Photo by Tim Wilson
The building that once housed the Chinese Cultural and Community Center in Philadelphia has sat vacant for six years and was once considered the most iconic structure in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, according to Philadelphia.
The building on 125 North 10th Street dates back to the 1830s and by the following decade, Chinese immigrants began to settle in the area around the building forming one of the country’s oldest Chinatowns.
Racist immigration laws made it difficult for Chinese Americans to establish a community and the area was highly transient until those laws were finally repealed in the 1940s.
The Chinatown YMCA was established at the 125 North 10th Street site in the 1950s and began promoting civic improvement in Chinatown. The ‘Y was instrumental in getting bilingual street signs added as well as pagoda style buildings to give the neighborhood a distinct architectural feel.
By 1965 the Chinatown YMCA split from its parent organization to form the Chinese Cultural and Community Center.
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Taiwanese architect Yang Cho-cheng (C. C. Yang) was hired with the goal of making the Center into a symbol of the Chinese community.
Chang Tien Teh (T. T. Chang) who established the Chinatown Y and later the Chinese Cultural & Community Center earned the unofficial name of mayor of Chinatown.
After he died in 1996, the building began an era of slow decline and the Cultural Center was closed.
It’s been vacant for six years, but was designated a Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in June of this year
You can read more about the history of 125 North 10th Street in Philadelphia.
