Explore the real-world places that appear in Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Willis-Polk Building (Chinatown Precinct), Portsmouth Square, Dragon's Gate, Grant Avenue, Stockton Street and 9 more.
430 Grant Avenue — Police headquarters for the Chinatown beats
The fictional Chinatown precinct where Willis Wu works as a police detective. Detective Sarah Chen is Willis's partner, and together they investigate murders that seem tied to the secret war between rival tong dynasties. The precinct is Willis's professional home, where he struggles to prove himself beyond the 'Generic Asian Man' roles assigned to him. Detective Kimura also works here, part of the institutional racism that pigeonholes Willis's career.
The Willis-Polk Building was constructed in 1910 and designed by renowned architect Willis Polk. It originally housed the Merchant's Exchange and has been a fixture of San Francisco's Financial District and Chinatown border for over a century.
The Willis-Polk Building remains an active commercial and office building. Its Romanesque Revival architecture is still visible on Grant Avenue, a major thoroughfare through Chinatown.
Clay Street & Kearny Street — Heart of Chinatown's public life
The community gathering place where Willis observes Chinatown life and where many scenes unfold. Willis's father used to come here, and it represents the aging backbone of the neighborhood. The square is where Willis encounters various neighborhood figures and where his understanding of Chinatown's social fabric deepens. It's a place of memory and displacement as gentrification threatens the old world.
Portsmouth Square was the civic plaza of San Francisco during the Gold Rush, where the U.S. flag was first raised in 1846. It became the heart of Chinatown after Chinese immigrants settled in the neighborhood in the 1850s, serving as a community gathering place for over 150 years.
Portsmouth Square remains a major public plaza in Chinatown, featuring a Chinese-style pagoda roof structure built in 1962. It's a gathering place for elderly Chinese residents playing cards and mahjong, and a popular tourist destination.
Visit: Portsmouth Square (park)
Bush Street & Grant Avenue — Entrance to Chinatown
The iconic green and gold pagoda gate that marks Chinatown's traditional entrance. For Willis, it represents the threshold between two worlds—the mythologized tourist version of Chinatown and its actual lived reality. The gate appears in Willis's television work and in his consciousness as he navigates between authentic and performative identity.
The Dragon's Gate was erected in 1970 as a symbol of Chinatown and a gift from Taiwan. It was designed to replace an earlier dragon gate from the 1920s and has become the most photographed entrance to Chinatown.
The Dragon's Gate stands at the southern entrance to Chinatown and remains one of San Francisco's most iconic landmarks. It is frequently photographed by tourists and serves as the official gateway to the neighborhood.
Visit: Dragon's Gate (landmark)
Main Street of Chinatown — Shopping, restaurants, and street life
The commercial spine of Chinatown where Willis navigates between tourist shops and authentic neighborhood businesses. The street represents the tension between preservation and change, between the Chinatown tourists want and the Chinatown residents actually inhabit. Willis's family history is woven through these blocks—his father worked here, and Willis himself moves through these streets observing the erosion of old Chinatown.
Grant Avenue became the heart of Chinatown in the 1870s, developing from a street lined with laundries and small shops into a major commercial and tourist destination. The 1906 earthquake destroyed much of the original street, which was rebuilt in the early 20th century.
Grant Avenue remains Chinatown's primary commercial street, lined with souvenir shops, restaurants, hotels, and businesses catering to both tourists and residents. It is one of San Francisco's busiest and most visited streets.
Visit: Grant Avenue (landmark)
Principal Street — The 'real' Chinatown of residents and daily life
Stockton Street is where Willis's family actually lives and where authentic Chinatown commerce happens. This is where grocery stores, herbal shops, and butchers serve the actual community. Willis's understanding of his identity is intimately tied to this street—it's where his parents worked, where the genuine culture persists beneath the tourist veneer.
Stockton Street became Chinatown's primary residential and commercial artery in the late 19th century, serving the Chinese immigrant community with essential services and cultural establishments. By the mid-20th century, it was the true center of neighborhood life.
Stockton Street remains the heart of residential and working Chinatown, lined with grocery stores, restaurants, dim sum establishments, and shops serving the Chinese community. It is less touristy than Grant Avenue and retains more of Chinatown's authentic character.
Visit: Stockton Street (landmark)
1135 Powell Street — Repository of neighborhood history
A space of refuge and knowledge where Willis might contemplate his identity and history. The library represents the institutional attempt to preserve and document Chinese American culture. It's a place where the past is catalogued, organized, and made available—contrasting with the lived, messy reality of how Willis experiences his own family's story.
The Chinatown Branch Library was established in 1921, one of the first branch libraries in the San Francisco Public Library system dedicated to serving a specific ethnic community. It was designed to provide resources in Chinese and English to neighborhood residents.
The Chinatown Branch Library continues to operate at 1135 Powell Street (near Washington), serving the community with collections in Chinese and English, cultural programming, and community resources. It remains an important institutional presence in the neighborhood.
Visit: Chinatown Branch Library (library)
56 Ross Alley — Tourist attraction and symbol of commercialized culture
A tourist trap that manufactures fortune cookies—a dessert invented in California, not China—and sells them as authentic Chinese culture. For Willis, it epitomizes how Chinatown has been packaged and sold to outsiders. The factory symbolizes the commodification of culture that Willis himself is trapped in as he performs 'Generic Asian Man' roles in television and film.
Fortune cookies were invented in California in the early 20th century by Japanese immigrants, not Chinese. The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has operated since 1962, producing fortune cookies and selling them to tourists as traditional Chinese culture.
