New Chinatown opened in 1938, deliberately built to replace a community demolished for Union Station. The original Chinatown of Los Angeles, established in the 1870s in the area that is now Union Station, was a dense neighborhood of about 3,000 Chinese residents living in buildings that dated to the 1880s. In 1933, the city announced that it would demolish the neighborhood to build Union Station.
Chinese American community leaders, led by Peter SooHoo, anticipated the demolition and organized to build a new Chinatown nearby. New Chinatown, the commercial district you are standing in now, opened in 1938 as a planned development of Chinese-owned businesses designed to attract tourist visitors, with pagoda rooftop decorations and a central plaza. It was the first planned shopping district in the United States to be owned and managed by Chinese Americans.
The original old Chinatown was bulldozed, and Union Station opened in 1939. Today the neighborhood has evolved again, with its older restaurants and herb shops existing alongside contemporary galleries and the art scene that moved in during the 1990s. The Chung King Road block has become one of the most important gallery streets in the city.