Neighborhood News: For the Lunar New Year, explore Asia on Argyle!

“Tucked right off the Red Line, Argyle’s streets are lined with business signs featuring various Southeast Asian cuisines. The smell of Chinese pastries wafts down the street. Multiple stores shelve bamboo plants in outdoor displays and West Argyle Street alone hosts at least five pho restaurants.”
As we celebrate the Lunar New Year, (January 29-February 8) makeplans to visitChicago’s own Asia on Argyle, a vibrant cultural corridor in Uptown, home to authentic Southeast Asian cuisines and locally owned businesses.
The community covers an area of about 41 acres; Roughly, Asia on Argyle’s boundaries are N. Glenwood Ave to the west, Winona Street to the north, Sheridan Road to the east, and Ainslie Street to the south.
History
Argyle originally developed in the 1880s as a suburb called Argyle Park. According to Wikipedia sources, the then-suburb was named by Chicago Alderman and developer James A. Campbell for his ancestors the Dukes of Argyll in Scotland.
The village, along with the rest of Lake View Township, was annexed into Chicago in 1889. In 1908 the Northwestern Elevated Railroad was extended north from Wilson Avenue, using the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. The area became popular with people of limited means who wanted to live on the Lake Michigan shore. The railroad tracks were elevated onto an embankment between 1914 and 1922.
As Wikipedia notes, Argyle Street was home to the Essanay Studios in the 1920s, known for the movies it made with Charlie Chaplin. Essanay Studios now is home to St. Augustine College, and the building is an historical landmark.
Once a Jewish community, Chinese entrepreneurs in the 1970s as well as refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia following the 1975 Fall of Saigon, transformed the area by opening restaurants, bakeries, pharmacies, and social service agencies.
Becoming ‘Asia on Argyle’
Chicago restaurateur Jimmy Wong bought property in the area in the 1960s and planned its rebirth as New Chinatown. He envisioned a mall with pagodas, trees and reflecting ponds to replace the empty storefronts, according to Wikipedia sources. The Hip Sing Association, a Chinese cultural group, moved its Chicago offices to Argyle Street in 1971, and by 1974 Wong and the Hip Sing Association owned 80% of the of the three-block stretch on Argyle. In 1979, Charlie Soo, founder of the Asian American Small Business Association, took up the cause, and the area developed not solely as a Chinese enclave but also including Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, and Japanese businesses.
Today
Go for the food and shopping, stay for the events! Tai Nam Food Market has more than 10,000 Asian food items, the market provides a huge selection of fresh seafood, noodles, pre-marinated meat, ready-to-cook items, and an assortment of cookware. Right down the street is Việt Hoa Plaza, another popular food market with a variety of Asian snacks, meat, and sauces from countries like Vietnam, China, and Japan.
Today, as Choose Chicago notes, you can admire the beautiful art murals scattered around the area. A mural off Argyle — Resilience by Caroline Liu — depicts a woman sipping a bowl with a carp and dragon around her. Inspired by a narrative in Chinese mythology, the story tells of a carp swimming upstream and leaping over a waterfall to become a dragon, representing hard work and hope for the future.
At the northeast corner of Argyle and Broadway is the East Meets West mural led by Ginny Sykes. With symbols like the lotus flower to represent various Asian cultures juxtaposed with images of water to represent Lake Michigan with dragonflies flowing between the images to imply mingling cultures, the mural is meant to show peace and harmony.
Argyle Lunar New Year Celebration
The annual Argyle Lunar New Year Parade and Celebration is a decades-old tradition that features a processional of local groups and floats starting at the Argyle “L” stop.
This year, celebrating the Year of the Snake, the Argyle Lunar New Year Celebration kicks off Saturday, February 8. The celebration begins at 10am, with the Lunar New Year Parade kicking off at 1pm at Argyle & Sheridan, and featuring 20+ local community groups, cultural institutions, dancers and performers! In addition, a number of local organizations are planning pop-ups with family-friendly activities between 10:00am-4:00pm.
Argyle Night Market
Every summer since 2013, this part market, part street festival, the Argyle Night Market features food from local Argyle restaurants, plus live cultural and musical performances on Thursday evenings each summer.
For more information on Asia on Argyle, click here.
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago