History | Capital District | Chinese Communities
The exact year that Chinese immigrants began to settle in the Albany, New York area is not known. The first listing of a Chinese business occurs in the 1877 Albany City Directory, when Yut Sing was listed as having a laundry in his home at 668 Broadway in Albany. Three years later, the U.S. Census counted five Chinese inhabitants of Albany. By 1886, the city directory had a total of nine laundries with Chinese surnames. The small community grew slowly in the early 1900's, but by 1920 there were listings for 24 Chinese laundries in Albany. One of the proprietors, Lee Hing, is noted in the New York Exclusion Records as having come to the United States at the young age of 18, entering through the port of San Francisco in 1886. He lived in New York City's Chinatown for a time, and then moved up the Hudson River to Albany, a common migration route for those who settled in the Capital District. The exclusion records reported that Mr. Hing first had an Albany address in 1907.
Many of the early Chinese residents of Albany lived in the area of Green Street and Hudson Avenue. In 1920, there were two Chinese restaurants on Green Street, and the following year the Oriental Occidental Restaurant opened at 44 State Street, now the site of Jack's Oyster House.
Vocabulary
Census: Official counting of people or things.
Inhabitants: People who live in area or dwell in a house.
Migration: Movement from one place to another.