Why I support

This historic building, once the property of the On Leong Tong Merchants' Association, was constructed in 1926 by the famous Chicago architectural firm Michaelsen & Rognstad, with terra cotta work completed by the American Terra Cotta & Ceramics Company of Crystal Lake, IL, and is the largest On Leong Tong building in the US. Its significance extends beyond the architectural and into the social and historical dimension. Here, disputes and contracts were determined among the early laundry and restaurant dominated communities, Chinese classes and civic lessons for the kids were taught, and control leveraged over backroom gambling and other enterprises where the tong, with its economic, political, and street enforcement power over the Chinese community, held sway over this particular Chinatown, with the approval, tacit or otherwise, of the Chicago Outfit. Even after the evangelical Chinese Christian Union Church took after the building was seized by the Federal government -- and perhaps because the CCUC took over the building -- it remains an vitally important living document of the changes to the Chinatown community in the 1st/25th Ward over the last 80 years, and as such, our understanding the Asian American historical experience in Chicago, and the broader Chicago historical experience as a whole.

Submitted by ChineseChicago, Chinatown