Chinatown Square
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Chinatown Square is located in Chinatown, Chicago, a mile from the heart of Chicago just north of the main Wentworth Ave District (the main Chinatown Street). Chinatown square a 2-stories outdoor mall on 45 acres of reclaim land from a former railroad yard, which resembles a pagoda, houses mostly restaurants and retail space and boutiques, banks, clinics, beauty shops plus a handful of offices. This outdoor mall is the largest Chinese mall in the US, west of San Francisco, East of New York City. There are a couple of parking lots, which require a quarter or two to park for a couple of hours. Street Parking is very easy to find on most days (except Sunday) where many tourist come to Chinatown Square to see the 12 Chinese Zodiac Animal Statues. In the middle of the Mall, there are 12 statues of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac from Xiamen, China. It features the famous Joy Yee's Noodle Shop restaurant that is known to many Chicagoans as the best Chinese restaurant in the city. Other landmarks in the mall includes two twin Pagodas, probably the tallest in the Midwest.
Neighborhood: Near South Side 2100 S. Wentworth Ave. Chicago, IL 60616
Chinatown Square is bordered by Archer Avenue (2100S) to the South, Princeton Ave (300W) to the West, Wentworth Ave (200W)to the East, China Place (2000S) to the North.
As of December 2007, Walgreen is the only Department Store at Chinatown Square. Chinatown Square is anchored by the largest Walgreen’s with Chinese as its primary language on the signs inside and outside the store. English is a second language in this Walgreen.
To get to Chinatown Square, the CTA Red Line (that connects the South Side to Downtown) and its Cermak- Chinatown Stop is the most convenient. Just a few feet, there is the CTA Orange Line (which connects the fastest-growing area of Chicago, Midway International Airport, and the Loop) and in the near future, there will be a new Stop at Wentworth Ave, just a few feet of Chinatown Square. However, as of December 2007, the Orange Line gives the best aerial view of Chinatown and Downtown with no stop in Chinatown.
Just to the North of Chinatown Square, there is the Ping Tom Memorial Park on the beautiful Riverfront of the Chicago River.
This is a family oriented mall with authentic Chinese cuisine and is very romantic at night with lights in the trees throughout the mall.
On various festivals, such as Chinese New Year or the Autumn Moon Festival, many stage performance and other goodies are located by the animal statues with a huge Stage. At Chinatown Square, one can glimpse at the Chicago Skyline clearly from the mall with the Sears Tower only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away, you can feel like you are in downtown itself. Everyday, you can smell pastries from bakeries, Chinese Tea, and dim sum and hear Chinese Music and talking in various Asian Languages throughout the mall.
[edit] History
This mall opened in 1993, because of Chinese activist who wanted more land from the city of Chicago. In the 1970s, Chinatown's land has been reduced due to the construction of the New Chinatown Expressway, the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/I-94) and the Stevenson Expressway (I-55) all in Chinatown. This created the problem of overcrowding leading to further expansion. On the location of the now, Chinatown Square, there was a large railroad yard in the 1980s. Chinatown Chicago was bounded by expressways on the East and South border and Railroad Yards on the North and West border. By removing the railroad yard bounded on Archer Ave, this lead to the creation of Chinatown Square, much needed commercial and residential expansion, and new parks along the former Industrialized Chicago River. To alleviate this severe housing shortage, a large scale development plan, the Chinatown Square was designed by the Chinese American Development Corporation on part of the Santa Fe Railroad just north of Cermak Road. The last expansion was in the Summer of 2007, but eliminated the Oriental Food’s, a huge supermarket that acted as a Department Store on the East Side, that was bankrupt. More specialty shops and bank were created.
