Construction at the Wok N Roll

[Jim Garrett]

I hope Laurie agrees with me in that I feel that if the Penn's Quarter section in Washington did not become Chinatown, the chance would have been good that the Surratt boarding house may not be here today. The developement of the downtown area largely ignored the Chinatown area. While developers like Oliver T. Carr were busy buying up commercial real estate in the downtown corridors from Pennsylvania Ave to F St., the immigrant and 1st generation American owners of these Chinatown properties put a cultural value on their neighborhood that the properties just plain weren't for sale.

While Chinatown in Washington is very small, it has a vibrant culture, and if you look down the facades of H St, most of the buildings on the block date to the 1800s. Without the Chinese culture, that block might have gone the way of many other blocks in downtown D.C. Just look at 10th St between F and E streets. The only three buildings from 1865 on that block are Ford's, the Petersen House, and the house next to Petersen's.