Historical Marker Mania: Volume 3

Ping On Alley is just off of Essex Street in Chinatown, pretty close to South Station. Nothing very special about the alley… a parking lot on one side, a big ol’ brick building on the other. But if you look closely, there is a plaque that tells the tale of that alley.
In June 1870, the first wave of Chinese immigrants were brought in by shoe factory owners in western Massachusetts to break a strike. The factory owners paid the newly arrived Chinese workers less money than their striking workers, and presumably worked them longer and harder – and the immigrants probably bitch much. The Chinese immigrants made shoes. Made shoes until the strike ended. The American workers decided they wanted their jobs back, so the owners of the shoe factory gave the Chinese the boot (a particularly spiteful thing to do, since the Chinese had probably helped make said boot).

Without any prospects of work or food in western Mass, the Chinese immigrants came to Boston. They came to what was called Oliver Place, a tiny little alley. They couldn’t afford to pay rent. Even if they could have, who knows if the Yankee landlords would have rented to the strangers. They pitched tents in what was then Oliver Place, and is now Ping On Alley, in 1875 – a people on the edge.

Obviously they did well. They landed jobs, worked hard, and more and more Chinese immigrants joined them in this city of pasty white people (yes we’re talking about our fine English and Irish heritage). Bostonist likes to walk through the bustle of what is modern day Chinatown (with a T stop so named, gone are the old days of Essex St Station), through all the immigrant-owned businesses, and to come to this forgotten alley – the birthplace of Chinatown – and to imagine all those tents that once stood here. All those tents and, of course, a communal roasting oven.

Photos and Post contributed by Robert Pyles.
Rob knows a thing or two about the Historical Marker Mania, his band of merry men (and women) will tell you about it on the Audissey Guides tour of Boston