Skip to main content

Image / Yee Sing Chong and the Hill Street Gate, New Chinatown

Have a question about this item?

Item information. View source record on contributor's website.

Title
Yee Sing Chong and the Hill Street Gate, New Chinatown
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Photographers Photo Collection;
Creator
Schultheis, Herman
Contributor
Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
Date Created and/or Issued
Circa 1939
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937.
The first Chinese on record arrived in Los Angeles in 1852, but by 1910, Old Chinatown had grown to cover approximately 15 streets. In 1931, a California Supreme Court decision was upheld, approving land condemnations and the construction of the new Union Station upon the site of Old Chinatown. The Los Angeles Chinatown Project Association was formed in 1937 and by February the following year the first tenants were moving to New Chinatown. The dedication ceremony took place on June 25, 1938.
A man walks toward the West Gate, which marks the Castelar (now Hill Street) entrance to New Chinatown. The four Chinese characters across the top, composed by T.K. Chang, translate as "Cooperate to Achieve." The store on the left in the foreground is Yee Sing Chong Co., grocery store and importers located at 950 Hill Street at the corner of Gin Ling Way.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;15 x 11 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00101121
Herman J Schultheis Collection; Los Angeles Photographers Collection;
N-010-712 8x10
CARL0005123058
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/39998
Subject
Yee Sing Chong Co. (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Trading companies--California--Chinatown (Los Angeles)
Grocery stores--California--Chinatown (Los Angeles)
Stores & shops--California--Chinatown (Los Angeles)
Storefronts--California--Chinatown (Los Angeles)
Architecture--California--Chinatown (Los Angeles)--Chinese influences
Signs and signboards--California--Chinatown (Los Angeles)
Chinese language
Chinatown (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Schultheis Collection photographs
Webster, Erle
Wilson, Adrian

About the collections in Calisphere

Learn more about the collections in Calisphere. View our statement on digital primary resources.

Copyright, permissions, and use

If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.

Share your story

Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.

Explore related content on Calisphere: