WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- In one of the last truly Chinese redoubts of D.C.'s Chinatown neighborhood, residents are fighting their apartment building's owner's plan to demolish their home in Mandarin, Cantonese and English – whatever language will get sympathetic ears to listen.
On Wednesday night, dozens of residents and their allies held a rally in front of the Museum Square Apartments at the corner of 4th and K Streets in Northwest, D.C. At midnight Thursday, the Section 8 building will turn over to market rate, the first step in a plan by its owner to demolish it and build luxury condos and apartments on the site.
"It would be a great struggle," Xizheng Tan told WUSA9 through a translator of what would happen if he had to move. "I've since retired and have very little actual income. Eighty to 70 percent of the people in the building are in the same situation."
The building's owner, which operates under several names including Parcel One Phase One Associates and Bush Construction Corporation, announced its plans two years ago, which have been tied up in legal wrangling and public fights like Wednesday's ever since.
Parcel One Phase One did not return calls for comment on Wednesday night.
Residents would not be forced out on the street. Instead, they would receive vouchers from the government to help them afford market rate apartments elsewhere, or at Museum Square, where rents will rise from a subsidized rate of around $200/month to nearly $1500/month.
But the fight to stay at Museum Square is as much about culture as it is about cost. The building's 300 renters are mostly Chinese immigrants, who moved to the building when it felt more like the heart of Chinatown than an island near it. By one estimate roughly half of Chinatown's Chinese residents live at Museum Square.
"It would be really best if we could just stay here. This place is really important to me," longtime resident Yin Ban Huang told WUSA9 through a translator. "I wouldn't have anywhere else to go. "
For now the building's ultimate fate, as well as that of its residents, is tied up in legal wrangling. At Wednesday's demonstration, multiple speakers called for help from the federal or district government, but no elected members of either body were present.
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