George Kit Wong; Chinatown Pioneer

George Kit Wong, one of the original group of 28 merchants who were evicted from Los Angeles’ Old Chinatown in 1938 and who relocated a mile north in a vacant railroad yard, has died.

A family spokesman said Wong, the onetime “Shrimp King” of Spring Street, was 86 when he died in Long Beach on Sept. 23.

Wong was one of the last survivors of the tightly knit group that built the brightly colored buildings with tiled pagoda roofs that now make up Chinatown between North Broadway and North Hill streets.

In a 1988 interview celebrating the 50th anniversary of the move from Alameda Street--which was necessitated by the construction of Union Station--Wong recalled the early years.

“It was hard work,” the native of Canton said of his seafood market, which lay a block east of the other shops and restaurants. He and the other pioneers had invested $500 a share in the original New Chinatown corporation. But the early days proved lean and Wong said he “had to give another $500.”

But those years soon ended and Chinatown became a boom area during and after World War II.

The land the Chinese pioneers had purchased from the Santa Fe Railway for 75 cents a square foot in 1938 brings about $125 today.

A widower, Wong is survived by a son, a daughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.