The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory remains a popular Chinatown tourist destination, producing handmade fortune cookies and allowing visitors to watch the production process. It exemplifies tourist-oriented Chinatown commerce.
Visit: Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory (landmark)
Around Washington & Jackson Streets — Site of criminal underworld
The alleyways and hidden spaces of Chinatown where the invisible war between rival tongs plays out. Willis investigates murders connected to these warring factions—the Red Dragons versus other tongs fighting for control of Chinatown's underground economy. These alleys represent the criminal underbelly that the tourist version of Chinatown ignores. Willis's investigation reveals layers of violence and betrayal rooted in the neighborhood's history.
Tong wars were a real historical phenomenon in Chinatown during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rival Chinese benevolent associations (tongs) fought over control of territory, gambling, prostitution, and other illicit enterprises, resulting in numerous murders and gang violence.
The alleyways of Chinatown still exist much as they did historically, though organized tong violence has largely diminished. The narrow alleys between Grant and Stockton remain atmospheric and are featured in many historical and cultural tours.
Visit: Chinatown Alleys Walking Tour (tour)
Downtown San Francisco — Where Willis performs as 'Generic Asian Man'
The studio where Willis is cast repeatedly in minor roles as 'Generic Asian Man,' 'Dead Asian Man,' and similar stereotypical characters. This is where the novel's metafictional frame emerges—Willis exists in a screenplay being written about his own life. The studio represents the entertainment industry's systematic reduction of Asian actors to racial caricatures. His agent Patricia pressures him to take these demeaning roles.
San Francisco has been a center of television and film production since the early days of broadcasting. The city's downtown area developed studio facilities and post-production houses throughout the 20th century.
San Francisco remains a major film and television production center, with studios and post-production facilities throughout the city, particularly in the SOMA and downtown areas.
Fictional Chinatown residence — Cramped family home
Willis's childhood home where he lived with his parents and younger sister Melissa. The apartment represents both family love and suffocating constraints. Willis's mother tries to protect him through traditional wisdom, while his father works endlessly in low-wage restaurant jobs. The apartment is where Willis first absorbs the values and shame of working-class immigrant life. It's a place he has escaped but cannot fully leave behind.
Chinatown has been a residential neighborhood for Chinese immigrants since the 1850s, with families crowded into small apartments and hotels. Generational families lived in these close quarters, preserving culture while building community.
Chinatown remains a dense residential neighborhood with many apartments occupied by Chinese immigrant families, though rents have increased dramatically and longtime residents face displacement.
838 Grant Avenue — Potential filming location and neighborhood landmark
A prominent Chinatown restaurant that represents the commercial food business that has long sustained the neighborhood. It's the type of restaurant Willis's parents might have worked in, and it embodies the non-glamorous labor that built Chinatown's economy. The restaurant is both a tourist destination and a community gathering place.
The Empress of China Restaurant was established in 1954 and became one of Chinatown's most famous dining establishments, known for upscale Cantonese cuisine and panoramic views of the city. It has served generations of both tourists and locals.
The Empress of China Restaurant remains operational at 838 Grant Avenue (near Clay), offering dim sum and Cantonese cuisine. It maintains its position as a landmark restaurant in Chinatown's commercial landscape.
Visit: Empress of China Restaurant (restaurant)
965 Clay Street — Archive of community history and identity
An institution dedicated to preserving and documenting Chinese American history. For Willis, it represents an attempt to create official narrative and meaning from Chinese American experience. The archive contrasts with his lived experience—organized, curated history versus the messy reality of intergenerational trauma, economic struggle, and identity confusion.
The Chinese Historical Society of America was founded in 1963 to preserve and promote Chinese American history and culture. It maintains one of the most comprehensive collections of Chinese American historical materials in the country.
The Chinese Historical Society of America operates a museum and research library at 965 Clay Street, offering exhibits on Chinese American history, genealogy services, and educational programming. It is a major cultural institution in San Francisco.
Visit: Chinese Historical Society of America Museum (museum)
Columbus Avenue — The shifting border of identity and neighborhood
The threshold between Chinatown and North Beach (the Italian neighborhood), representing the contested borders of identity and belonging in San Francisco. Willis navigates these boundaries—neither fully part of the tourist Chinatown nor accepted in other neighborhoods. The border symbolizes both the historical segregation of Chinese immigrants and the ongoing process of gentrification.
The boundary between Chinatown and North Beach developed naturally through immigration patterns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Italian immigrants settled north and west of Chinatown, creating distinct but adjacent ethnic neighborhoods with their own cultural institutions.
The Columbus Avenue boundary between Chinatown and North Beach remains a visible transition zone, with different retail, restaurants, and cultural establishments on each side. Gentrification has blurred these historical boundaries in recent decades.
Visit: Chinatown / North Beach Boundary Area (landmark)
Meta-narrative space — Willis's reality as television script
The novel's metafictional conceit: Willis realizes his life is being written as a screenplay, and he begins to understand the directorial choices made about his identity, his scenes, his dialogue. The screenplay exists simultaneously with Chinatown itself—Willis's reality is literally a script being rewritten. This creates the novel's central tension between Willis's agency and his predetermined role.
San Francisco's relationship with cinema extends from early silent films to contemporary productions. The city itself has been repeatedly scripted and rescripted through decades of film and television.
San Francisco remains a major filming location, with both exterior shots of landmarks and interior studio work representing the city's continued role in American entertainment.
More by Charles Yu: All Charles Yu books
More novels set in San Francisco: Browse all San Francisco books on Map A Story