Chinatown: the oldest in America
The Dragon Gate, the herb shops of Stockton, the fortune-cookie alley, and the painted balconies of Grant. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Dragon Gate
Start at the green-tiled gate at Grant and Bush, a 1970 gift modelled on a ceremonial Chinese arch. Walk through it the way you're meant to and you're on the tourist spine; the trick is to keep going and then cut a block over.

2. Grant Avenue
The painted lanterns, the curved eaves, the balconies stacked up the buildings — this is the photographed street, dressed for it since the quarter rebuilt after 1906. Walk it, then leave it. The real shopping is one block west.

3. Stockton Street
The grocery street, where the neighbourhood actually shops. Crates of bok choy and bitter melon on the sidewalk, live fish, dried everything, and herb shops with walls of labelled drawers. Loud, crowded, and the point of the walk.

4. Ross Alley
The oldest alley in the quarter, narrow and shuttered. The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company folds them by hand here; step in for the smell and a warm flat one before they're folded. A small fee if you want to photograph.

5. Waverly Place
Two blocks of painted balconies, the 'Street of Painted Balconies,' with the temples up top floors. Tin How Temple, the oldest Chinese temple in the country, is up several flights — climb if it's open, and leave a small offering.

6. Portsmouth Square
End at the square the neighbourhood treats as its living room — old men at xiangqi boards, kids on the play structure, the spot where the city's first public school stood. The Central Subway stop is right under it.

Chinatown: the oldest in America