A dilapidated two-story building in Detroit’s historic Chinatown was unexpectedly demolished Saturday, leaving some in the Chinese American community stunned as city council members and advocates were still attempting to save it.
Local politicians, several generations of Detroit residents and others spoke Monday morning in front of the 3143 Cass Ave. site, as yellow cranes loomed behind them amid a clear blue sky. They emphasized the need for a Chinese enclave in the city and recounted stories of generations of family-owned businesses operating out of the building, which was built in 1883, according to Michigan state Sen. Stephanie Chang.
A unanimous vote by the Detroit City Council on July 25 had delayed the demolition, originally scheduled for last week, until September, to allow for review by the city’s historical advisory board. But less than 24 hours later, the city’s corporation counsel allowed the demolition to go ahead, according to The Detroit News. The city’s law department found that the council’s vote was not legally binding, Buildings Safety, Engineering & Environmental Director David Bell said.
The city council first ordered the building to be demolished in 2018 because of its condition, which only worsened in recent years, Bell said in a statement to NBC News.
“It has been the position of our inspectors for some time that this building is a public safety hazard that needs to be addressed. We were of the opinion it needed to be addressed immediately,” he added. “The owners obtained a valid permit to demolish the building and in the interest of public safety were free to act on that permit.”
Olympia Development Management (ODM), which owns the property, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A history of Detroit’s Chinatowns
Jacob Molewyk, who is Chinese and Dutch American, was visiting the area on Saturday for a family gathering. Knowing the fate of the building was up in the air, he said he planned to take photos of it when, to his horror, he realized the demolition was taking place.
No centralized Chinese community exists in Detroit today, but that was not always the case. In the early 20th century, recent Chinese immigrants created an ethnic enclave near Third Avenue and Bagley Street, according to Molewyk. But in 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s expansion of the freeway system across the U.S. upended majority Chinese and Black neighborhoods in Detroit.
Chang, who is Taiwanese American, on Monday said the construction of the John C. Lodge Freeway, or M-10, cut through Detroit’s first Chinatown, and the construction of Interstate 375 cut through Black Bottom, a Black neighborhood in Detroit, displacing hundreds of thousands.
Many of the Chinese families living in Detroit’s first Chinatown were forced to move and settled a few blocks north to what became known as Cass Corridor Chinatown, which never saw the bloom of the original one, Molewyk said.
Instead, many Chinese American families eventually moved to the outer suburbs of Detroit, leaving an abandoned Chinatown and a dilapidated building at 3143 Cass Avenue.
James Lee’s grandparents founded Shanghai Cafe, a restaurant that operated out of the building in the 1940s. Lee spoke Monday, saying the building was important to him, not only because of his family’s restaurant, but because the second floor headquartered the Chinese Merchants Association, which advocated for Chinese business owners like his grandmother when they had difficulty due to language barriers.
Other speakers on Monday highlighted the historical significance of the 3143 Cass building in Detroit Chinatown’s history.
Jasmine Rivera, a Filipino American and co-director of Detroit-based advocacy group Rising Voices, said that the building held particular significance as the birthplace of American Citizens for Justice, which was founded in 1983 as a nonprofit civil rights organization following the death of Vincent Chin.
Richard Mui, a history teacher by trade and a board member of the Association of Chinese Americans, said that it is vital to preserve spaces like Detroit’s Chinatown as gathering places for the Chinese American community to shop, dine and celebrate their culture.
“It’s more than just a Chinatown. It’s an entry point for a lot of immigrants who don’t speak English,” he said. “It’s more than just a building.”
Chang said Monday that she remembered starting the Detroit Asian Youth Project with a group in 2004. It held its first meeting in the On-Leong Merchants Association building on the same block as the 3143 Cass building.
The Chinese American community still considers this area to be historic Chinatown, Molewyk said, and they are working on preserving that memory for current and future generations.
Chang agreed.
“There’s so much that has happened on this block, in this area of the city that is so rich with history for Detroit’s Chinese community,” she said. “We’ve got to recognize it. We’ve got to make sure that it doesn’t get erased … and we’ve got to find ways to lift up the history.”
CORRECTION (Aug. 1, 2023, 9:52 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated Michigan state Sen. Stephanie Chang’s background. She is Taiwanese American, not Chinese and Taiwanese American.