Japanese Americans Aim to Save Aging Storefronts

In the movies, Godzilla routinely tramples big Tokyo.

In real life, good intentions regularly seem to do the same to Little Tokyo.

Federal officials insisted it was for the good of the country that Japanese Americans in the downtown Los Angeles enclave were rounded up and sent off to detention camps at the start of World War II.

Los Angeles officials asserted it was for the good of the city that 1,000 Little Tokyo residents and shopkeepers were evicted in the 1950s so the Parker Center police headquarters could be built.

Community leaders said it was for the good of the neighborhood when about 1,000 units of affordable housing were torn down in the 1970s for the start of major Little Tokyo redevelopment.

Financial experts said it was for the good of the economy when many of Little Tokyo’s mom-and-pop stores were replaced in the 1980s by glitzy boutiques and attractions built with Japanese capital and geared toward Japanese tourists.

But in the 1990s, the Los Angeles riots and Japan’s stumbling national economy cut into tourism. The Northridge earthquake damaged some of the oldest buildings in Little Tokyo. New development proposals stalled, leaving blocks sitting empty along the area’s edges.

So it’s no wonder that Japanese Americans from throughout the Los Angeles area are protective of a block of aging 1st Street storefronts that form the remaining heart of Little Tokyo.

Thousands of them have rallied in hopes of blocking construction of a new police headquarters and jail near the quaint row of stores. The project has been proposed by the city to replace the overcrowded and seismically unsafe Parker Center.

They have successfully lobbied for Little Tokyo’s first full-service library, with space for 100,000 books, computers and community meeting rooms. It is going up a few blocks away on Second Street.

Japanese Americans hope to build a Little Tokyo recreation center that would bring young people to their neighborhood. After a long search, they have settled on a site for it on Los Angeles Street -- far enough away to protect the integrity of their historic commercial block.

They’re also anticipating creation of a Metro Gold Line trolley station near 1st and Alameda streets that would help form a new gateway to Little Tokyo and a link between its commercial areas and the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple and an adjoining arts district.

Back on their beloved 1st Street block, locals are eagerly waiting for the reopening of the Far East Cafe -- the Chinese restaurant that oddly enough has been considered a focal point of Little Tokyo life for generations of local Japanese Americans.

The restaurant is in one of 13 Beaux Arts-style brick structures on the northeast side of 1st Street that date to 1896. The Far East building was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge quake and rehabilitated with a $3.8-million repair job.

Featuring its original neon “Chop Suey” sign out front and 1937-vintage wooden booths inside, the restaurant and a 26-room hotel above it were donated to the Little Tokyo Service Center’s Community Development Corp. after their earthquake-forced closure.

That nonprofit group intends for the resurrected chop suey house to resume business soon. It will feature 16 new affordable-housing units upstairs and an interpretive gallery along with the restaurant.

The 1st Street block is an appropriate symbol of Little Tokyo. The antique storefronts are book-ended by structures that are historical in their own right. Last month, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency announced that no-interest, matching loans of up to $25,000 will be offered business owners on that block and others in Little Tokyo who are interested in repairing and improving storefront facades “with historic or architectural significance.”

The block’s San Pedro Street side is anchored by the 1923 Union Church, now a theater for the East-West Players, and the San Pedro Firm Building. It is a three-story commercial structure built 79 years ago by Japanese American growers and later used as a rooming house, offices and retail shops.

The Central Avenue side of the block is bordered by a 1925 structure that housed the old Nishi Hongwanji Temple and now is part of the Japanese American National Museum.

The old storefronts were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1995. A timeline depicting past uses of the storefronts is embedded in the sidewalk in front of the shops.

The oldest business is the Fugetsu-do Confectionery, started in 1903 by Japanese immigrant Seiichi Kito. Now grandson Brian Kito, who grew up in Little Tokyo, runs the shop.

Kito recounts the story of his family-owned business in an essay in a new book, “Little Tokyo: Changing Times, Changing Faces.” It has been published by the Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California as part of its Nanka Nikkei Voices series.

Snapshots of Little Tokyo life during the last 100 years appear with the book’s more than 50 stories. The authors will be recognized at an 11:30 a.m. luncheon May 22 at Centenary United Methodist Church, 300 S. Central Ave., Little Tokyo.

Notes the anthology’s editor, Brian Niiya: “As new players have moved into the area and older players have seen their role and relationship to the area change, Little Tokyo has entered into a transitional period.”

That makes it all the more important for Japanese Americans in the Los Angeles area to guard Little Tokyo’s past, asserts Tony Osumi. He is a high school teacher who lives in West Los Angeles and is a leader of an activist group called J-Town Voice.

“Japanese Americans are all tied to Little Tokyo. A little bit of us is always there. Our grandparents walked those sidewalks. You can always go back to Little Tokyo for those memories. It’s very important.”

J-Town Voice, which is a member of the 80-group Little Tokyo Coordinating Council, is focusing on making Little Tokyo relevant to young people, Osumi said. For that reason, it sponsors tours of Little Tokyo for college students and supports construction of a recreation center.

T.K. Nagano, a multimedia artist who lives in “J-Town,” said his neighborhood will remain “the spiritual center of the Japanese American community.”

Until, that is, another monster development big-foots its way through Little Tokyo.