Little Italy Chinatown Historic District Working Group — Gateways Project
Two Bridges is inviting business, community and civic leaders to participate in a series of community planning workshops to identify workable solutions to support local businesses in Chinatown and Little Italy. The workshops will focus on ways to increase the numbers of visitors and tourists coming to Chinatown and Italy by making it easier for them to get to these historic neighborhoods, find specific destinations, learn more about the neighborhoods, and walk around safely, enjoyably and confidently.
Participants will be asked to engage in a series of exercises where they share their local knowledge of the area, express concerns, identify opportunities, create an overarching vision, and make suggestions on how to improve the pedestrian experience.
The first workshop will concentrate on developing a framework for identifying Gateways and creating a wayfinding system. The second workshop will expand its focus to look at a range of urban design challenges, including lighting, landscaping, public art, monuments, street furniture, and more. The final workshop will examine the broad range of community and public events, and how they can be strengthened. Additionally, we will explore creating new events that can help promote Chinatown and Little Italy, and attract more positive media coverage.
The hope is to have the workshops completed with published findings by the beginning of summer upon which to develop future funding proposals.
Read reports and view maps from Chinatown/Little Italy Historic District Working Group Community Workshops on Importance of Wayfinding and Night Lighting:
- April 19, 2010 workshop report
- June 22, 2010 workshop report
- Map of Chinatown and Little Italy Pedestrian Counts
- Map of Little Italy Retail Survey
Slide presentations: