Chinatown on the Jersey Shore? Sounds unlikely, but for a time, there was a Chinatown parallel to New York’s on the Jersey Shore in Bradley Beach. In the late 19th century, a program now called the Fresh Air Fund enabled children from low-income communities to have summer vacations outside of the city. Some of those children were from New York Chinatown, and after loving their vacations in Bradley Beach, some Chinatown families began going their on their own and renting places in the city and eventually setting up shops and homes there.
The Wife and I lived in New Jersey in the past, but we had no idea of that particularly part of New Jersey history. It shows me how long Asian Americans have been in the United States, and not just on the West Coast. That seaside Chinatown is gone now, but you can read about it in the Atlas Obscura article I mentioned above, in a book called Bradley Beach Treasures: Reflections of the Jersey Shore., and in Bruce Edward Hall‘s book called Tea That Burns: A Family Memoir of Chinatown.
