-ridden.

So far this year, Los Angeles Police Department statistics for Chinatown show no murders, two rapes, 105 burglaries, 175 robberies and 73 thefts.

Chinatown is considered a low-crime area compared to other areas in the Police Department’s Central Division, but few people are willing to browse through Chinatown’s gift shops or walk along the main strip once night falls.

David Lee is always eager to talk about Chinatown’s past and future with anyone who stops by his travel agency on Mei Ling Way. As he propped himself on a couch in the back room, the 72-year-old reflected on the days when he ran General Lee’s, one of the Chinatown’s most popular restaurants. “In the old days, we got the Hollywood types, the reporters, the who’s who,” Lee said. “People came after work for a drink. It was a meeting place.”

Three years ago, Lee closed General Lee’s because business was bad and none of his younger family members wanted to take over the 103-year-old establishment.

“Young people need to take more interest in Chinatown,” Lee said. “But no one wants to stay in Chinatown. A lot of people move away because they figure they’ll have a better life. If you move out, you can fulfill the American dream. If you stay in Chinatown, you may not.”

David Louie, a broker with CB Commercial and a member of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, believes development in the Downtown area will lead to economic growth in Chinatown.

The Catellus Development Corp., which plans to build an office tower near the newly renovated Union Station, has long-term plans for additional office buildings, retail stores, restaurants and a hotel. And the Los Angeles Unified School District has talked about building a new high school and relocating its administrative offices to an area just northeast of Chinatown.

Since 1980, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency has channeled more than $41 million to various projects in the Chinatown area.

Most of the agency’s funds have been used to help finance several housing projects. But the CRA also helped pay for such projects as a $9.2-million parking plaza, the Chinatown Community Police Service Center and expansion of the Alpine Recreation Center.

Although the agency has addressed some of the community’s needs, there are many more that may not be met because the agency is running out of funds. Unless the City Council authorizes a higher tax increment limit, the agency will not be able to spend more than $57.3 million over the next 23 years on Chinatown projects, officials say.

“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be performed and we need money for it,” said Susan Totaro, the CRA’s project manager for Chinatown.

Irvin Lai, who serves on the center’s board of directors, said $50,000 has been raised for the Yale Street project, but $100,000 more is needed before the CRA releases $1.6 million for the one-acre site. The center will cost $10 million to build.

“People feel that we may not be able to do the job,” Lai said. “They feel their money can be used for something else--something they can feel and see. But once we get the land secured, I think people will get very excited.”