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	Is a gentrified Chinatown an oxymoron? IF THE GAIETY Theatre falls to the wrecking ball, it will mark the final passing of a bygone era. And its replacement, some people fear, may hasten the demise of Chinatown as we know it. Not just today’s immigrant Asian culture is at stake, they say, but the neighborhood’s whole identity as a stepping-stone for working-class immigrants, from the Irish to the Middle Eastern to the Chinese. Behind the Oriental façades and Mandarin lettering, this is one of the last downtown areas where laborers can afford to live. Kensington Place, they say, is step three in the gentrification of Chinatown — and the beginning of the end of affordable housing and mom-and-pop businesses in the neighborhood. Millennium Place and Liberty Place, together with Kensington Place, will add more than 1000 residential units to the neighborhood, most priced well beyond the reach of current residents. Next up: South Bay, with as many as 2000 high-end units in the planning stages. "The overall effect is that Chinatown is getting surrounded by luxury housing towers on all sides," says Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association. "We’re concerned that the economic effect will drive the immigrant population out of the neighborhood." But supporters say that these and other projects are bringing additional subsidized and affordable housing to Chinatown. "We are assuring that there are deep levels of affordability," says Meredith Baumann, spokesperson for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. "Housing is a central component. It is key to stabilizing neighborhoods." Baumann points to the Metropolitan, which opened this August after years of argument over the so-called Parcel C, next to New England Medical Center on Nassau Street. The development includes apartments and condominiums for many different income levels, dramatically increasing home-ownership potential in the neighborhood. (Don’t worry, though, they won’t have to intermingle. The Metropolitan’s Web page promises "designated floors designed for one’s ease and individual lifestyle, keeping in mind the discerning client’s highest expectation.") Liberty Place and Kensington Place are both planning more affordable units than legally required. So the total number of affordable-housing units is on the rise, but the number of unaffordable ones is increasing much faster. Is a higher number but a smaller percentage good or bad? That, too, depends on whom you ask. "As a resident I feel that we are overwhelmed by all of the proposals," says Michelle Yee, a member of the Chinatown Resident Association. She already sees an increase in automobile traffic with the opening of the Metropolitan, and fears that the coming 20-plus-story projects will multiply quality-of-life problems. "If developers building in the South End and the North End can make a profit building lower, why can’t they do that in Chinatown?" Chinatown is already the most densely populated neighborhood in Boston, with more than twice as many residents per acre as the North End and four times as many as the South End. The location is unbeatable. Land is precious, and not surprisingly, it’s increasing in value fast. In other words, Chinatown is gentrifying in recognizable fashion: high-rent residents, and especially the folks moving into new luxury condominiums, mean high-end shoppers, who attract upscale retailers, who drive up commercial rent. "A lot of the smaller businesses are being forced out, or to double up," says Lowe. Her hairdresser now shares space with a convenience store; Anna’s has moved in to compete with the small bakeries. Can the mom-and-pop flavor of Chinatown withstand the migration of boutiques like Hermès and St. John down Boylston and to Washington Street? Neighborhood activists realize that while complaining may not stop the forces of gentrification, it can at least gain some concessions. Residents learned that lesson too late to affect the building of Millennium Place, which includes the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and two residential towers, and which disassociates itself entirely from Chinatown. In fact, it was Boston Common, on the opposite side of the building, that won a promise from developers of $1 million over 20 years for park maintenance and preservation. After that blow to the neighborhood, Chinatown residents wised up, and used the threat of a lawsuit to force concessions from the developers of Liberty Place, a 28-story structure now under construction. Developers eventually placated the neighborhood by contributing to a planned 30-unit affordable-housing development. More important, the city agreed to work with the new Chinatown Resident Association. Some neighborhood activists regard CRA as rivaling established groups like the Chinatown Neighborhood Council, which are seen as too pro-development. Thanks in part to the CRA, Kensington Investment Company is promising 61 affordable units in its new-building plans. But then again, what is affordable, especially in a neighborhood where, according to the 2000 census, the median household income for Asian residents is around $14,000? "People have tended to view the current affordable housing to be stable, but it isn’t," says Lowe. Gradual increases have priced many of those "affordable" units beyond what immigrants can afford, she says. Cutbacks in federal housing programs have recently threatened Mason Place and Mass Pike Towers residents with threats of expiring subsidies. And, Yee says, the affordable units tend to be single-bedroom apartments, not family units. Parcel 24, the 1.5-acre space opening up at Kneeland and Hudson with the demolition of the Massachusetts Turnpike extension ramp, promises to be the next hot spot in this debate. The building of the ramp, in 1962, had displaced some 600 residents, so Parcel 24 already makes blood boil in the neighborhood. The Asian Community Development Corporation would like to see as many as 300 subsidized-housing units on the parcel. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and Boston Redevelopment Authority have been noncommittal. State Senator Dianne Wilkerson introduced a bill this year requiring that a community-based group control Parcel 24’s development, to "restore a community-friendly, residential character" to the area. Potentially even more controversial is the South Bay site opening up on the other side of Kneeland Street, and running through the Leather District. A task force has been at work since January on the project, which is expected to be "mixed-use" in some way. The report produced by the task force in late August recommends that 30 percent of the new housing be affordable, with nearly half of that targeted for those who earn 60 percent or less of the area’s median income. — David S. Bernstein

IN THE MIDST of all this silence, the wrecking ball has inched closer to the Gaiety Theatre. Last May, Kensington Investment alarmed its detractors when it began draining standing water from the building’s basement and clearing out asbestos — reportedly the first steps to demolition. Kensington has yet to apply for a demolition permit per se with the ISD. Rather, it has received permission from the state to remove asbestos. But even this type of pre-demolition work appears to contradict a 2002 Memorandum of Agreement that the company signed with the BLC and the MHC, the historic agencies overseeing the Gaiety. Under the contract, Kensington has promised "to not demolish the former Gaiety Theatre until the Proponent has obtained all major discretionary approvals necessary for the project to proceed" — something that project opponents say cannot happen until the pending lawsuits are resolved.

