As the Boston Transportation Department continues to engage community members in plans to improve Phillips Square in Chinatown, a new idea has caught on with neighborhood residents, community leaders, and advocates.
At a hands-on design workshop last month, residents and community workers of all ages gathered around tables with maps and pictures to develop a vision for that section of Harrison Avenue with tables and chairs between Essex Street and Oxford Place. Five different groups reported on their ideas, and a common theme emerged: Beginning at Essex Street and continuing down Harrison Avenue, the area could bring visibility to Chinatown’s history, incorporating a life-sized bronze statue of a garment worker and bits of Chinatown’s stories throughout. Greenery, cooling features, and space for sitting were other shared ideas. When we shared artist Wen-ti Tsen’s idea that the area be renamed as Tunney Lee Square, the room broke into thunderous applause.
Tunney Lee, who was born in 1938, came to the U.S. from China at the age of 7 and grew up around the corner on Oxford Place. He had a long and influential career as an architect and urban planner, who led the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and at one point served as the chief of planning and design for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Lee mentored multiple generations of urban planners and community activists, working tirelessly to save working class neighborhoods and communities, from the 1950s until his passing in 2020. As a young professor and architect, he spent countless hours involved in the multiracial community organizing effort documented in the book People Before Highways. He mentored urban planners across the globe, establishing the Department of Architecture, now the School of Architecture, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. But his heart was never far from Chinatown, which he credited for his interest in neighborhoods and his concern not only for a community’s buildings but for the quality of the inhabitants’ lives.
“(Chinatown) was a classic urban village, one in which people knew each other and trusted each other, and it was small,” Lee said. “It has certainly affected, always, my views of community, of neighborhoods, it extends all the way to my professional life, my interest in neighborhoods has always been there.”
Lee was an avid community historian who launched multiple projects to document and share Chinatown’s history, including the Chinatown Atlas, which explores the community’s history and preserves glimpses of its historic streetscapes. Lee’s partners have continued the project and are currently preparing to publish a book of that name. In a brainstorm with community artists and activists, Lee became excited about the idea of using QR codes to mark important sites and share Chinatown stories. The Immigrant History Trail grew from those discussions, and the project will add new markers this summer.
Earlier this month, the petition campaign was announced and officially launched at the annual banquet of the Chinese Historical Society of New England. The petition begins, “We, the undersigned abutters, Chinatown residents, and community stakeholders, hereby petition the Public Improvement Commission of the City of Boston to rename the Phillips Square public right-of-way along Harrison Avenue after longtime Chinatown resident, community historian and urban planner Tunney Lee so that in the future it should be known as Tunney Lee Square.”
Longtime community leader Helen Chin Schlichte noted, “Tunney was a long-time friend, colleague, mentor, and much more. In a very quiet way, Tunney was a pioneer in community service and a constant champion for the community. And he warned more than once, ‘despite the stormy political waters one must tackle occasionally’.”
Even now, the late Tunney Lee is a force for bringing the Chinatown community together, as community residents and leaders across the political spectrum have expressed support for this renaming. Petitions to the City of Boston’s Public Improvement Commission can be signed online at https://bit.ly/43jT5Y4 .
Lydia Lowe is the executive director of the Chinatown Community Land Trust.
