Maps of Redevelopment Projects and the old San Pablo Chinatown

The area planned for the Thomas L. Berkley Square Project is shown on Forest City's Uptown Project map above.

The Thomas L. Berkley Square Project would occupy the area bordered by 20th Street, San Pablo Ave, 21st Street, and the PG&E Substation.
The area includes the historic Hotel Royal, built by the same architect who built and the Oakland Post Building (marked on map as "office"). Will AdCo incorporate these cultural resources into the project, or demolish them?

Historic Oakland Chinatowns in map from The Chinese of Oakland:Unsung Builders

The Oakland Chinese History Research Committee published the above map in 1982 in The Chinese of Oakland: Unsung Builders, by L. Eve Armentrout Ma with Jeong Huei Ma, Edited by Forrest Gok and the Oakland Chinese History Research Committee.

Historic Oakland Chinatowns mapped by geographer Willard T. Chow

On the map above, the numbers 2 and 3 indicate 19th-century Chinese settlements centered at 19th and San Pablo and 22nd and San Pablo. (Subsequent research reveals additional historic Chinese settlements not depicted on the map.)

SOURCE: Willard T. Chow, 1974, The Reemergence of an Inner City: The Pivot of Chinese Settlement in the East Bay Region of the San Francisco Bay Area. A Ph.D. thesis for University of California, Berkeley, Geography Department, 1974, page 118, map 5.

Central Oakland in 1859 (detail from Witcher's Official Map)

Lake Merritt extends westward from the top right of the map, crossing Telegraph before forming a pond at what is now the southwest corner of Telegraph Ave and 20th Street (Thomas L Berkley Way). The Chinatown on the east side of San Pablo Avenue between 19th and 20th Streets would have bordered the south side of this body of water. (Map courtesy Oakland Public Library historic map collection)

1868 Re-survey of Oakland (detail from Boardman map)

click here for a pdf version

This map comes from a re-survey of Oakland the City Council began in 1868. The Tuttle Homestead flanks the proposed location for Charter Street (later Charter Avenue). South of the Tuttle Homestead is the proposed location of Hobart Street (later 21st St). Hobart and the streets south of it (towards the new City Hall location) would not exist for years. The extension of Lake Merritt at the southwest corner of Telegraph Ave and 20th Street is here labeled "pond". The names written in between San Pablo and Telegraph Ave are the Chinatown area property owners. (Map courtesy Oakland Public Library historic map collection)

This website edited by Anna Naruta for UptownChinatown.org. Contents copyright 2004 (unless indicated otherwise), and freely reproducable for educational purposes. For other uses, contact UptownChinatown.org.