Digging up Old Chinatown's roots

On the oddly shaped corner of San Pablo Avenue and 20th Street stand two boarded-up old buildings with flat, wood-paneled facades, reminiscent of pioneer days before Victorian-style houses became all the rage in Oakland. A popular mom-and-pop barbecue joint, Chef Edward's, adjoins them.

But the two buildings, which date to 1883, are symbolic to some people and community groups, such as University of California, Berkeley archaeologist Anna Naruta and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

After digging up historical information, they discovered the corner is the site of the original Chinatown of Oakland, or the "Uptown Chinatown," one of the few visible remains of a bygone era.