Chinatown

Struggle To Save Chinatown From Arena Moves To City Council

November 19, 2024 Marta Guttenberg, Workers World. Resist! Chinatown, City Council, Class Struggle, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A special session of the Philadelphia City Council was held Nov. 12 for council members to question representatives of 76DevCorp about their master plan and Community Benefits Agreement for a $1.5 billion basketball arena called “76 Place” they want to build adjacent to Philadelphia’s historic Chinatown. With Mayor Cherelle Parker being an enthusiastic proponent of the arena plan, it was not surprising that her staff members were on hand to help the owners’ representatives answer questions or that the event was planned without input from communities that will be most impacted.

Philadelphia: Billionaires’ Mayor Okays Arena

September 25, 2024 Betsey Piette, Workers World. Resist! Chinatown, Displacement, Gentrification, Philadelphia, Stadium

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker came out strongly in support of billionaire developers on Sept. 18 when she announced that she will present a legislative package to the City Council for approval of a controversial plan by the 76ers basketball team to build an arena in Center City. The pre-recorded announcement, released to select media in a closed-door session, was strongly denounced by protesters with the Save Chinatown Coalition who were gathered outside City Hall. For over two years, thousands of demonstrators have protested the arena they say will do irreparable harm to the city’s historic 150-plus year-old Chinatown.

The People Versus The Billionaires

September 11, 2024 Betsey Piette, Workers' World. Resist! Chinatown, Class Struggle, Gentrification, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Stadium, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Several thousand people turned out for the Save Chinatown Coalition rally on Sept. 7 to protest the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposal to build a new $1.55 billion arena near Chinatown called “76 Place.” While the National Basketball Association team’s billionaire owners repeatedly say a new arena at 10th and Market streets would provide “economic opportunity for surrounding areas,” community residents, who have been fighting this proposal for over two years, argue that it would be an “existential threat” to this historic Philadelphia neighborhood. The impact studies commissioned by the city, released in late August, support the residents’ arguments.

In Chinatown, A Community Envisions Alternatives To Sixers Arena

February 6, 2024 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Chinatown, Gentrification, Participatory Democracy, Philadelphia, Urban Design

Joy. While it’s been a contentious 18 months of protests, marching, and debating about a proposed new basketball arena in Philadelphia’s Center City, for at least one Saturday morning, an urban planning and design discussion about the proposed arena location brought some joy to the conversation. At the Center for Architecture in Philly, just a few blocks from the site of the proposed arena, about a hundred people gathered on Jan. 27 to brainstorm alternative uses for the site. The public workshop was organized by the Save Chinatown Coalition, an alliance of 245 organizations from Chinatown and around the city who oppose the new arena because they fear its proximity to Chinatown will disrupt and displace the community.

March To Save Philadelphia’s Chinatown

April 27, 2023 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! Chinatown, Gentrification, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A show of force and unity will take place in Philadelphia April 29 with the message, “No Arena in the Heart of Our City.” Marching from Chinatown to the much-criticized proposed site of a new basketball arena and then on to City Hall, Chinatown residents and allies will be telling the City Council and the mayor that the people are united in opposing the blatant land grab by billionaire developers. In the words of the Save Chinatown Coalition: “The event will be a demonstration of joy, creativity and the power of connecting across communities. It will be a demonstration of fierce resistance to those who seek to tear apart communities and disrupt and distort the Heart of our City in their boundless drive for profits.”

City Excludes Parts Of Chinatown From Small Business Pandemic Loans

January 3, 2021 Sydney Pereira, Gothamist. Educate! CARES Act, Chinatown, New York City (NYC), Small Business

A city pandemic loan program intended to help out small businesses in lower-income neighborhoods and communities of color has left out a swath of Manhattan's Chinatown. In late November, the city's Department of Small Business Services launched a $35 million low-to-moderate income storefront loan program. Small businesses in certain neighborhoods could receive up to $100,000 in a zero-interest loan. The funds would provide loans for at least 350 businesses across the city, depending on the size of loans allocated. To qualify, businesses need to have fewer than 100 employees and be located in a low- to moderate-income ZIP code. But not all of Chinatown—a "hard-hit" neighborhood that was reeling from economic impacts from COVID-19 even before the city became the epicenter of the pandemic—was included.

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