Temporary gates in San Francisco The Chinese pavilion at the
Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco featured a temporary paifang in 1915. A temporary "Imperial Dragon Gate" was erected across Grant at Clay for the 1941 Rice Bowl Party, a celebration and parade to raise funds for war relief in China. Rice Bowl fundraisers had previously been held in 1938 and 1940. Several temporary "victory arches" were erected in March 1943 to welcome
Soong Mei-ling to Chinatown.
Tourism In 1953, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce sponsored a bilingual essay contest on how to improve Chinatown business, in the wake of an U.S. embargo on mainland China imports after the
People's Republic of China entered the
Korean conflict. The winner of the English division, Charles L. Leong, suggested in his essay, among many things, the erection of an authentic archway to Chinatown at Bush and Grant. In 1956, the Chinatown Improvement Committee, appointed by Mayor
George Christopher, made the archway its top priority; the proposal initially included two gates: one at Grant and Bush for Chinatown, and another at Pacific and
Kearny for the
Barbary Coast red-light district. Two design drawings were shown in December 1956. An early effort to build a gate which started in 1958 was suspended in 1961 after funds and materials ran short, then abandoned in 1962. The budget for both gateways (Chinatown and Barbary Coast) was initially $50,000 each, but the
San Francisco Arts Commission killed the Barbary Coast proposal and reduced the budget to $35,000 in 1961. The gate was redesigned in 1963 by Lun Chan, Worley Wong, Morton Rader, and Piero Patri as part of a more ambitious plan to link Chinatown and North Beach via a pedestrian mall and bridge. The contest was won by a team of three Chinese-Americans, architect Clayton Lee of
San Mateo, with landscape architects Melvin H. Lee and Joseph Yee,
Construction and dedication The official groundbreaking ceremony was held in October 1967, but construction did not begin until August 1968. The project was funded by San Francisco at a cost exceeding $75,000, more than double the original $35,000 budget; it was not dedicated until October 18, 1970, marked by a parade and ceremony attended by a crowd of 3,000, including approximately 50 protesters who denounced the government of Taiwan and the funding of "Moon Gates for Tourists" rather than housing. Mayor
Joseph Alioto and Vice-President
Yen Chia-kan of the Republic of China (Taiwan) attended the
ribbon-cutting ceremony, along with former mayors
Robinson and Shelley. In 2005, a private effort was proposed to construct a second gate for the northern entrance to Chinatown, at Broadway and Grant. Wilma Pang is credited for the idea of a second gate, inspired by temporary gateways across Commercial for the annual Mid-Autumn Festival starting in 2001. ==Design==