CHINATOWN

Los Angeles' Chinatown is neither the great Chinese city of San Francisco nor the vibrant district of New York, but it has a singular charm and will make for a very pleasant walk. The origins of California's Chinatowns date back to the construction of the American railroad in the 1860s. Thousands of Chinese workers were hired as laborers and gathered in communities in the center of major cities. In Los Angeles, the first Chinatown was established in 1880 on Alameda and Macy Streets. Between the 1910s and the destruction of this first neighborhood, Chinatown became a place of perdition where opium dens, gambling houses and the mafia were all around. Razed in 1938 to make room for the central station, Union Station, Chinatown moved a few streets away and underwent a major facelift: it was entirely redesigned by movie decorators! It's a Hollywood version of 1930s Shanghai that we find today around the central square of the district, Chinatown Central Plaza. The houses and stores are in the shape of brightly painted pagodas, with glazed tile roofs. Although the Chinese population is rather poor and old, the streets of this movie set, where many adventure and kung-fu movies were filmed, are now taken over by art galleries and trendy bars, especially in Chung King Road, a small street full of charm with red lanterns.