After opponents complained that Kensington was violating the 2002 agreement, Kiefer penned an April 30 letter to the BLC and MHC, in which he insists that "all ‘major discretionary approvals’ have been obtained." (The BRA did not respond to the Phoenix’s attempts to verify just what approvals the project has received.) In the letter, Kiefer also claims that the Boston Fire Department has demanded that the Gaiety be razed. "As you know," he wrote, "the Boston Fire Department has required that the building be demolished as soon as possible for fire safety reasons." The department has denied this charge, however; according to a May 6 article published in Sampan, the Chinatown newspaper, Lieutenant Richard Powers called the statement "an error," adding that the Fire Department "does not require" any buildings be demolished.

That Kiefer would put forth this distortion raises concerns among Gaiety preservationists, who fear that Kensington might try to destroy the theater without applying for a demolition permit. Such concerns prompted Gaiety Friends and Chinatown residents to flood ISD with phone calls and a formal petition urging the department to "refuse any request for a demolition permit for the Property." Likewise, City Councilors Arroyo, Hennigan, and Turner sent a letter to ISD acting commissioner Good on June 16 requesting that the department "perform a comprehensive and independent review of this issue, and carefully consider your legal responsibilities to enforce the Zoning Code in considering this demolition permit." Arroyo has also filed an order with the city council requesting "a hearing regarding the Kensington proposal and the demolition of the Gaiety." The council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, headed by Councilor James Kelly, who represents Chinatown and who has been a vocal supporter of Kensington Place, has yet to take up the matter.

Suspicions were further stoked last August, when Kressel walked past the Gaiety on her way to a Chinese restaurant. On a quiet Sunday evening, she noticed that the building’s windows had been removed. Copper flashing from the roof had also been ripped apart. Spotting construction workers inside the theater, Kressel asked what they were doing. "They said to me, ‘Demolition,’" she recalls.

Kressel called the ISD office, as did other Gaiety Friends. On September 3, ISD issued a stop-work order halting further construction on the building "except for areas impacted by the asbestos abatement." ISD also ordered Kensington to seal the building. According to ISD spokesperson Lisa Timberlake, the department took such action because the developer "was not supposed to remove the windows." The work, she explains, "qualifies as demolition and you need a full demo permit to do it." To this day, the stop-work order remains in effect; Timberlake says the only way for Kensington to lift the order is "to apply for a demo permit."

Asked whether un-permitted demolition had occurred at the site, ISD’s Timberlake had this to say: "Yes, in a sense, we did determine that." Since last month, she adds, city inspectors have visited the Washington Street site to ensure that Kensington "does not violate the stop-work order by continuing to rip out the windows or doing any other type of demolition work."

For now, the ISD, unlike other city agencies, has refused to violate the zoning laws. But whether the department will wind up granting a demolition permit to Kensington remains an open question. Timberlake declines to confirm that Article 38 forbids ISD from allowing the Gaiety to be razed. "Each case is viewed differently," she says, "so I cannot say specifically yes or no." She does hasten to add that the department "will consider the Boston Zoning Code" in its decision, and she suggests that the developer "has a right to go to the Zoning Board of Appeal" if ISD denies a permit. But the political momentum for Kensington Place has yet to subside. And inspectors, says Councilor Turner, "are feeling pressure to issue this demolition permit" from the city council, the BRA, and the mayor’s office, "where support for the business community has overruled good judgment." Indeed. When Kressel complained to the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services that Kensington had removed the Gaiety’s windows without proper permits, she says she was told by Chinatown liaison Denny Ching, "We’re not going to interfere. We want that building to come down."

It seems the only things saving the Gaiety from destruction are the lawsuits now winding their way through the judicial system. Last July, a Land Court judge heard arguments on whether the plaintiffs who are not property abutters — such as the city councilors and the Gaiety preservationists — have "standing" to sue. So the legal battle is just getting under way. A final ruling favoring the plaintiffs would invalidate the BZC decision to grant Kensington the PDA designation and, in effect, derail the project. Such a ruling would force Kensington — or some other developer — to draw up new plans. And any new plan, says Dan Wilson, the plaintiffs’ attorney, would have to entail renovation of the Gaiety because "that is a major goal of Article 38."

What will happen on the legal front is anyone’s guess. But one thing seems certain: if the Gaiety Theatre turns to dust, the Menino administration — a champion of preservation and the arts — will have lost the chance to salvage the last unrestored Blackall theater left in the Theater District. And for what? To get rid of a few sex clubs to sterilize downtown for the wealthy? To plop down a Dallas-style tower that defies the vision for the Midtown Cultural District and violates the city’s zoning laws? As Councilor Hennigan says, "No one who looks at that theater can say with a straight face that it is not important to this city."

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com