East Downtown Houston

East Downtown Houston (EaDo) is a district in Houston, Texas, United States. The East Downtown Management District (EDMD), manages the area with offices headquartered at START Houston, a co-working space 1121 Delano Street. The community is located east of Downtown Houston and north of Interstate 45 (Gulf Freeway). It is between the George R. Brown Convention Center and the East End district.

The Old Chinatown, an area within East Downtown bounded by Interstate 69/U.S. Route 59, Preston Street, St. Joseph Parkway, and Dowling Street, is the older of the two Houston Chinatowns. The East Downtown Chinatown is not the same as the Chinatown in southwestern Houston.

In the 1930s many Cantonese immigrants moved to the former Houston Chinatown, then a part of the Third Ward area, from Downtown Houston in an effort to find more inexpensive land. The Cantonese opened several businesses, including grocery stores and restaurants, and held Chinese New Year celebrations. Immigrants from other East Asian countries, including Vietnam, moved into the Chinatown.

In the early 1950s the Chinese Merchants' Association moved to the southeastern edge of Downtown Houston. Many Chinese businesses moved there. The Chinatown solidified as many Asian immigrants, including Viet Hoa, began moving to Houston in the 1970s. By the 1980s a theater, supermarkets, warehouses, a bank, and restaurants were located there.

By the late 1980s increasing numbers of Chinese began living in suburbs in Southwest Houston and Fort Bend County. In addition, the Chinatown was geographically hemmed in, with surrounding low income African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods and the Downtown area preventing additional growth. Two Chinese religious temples opened about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the old Chinatown in the 1990s.

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