Chinatown's Pui Tak Center nominated for National Register of Historic Places

CHICAGO (WLS) -- On Friday at Chicago's City Hall, the building known as the City Hall of Chinatown got one step closer to becoming recognized nationally.

Chicago Chinatown's Pui Tak Center has been nominated to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places.

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The program committee of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks voted "yes" on Friday.

The 97-year-old building erected in 1928 has hosted thousands over the years, and it has been a symbol of the Chinatown neighborhood for nearly a century. It carries a history as colorful as its architecture.

"It's wonderful them at the program committee enthusiastically endorsed our building," Pui Tak Center Executive Director David Wu said.

The building has been the Pui Tak Center for 30 years, which was already designated as a Chicago Landmark.

Wu said the national designation would honor the history of thousands of families that have received services or support at the building, known as the City Hall of Chinatown.

"Chinese families and immigrants have been coming for decades and generation and this building the Leong Merchants Association building has been used to serve these families these immigrants and that legacy continues today," Wu said.

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"The Pui tak center has been an excellent steward over the past 30 years," Ramsey Historic Consultants Director John Cramer said. "Pagodas, very colorful, a lot of terracotta imagery that was all Chinese inspired."

Cramer wrote the nomination.

"The building is architecturally fantastic also the Leong headquarter was a center for Chinese in Chicago, the newcomer in town, this was a first stop," Cramer said.

Chinatown resident Benny Ngan arrived in Chicago in 1970 and remembers this was truly a center for new arrivals from China. Ngan told ABC7 everybody knows the building and it is very meaningful to preserve the building and the history of this building.

On Monday, The Pui Tak Center will receive the Preservation Excellence Award from the Landmark Commission for recent restorations to preserve the building. Pui Tak means "Building Character."

The nomination goes the full Landmark Commission June 5, then likely to the Illinois National Register Advisory Council.

If it gets approved, then it's up to the National Park Service to approve it around Labor Day, meaning a national register designation could happen sometime this year.