San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2002 pA17
Rising from rubble; Original bricks from razed
residential hotel become link to Chinatown's past as workers build
replacement. (BAY AREA) Ray Delgado.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 San Francisco Chronicle
Byline: Ray Delgado
San Francisco -- Most people wouldn't think twice
to look at the old and crumbling pile of bricks stacked at a
construction yard in Chinatown.
But these bricks have a past -- they're practically all that is
left of the long-gone but far from forgotten International Hotel,
a three-story residential hotel that housed elderly Filipino and
Chinese immigrants who were forced out of the building 25 years ago
so developers could tear it down.
The years of struggle to save the tenants' housing helped give
birth to Asian American activism in San
Francisco -- and while that movement
couldn't save the International Hotel, it did succeed in blocking any new
building at Jackson and Kearny streets that wasn't earmarked for
senior housing.
Now, with construction having begun earlier this year on a new
International Hotel, community leaders gathered Tuesday to
watch as workers began hauling away 3 1/2 tons of the crumbling
bricks to storage until they can be incorporated into the new
building.
"This is the last of the old International Hotel,
and we have to save the remains," said Bill Sorro, a board member of
the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, which
is leading the effort to build the new 15-story affordable- housing
development for seniors. "Part of our plan is to try to establish a
link to the past."
The bricks will be housed for now at a Pacific Gas & Electric
Co. substation in Daly City for free, thanks to a donation from the
company.
Eventually, Sorro said, organizers intend to offer donors the
chance to put inscriptions on individual bricks. The money will help
pay for a community center that the foundation to put on the first
floor of the new hotel, and the bricks are likely to be displayed on
a wall of the center. Bricks that cannot be separated will probably
be on display somewhere else in the center, Sorro said.
"The mortar is too strong and pulls the the brick apart before
you can free it," Sorro said. "You literally lose eight to get one."
Although the bricks are the main remnants saved from the old
International Hotel, Sorro said community leaders were also
able to recover the original 4- by-5-foot brass plaque that reads
"International Hotel." It will also be used at the new
property.
The old International Hotel was one of many residence hotels in the
neighborhood that housed immigrants. The owner, Four Seas Investment
Corp., had plans to develop the site commercially in the 1970s, and
in 1976 it overcame activists' objections and secured an eviction
order.
Officers led by then-Sheriff Richard Hongisto carried out the
evictions Aug. 4, 1977, an act that received national attention. The
building was torn down two years later.
Community leaders, who were given power by then-Mayor Dianne
Feinstein to review all new development plans, managed to scuttle
building proposals for years, until the new International Hotel
senior housing idea came along.
Construction on the new 105-unit hotel began in January and is
expected to be completed in late 2004. The building also will house
a Catholic elementary school and a Chinese language school for older
youths.
The $40 million project is being developed by the San Francisco Roman
Catholic Archdiocese, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development and the Chinatown Community Development Center, which is
working with the Kearny Street Housing Corp.
Emil DeGuzman, a housing investigator and mediator for the Human
Rights Commission, was an activist living with the elderly immigrant
tenants of the old International Hotel when the evictions happened. He was back
Tuesday to watch the bricks be carted away.
"The hole has been a wound in our hearts for many years,"
DeGuzman said. "This is a community where people were very happy.
It's important to recognize the solemnness of that time."
CAPTION(S):
PHOTOS: (1) Tenant supporters rally outside the hotel in 1977.
The tenants were ultimately evicted. / Chronicle file/1977, (2)
PG&E workers gather bricks from the old residential hotel site.
The bricks will be stored until they can be incorporated into the
new building., (3)
Construction of new senior housing is under way at the site of
the former International Hotel in Chinatown., (4) PG&E worker Toni
Noleroth arranges bricks on a pallet headed for a Daly City
warehouse. / Photos by Michael Maloney/The Chronicle, MAP: Chronicle
Graphic |