Postcard - San Francisco, California - Chinatown - Telephone Exchange Exterior - Linen - Color - MINT

Linen, color, mint postcard entitled, "Chinese Telephone Exchange, Chinatown, San Francisco, California - 76."  Back reads, "The quaint San Francisco Chaintown Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. building was erected in 1909 to conform with Chinese architectural traditions.  It houses what is believed to be the only Chinese Telephone Exchange outside of China itself."  Pictorial Wonderland Art-Tone Series; Stanley A. Piltz Company, San Francisco, California.

San Francisco's Chinatown is one of North America's largest and oldest sub-cities in the U.S.  Established in the 1850's, it has been featured in many popular movies, photographs, music and literature.  Within Chinatown there are major thoroughfares: Grant Avenue (with its famous Dragon Gate on the corner of Bush Street and Grant Avenue), St. Mary's Park (with its statue of Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen) and Stockton Street (which looks a lot like Hong Kong).  Another major focal point is Portsmouth Square which has a replica of the Goddess of Democracy used in Beijing's 1999 Tiananmen Square protest.  In recent decades, Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and mainland China have gradually led to the replacement of the Taishanese dialect with the Hong Kong Cantonese dialect.  Taishanese is spoken less and less in China and will be gone in a generation from North America.

Classic North American postcard; great collectible with potential for appreciation.