Japantown, San Francisco, California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Japantown (also known as "Nihonmachi" (ja: 日本町), "Little Osaka," and "J Town") comprises about six square city blocks in the Western Addition in San Francisco. The area is home to a large number of Japanese (and some Korean and Chinese) restaurants, supermarkets, indoor shopping malls, hotels, banks and other shops, including one of the few U.S. branches of the large Kinokuniya bookstore chain. The main thoroughfare is Post Street. Its focal point is Japan Center (opened in 1968), the site of three Japanese oriented shopping centers and the Peace Pagoda. The Peace Pagoda is a five-tiered concrete stupa designed by Japanese architect Yoshiro Taniguchi and presented to San Francisco by the people of Osaka, Japan.
Contents |
[edit] History
San Francisco has the largest Japantown in California, although it is only a shadow of what it once was before World War II. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government took Japanese Americans into custody and interned them in concentration camps, while many large sections of the neighborhood remained vacant. The void was quickly filled by thousands of African Americans who had left the South to find wartime industrial jobs in California. Following the war, some Japanese Americans returned, followed by new Japanese immigrants as well as investment from the Japanese Government and Japanese companies. The city made efforts to rejuvenate the neighborhood; as a result of the massive redevelopment initiated by Justin Herman in the Western Addition in the 1960s through the 1980s, large numbers of African Americans were pushed west towards the Fillmore District, east towards the Tenderloin, or south towards Hunters Point where the majority of the city's African American population resides today.
[edit] Annual street festivals/fairs
San Francisco Japantown celebrates every year two major festivals:
- The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival (held for two weekends every April).[1]
- The Nihonmachi Street Fair (held one weekend in the month of August).[2]
[edit] Other annual community events
- Day of Remembrance to remember the success of the Japanese American Redress movement and Executive Order 9066, also known as the Japanese American Internment camps.[3]
- Annual Church Bazaars (fundraisers) - held by the Konko Church, Buddhist Church, and Christ United Church.
[edit] See also
- Japantown for other Japanese neighborhoods
- Japanese American internment
- Neighborhoods of San Francisco
- 49-Mile Scenic Drive
- Japanese American National Library
[edit] External links
- http://www.sfjapantown.org/
- San Francisco/Japantown travel guide from Wikitravel
- Google Maps Bird's eye view of the Peace Pagoda.
- Japantown Task Force, Inc.
