1930s’ GROUP PHOTO IN FRONT OF THE PROVIDENCE MISSION ON SECOND AVENUE IN PITTSBURGH’S CHINATOWN. PHOTO INCLUDES MRS. LIZZIE SHAW, DAUGHTER MABLE SHAW VOELZKE, LEE LEW SHEE, LYDIA, AND SOME OF HER SIBLINGS. | COURTESY OF LYDIA LEE OTT

Shirley Yee, after years of grieving the loss of her father, Yuen Yee, is now ready to tell his story — a piece of the larger story of Chinatown, a once culturally vibrant district Downtown. 

“Stories from Pittsburgh’s Chinatown,” will be presented free from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29 at the Heinz History Center to share with the public about the Chinese community Downtown that once was home to hundreds of people like Yuen. Just one restaurant remains, the Chinatown Inn on Third Street.  

The program includes short film screenings of “The Last Mayor of Chinatown” (2023) and “Pittsburgh’s Lost Chinatown” (2022), a panelist discussion and Q&A. It can be accessed in-person or online.

The panel, consisting of Yee, Lena Chen, a Chinese American artist, writer and scholar based in California; Lydia L. Ott, a local nonagenarian who works part time in her son’s dental office; Lydia Y. Ott, a fourth generation Chinese American who recently graduated from University of Pittsburgh in occupational therapy; and Jacqueline Wu, a Ph.D. student at Yale University studying race and migration in the United States; will share artifacts, first-hand knowledge and scholarly research.

Yee’s remembrance of her father is just one of many stories that Chinatown produced. Yuen Yee came to the United States from China as a child during the Great Depression, and by the 1960s was a proud spokesperson of the Chinese community; the media dubbed him “Mayor of Chinatown.”

Years later, he began to write pieces of a memoir about his life, Yee said recently in an interview.

He spent more than 50 years here working in the restaurant industry, in addition to serving in the Army, 

Yee, who teaches visual interaction design at Carnegie Mellon University, manually processed many of the stories, which he wrote by hand. She’s sifted through volumes of scrapbooks of material — newspaper clippings, documents and photographs — that date back to the 1940s. 

She plans to read parts of his stories during Sunday’s event.

If photographs, like those in his archives, could come alive, they’d be able to transport us to a time when Chinatown was still thriving, she says. It began long before Yuen’s father was born. In the late 1800s, the streets filled with newly arrived Chinese immigrants. Its streets served as a place for the Chinese people to escape the discrimination and racism that they faced elsewhere. 

“Chinese people were here in Pittsburgh I think longer than most Pittsburghers realize,” Yee says. They “worked very hard to make it a successful urban area.” She believes the community played an important role in building Downtown.

The construction of the Boulevard of the Allies, a four-lane road that connects Downtown to Oakland, is what later led to Chinatown’s demise. Built in the 1920s, it split the neighborhood.

The Quong Ye Tang general store was the backbone of Chinatown, serving as both a grocery store and meeting place on Sundays for workers. Yee explains that the general store, and really the entire community, “took care of its own people,” even through the Depression.

As a young child Yee’s father could be seen bussing tables in his family’s restaurant.

FROM FRONT CENTER (COUNTER-CLOCKWISE): WILLIAM YOT JR., THREE UNIDENTIFIED MEN, CHEW SOO LIM YEE (OWNER OF CHINATOWN INN RESTAURANT), HARRY CHEW, TONG YEE, JON YEE, TOY YEE, WILLIAM YOT (FIRST MAYOR OF CHINATOWN), AND GENEVIEVE YOT AT CHINATOWN INN IN 1949. ADDITIONAL MEMBERS OF YEE AND LEE FAMILIES IN BACKGROUND. | COURTESY OF SHIRLEY YEE, FROM THE COLLECTION OF YUEN YEE, THE LAST MAYOR OF CHINATOWN AND AN AVID AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER.

One of the Yee family’s first eateries in 1933 took shape in the basement of a former store. Congee and dim sum were served to the lodgers who lived upstairs, as well as to anyone who came to Chinatown on Sundays who needed a meal. By 1951, Yuen had opened his own restaurant with his father, Toy; it was called Yung Toy.

After the War Brides Act of 1945, many Chinese servicemen living in the area were able to bring their spouses to the United States, and these new families looked outward to build their homes.

“There really wasn’t any place to live as a young family in Chinatown,” says Yee. “By the 1960s, there really wasn’t much left.”

By the ’60s there were only four families left Downtown. Many had moved to East Liberty, Monroeville, Penn Hills and other neighborhoods. Even though Yuen’s family had moved to Shadyside in 1951, he continued to work Downtown and represent the Chinese community. “He was always promoting the Chinese community,” says Yee, adding that he helped even those who lived in and around Allegheny County.

She remembers her father as a “people person” who always helped others, from aiding Chinese immigrants with their immigration cases to helping former coworkers open their own restaurants. 

It’s no wonder Yuen became known as Chinatown’s mayor, after all he had dedicated his whole life to the enrichment of its streets and its people, Yee says.

Sierra Green, archivist at the Detre Library and Archives at the Heinz History Center, says she is elated that these stories are finally being told. She says that there has been a recent increase in the recognition of Chinatown and its history.

“That was really marked in 2022 by the erection of a historic marker,” says Green. This marker placed in front of the Chinatown Inn on Third Avenue was administered by the Pennsylvania Historical Marker Program, which officially acknowledged Chinatown’s significance in Pittsburgh’s history. 

“That was as a direct result of a lot of advocacy,” says Green, acknowledging the diligent work of Chinese Americans in the city, as well as community members and scholars, who all pushed for its recognition, including Yee and the other panelists.

“It’s honestly, directly derived from the community and their generosity and willingness to share their history with us at the History Center,” says Green. “I think it’s just an exciting opportunity to make human-to-human connections.” 

She invites people to visit the History Center’s Library and Archives for free and conduct their own research among original primary sources. There is also a Chinese American display in the Fourth Floor Special Collections Gallery. Some of these artifacts were donated by Lydia L. Ott’s family.

Yee also will be sharing the artifacts her father once collected with the Heinz History Center, and they, too, will become part of the Special Collection. Her father’s writings and scrapbooks are living proof that the legacy of Chinatown still lives on.