Parade Ushers in New Year, Hopes for Chinatown Revival

Rows of painted faces and floats followed a century-old tradition through this city’s streets on Saturday, ushering in a Chinese New Year that many pray will mark a turning point for a beleaguered ethnic community.

The twilight parade in a heavy rain was punctuated by exploding firecrackers and the cheers of more than 300,000 spectators as it wound up a two-mile path from the financial district to the outskirts of Chinatown. Bands played, costumed dancers moved in formation and clowns juggled in step.

A set of yellow-and-orange papier-mache money trees sprouted from one float, guarded by a scepter-clutching image of Tsai Shen--the god of wealth and prosperity.

In this new year--the Year of the Ram--Chinatown desperately needs both.

Scars from the Oct. 17, 1989, earthquake still run deep and painful here. Many of the district’s 50,000 residents rely on income from small, tourist-oriented businesses. Customers have stopped shopping in Chinatown, dissuaded by heavy traffic and scarce parking. Scores of shops have shut down. Crime has escalated.

“Everything hit us at one time,” said Rose Pak, a consultant to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. “We’re just overwhelmed.”

The temblor robbed vendors of the double-deck Embarcadero Freeway, once known as the Chinese Wall because it delivered 30,000 potential customers to their doorstep every day.

It also severely damaged more than half the buildings and put them in urgent need of retrofitting. Restaurants and gift shops along Grant Avenue, the area’s main strip, permanently closed their doors, unable to afford pricey rents or repair bills.

The shops that survived faced a more daunting prospect: as tourists were cut off from Chinatown by the crippled Embarcadero, their business was cut in half.

“Since the earthquake, you can walk down Grant Avenue and see dozens of signs that say ‘Going Out of Business’ ” said Patrick Andersen, managing editor of Asian Week, an English-language weekly newspaper that covers the state’s Asian community. “A fair amount of businesses have failed.”

Some of the remaining store owners say the closures, combined with a soft economy, have instigated a rash of crime in Chinatown. In January alone, one shopkeeper said, half a dozen burglaries--several in broad daylight--have been reported.

“It’s never been this bad,” the shopkeeper said.

Police records confirm her assessment. They recorded 11 burglaries last month, and only two during the same period last year.

Chinatown’s woes could have a ripple effect on the rest of San Francisco. City leaders have tried to help salvage the ailing district, hoping to make it what it was before the quake: a crowded, prosperous community.

“We have to restore a level of specialness to Chinatown,” said Jim Lazarus, vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. “If Chinatown loses out, the rest of the city can’t be far behind.”

Planners hoped the parade, which this year is expected to draw a record television audience in the United States and overseas, would be the catalyst to revitalize Chinatown’s sagging image.

“This will bring Chinatown back to life,” said Wayne Hu, parade co-chairman and president of the city’s planning commission. “The parade heralds the beginning of new life.”

Huddling in the steady downpour, crowds of curious onlookers watched the upbeat procession that was to signal the start of that rebirth.

“I didn’t know Chinatown was suffering at all,” said Robert Dupont, a tourist from Salt Lake City. “I thought things had picked up since the quake.”

Indeed, the face of Chinatown has been gradually changing. Beyond the decorative, green-roofed gates that lead into this district, there is compelling evidence that the legendary community is not what it used to be.

A Mrs. Fields cookie shop has sprung up on the corner of Bush Street and Grant Avenue, next to the gates. And just beyond the portal, two shops that carry American Indian jewelry, cowboy hats and rifles face each other. A few steps away, a McDonald’s restaurant--with lettering in English and Chinese--beckons customers.

When the long-awaited tourist season starts this summer, newly installed road signs will point the way on surface streets to Chinatown. But many vendors say that is not enough. They say another highway, where the Embarcadero used to stand--about half a decade away by the most optimistic estimates--is the only antidote to their hardships.

“If they could only find a way of getting more customers out here, I think business would improve,” said David Jew, manager of a florist’s shop in a secluded Chinatown alley.

At the Canton Tea House and Restaurant on Stockton Street, waiter Jason Z. Liu lamented: “Before the earthquake, we’d work five or six days a week. Now we work three or four days.”

Florence Fang, who owns the Grand Palace Restaurant in Chinatown, said that in the three decades she has been here “this is the worst I’ve seen it.”

“Every time I walk into the kitchen, people are nervous,” she said. “They’re afraid I will lay them off. I don’t know how long we can survive.”