Discover Toronto's history as told through its plaques

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Toronto's First Chinatown

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted October, 2007

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted April, 2015

This set of two 2007 Heritage Toronto plaques are located near the south end of Chestnut Street on the west side of City Hall near the statue of Sir Winston Churchill. Here's what they have to say:

Coordinates: 43.653749 -79.38496

Click here for a larger map

The first Chinese resident recorded in Toronto was Sam Ching, the owner of a hand laundry business on Adelaide Street in 1878. Though immigration to Canada directly from China was restricted after 1885, Ching was eventually joined by Chinese men who migrated from western Canada after helping to build the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway.

Between 1900 and 1925, Toronto's first Chinese community took shape here, around Elizabeth Street which one ran all the way south to Queen Street. 'Chinatown' was a bustling commercial and residential area that included restaurants, grocery stores, and traditional clan associations.

This first Chinatown thrived until the late 1940s, when the City of Toronto began its controversial expropriation of much of the neighbourhood to make room for a new city hall and the future Nathan Phillips Square. Demolition finally took place in 1955. Some Chinese businesses could not afford to re-locate, and closed. Others packed up and moved west along Dundas Street to Spadina Avenue where they became the heart of today's 'Old Chinatown'.

Related Toronto plaques
Jean Lumb, C.M., 1919-2002
Wong Association of Ontario

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Here are the visitors' comments for this page.

> Posted January 5, 2012
Thanks so much for this! I am doing a project on Chinatown and this has helped a lot.

> Posted November 25, 2011
Toronto seems to have a history of fear of foreigners. First its was the Jewish community (Christy pits riots) and the unfair removal of the Chinese community properties and yet we omit these fact on the plaques.

> Posted June 26 2008
This a great piece of history.

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