In Chinese zodiac tradition, 2023 will be the year of the Water Rabbit. The sign for the Rabbit is associated with longevity, peace, and prosperity, making many followers look out to 2023 as a year of hope. This includes members of the small business community in Seattle’s historic Chinatown-International District, which has faced complex challenges in recent years.
“The last few years have been difficult for many businesses within the C-ID neighborhood,” Connie Au-Yeung, Communications and Marketing Manager for the Chinatown International District Business Improvement Area (C-IDBIA) said in an email to The Urbanist. “There are pressing public safety and sanitation concerns and infrastructure projects that intersect with post-covid recovery and makes it more difficult for small businesses to navigate.”
Many business owners hope that events like the Lunar New Celebration on Saturday February 4th will attract people to the neighborhood, giving them a needed boost.
“Lunar New Year Celebration has been an annual tradition in this neighborhood for more than two decades, and serves a significant purpose in bringing together families, admire the live cultural performances and lion dances,” Au-Yeung said. “We hope to drive traffic to support C-ID businesses and encourage more visitors to explore all that we have to offer.”
Thirty-five restaurants and cafés will be participating in the $6 Food Walk — a CID Lunar New Year tradition that has historically drawn crowds. Participants who have their cards stamped at at least five participating merchants can enter a drawing to win a CID gift basket filled with neighborhood goodies.
Back in March of 2020, the Lunar New Year Food Walk was among the first major events cancelled in Seattle as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the years that followed hit the CID neighborhood hard in several regards.
Throughout the pandemic, the CID confronted the same as issues an other Seattle downtown neighborhoods, such as Pioneer Square and Belltown. But the historic neighborhood has also faced its own unique challenges like discrimination and hate crimes inflicted against Asian Americans, which spiked during the pandemic.
King County’s plan to expand a homeless shelter at a Salvation Army site in north SoDo on the border of the CID also became a flashpoint for some residents, spurring protests that resulted in County officials abandoning the effort.
