Most Torontonians know about its two Chinatowns: the bustling tourist attraction at Dundas St. W. and Spadina Ave., and its eastern equivalent on Gerard St. E.

But those who lived in the northern boundaries of the city, particularly during the 1980s and ’90s, would go for morning dim sum or late night noodles at the lesser known third Chinatown along Sheppard Ave. in Scarborough’s Agincourt neighbourhood.

The unofficial heart of this area was Dragon Centre, North America’s first Chinese-themed mall that opened 1984, writes Toronto-based Chinatown historian and author Arlene Chan in a paper about Toronto’s Chinese population. It’s more or less hidden behind a hill, just off Sheppard Ave. E. at Midland on Glen Watford Dr.

In addition to stores selling Chinese herbs and books, the mall had little stalls for a quick bowl of noodles or fried rice. At the back of the mall there was a large banquet hall that was packed, serving dim sum on weekends and catering to weddings in the evenings. For Chinese New Year, a lion dance would weave around tables that were covered in platters of steamed fish, roast pork and lobster.

It’s a tiny mall compared to, say, the juggernaut that is Pacific Mall a short drive away. But back then it was the place to be.

Over the years, the attention to Chinese food shifted to Markham and Richmond Hill and today the mall is much quieter than it once was. The site is slated for condos and there is no push to save the building.

But before the wrecking ball comes, food historian Camille Bégin and urban planner Howard Tam are working to preserve Dragon Centre’s significance and recognize the darker elements of its history.

The mid-to-late ’80s saw a boom in Chinese immigrants arriving in Toronto. Many were from Hong Kong, as the region was to be handed back to communist China in 1997 — after the 99 year lease to the British ended — and people were wary of the future. A July 1988 Star article described this wave of immigrants as “yacht people,” distinguishing them as being more affluent, working in real estate and property development.

Brothers Daniel and Henry Hung of the Shiu Pong development company, founded in Hong Kong, took over a former roller rink in Scarborough and — for $800,000 — turned it into an indoor Chinese shopping mall. They called it Dragon Centre to cater to this new class of Chinese-Canadians. (The same firm was behind Dragon City at the corner of Dundas St. W. and Spadina Ave.).

The Chinese community flocked to Dragon Centre, from as far as Mississauga. They bought homes in Scarborough, opting for big backyards rather than cramped downtown apartments. This led to the development of more Chinese businesses, restaurants, day-care centres, and senior centres, solidifying the area as a thriving Chinese community.

“The centre had a snowball effect in the area when it first opened,” Daniel Hung told The Star in a November 1988 article. “Now there’s lots of other Chinese stores.”

But not everyone was happy with the mall’s initial success, says Bégin, who is a Heritage Toronto public historian, a lecturer at University of Toronto Scarborough’s Culinaria Research Centre and co-author of a study on Scarborough being a multicultural food hub.

Citing a 1984 Mayor’s Task Force report on race relations in Scarborough as well as news articles at the time, Bégin, says the planners didn’t put in enough parking spaces at the mall to handle the influx of traffic, causing chaos on the roads and frustration among the pre-existing community.

In an article in the Star in May 1984, about a meeting attended by 500 Agincourt residents, an alderman said the neighbourhood wasn’t ready to see bilingual street signs in Chinese and English.

And resentment from non-Chinese business owners in the neighbourhood grew as Chinese shoppers preferred to patronize Chinese-owned shops. In July 1986, a hardware store owner told the Star, “I’m not overjoyed at leaving because the area has been good to me. But I’m moving because the Chinese that now shop here don’t buy at my store.”

Tam grew up in the neighbourhood and remembers attending community meetings with his mom after derogatory flyers regarding the Chinese population were distributed; she was upset by the ordeal. He is now the principal of urban planning consulting firm ThinkFresh Group.

“I remember the restaurants, the supermarkets, I got my first pair of glasses at Dragon Centre, and that store is still open today,” he says.

He moved back to the neighbourhood just over a year ago, and after being barraged with requests for local food recommendations, Tam started conducting food tours through EatMoreScarborough.com.

While there are no official boundaries, the strip of Sheppard East from Midland to McCowan Rds. has a particularly high concentration of plazas and mini malls serving the Chinese community, especially when it comes to food.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The 24-hour Perfect Chinese Restaurant has been open since 1984 and still packs in crowds for its Friday night lobster specials. East Court BBQ is a tiny family-run Chinese barbecue joint that excels in whole roasted pigs. Peking Duck Kitchen is a local favourite, where diners can peer into the kitchen to watch the chefs take the duck out from the roasters.

While researching for his food tours, Tam noticed a massive condo project had been proposed for the Dragon Centre site.

“Having a planning degree, I noticed there’s no heritage report for the mall,” he says over a lunch of soup dumplings and fried chicken at Shanghai Dim Sum near the mall.

Tam contacted the city planning department, which in turn reached out to the city’s Heritage Preservation Services. As a result, the city will ask that a plaque commemorating the mall be included in the condo’s approval process.

Tam is holding an event in the mall on Oct. 5 to mark its history. He’s collecting newspaper clippings, old photos and anecdotes from people who used to shop, eat and work at the mall. People can submit stories online at DragonCentreStories.ca.

“This was the first major development in the area that stood as an anchor to bring in the Chinese community,” says Tam. “It’s a very important story of a developing Scarborough and there’s an entire generation of stories to share.”

Bégin, who came to Toronto 15 years ago from Paris, was initially surprised by the reports of racial tensions. She always thought of Toronto as a place that always embraced multiculturalism.

“My job is to share the history of Toronto, and sometimes it can be a hard history,” says Bégin. “Toronto’s history isn’t just a downtown matter, there’s a lot of heritage in the suburbs that we need to bring out. If we want to continue to live in a diverse city, we need to reflect on our past and on stories such as what happened with the parking situation at the Dragon Centre, so we can work to ensure it does not happen again.”

While Agincourt was deemed “Asiancourt” by residents in the ’80s and ’90s (depending on who you ask, it was either a derogatory term or a tongue-and-cheek acknowledgment of the demographics), the neighbourhood now has a more varied culinary landscape reflecting Toronto’s ever-changing demographic.

Ernie McCullough, executive director of the Sheppard East Village BIA, notes that the neighbourhood has since seen the arrival of Filipino eateries, the always-packed Mona’s Roti, which serves some of the best Trinidadian food in the GTA, and Babu, a Sri Lankan takeout hot spot.

Even if most diners think of Markham or Richmond Hill when considering Chinese food, Tam still sees Scarborough as a dining destination because of the sheer number of independent mom-and-pop shops that have existed for decades.

But despite Tam’s fondness for Dragon Centre, he has no desire to save the building from redevelopment. The mall is not nearly as busy as it once was; the banquet hall at the back is now a dance venue where on a recent Saturday night, couples paid a $12 cover to dance to swing music.

There’s no official date for the mall’s closure or condo construction. The development proposal was initially submitted in 2014 and is being redesigned after consultations with the city and residents.

“I believe that heritage is more nuanced than the usual save or don’t save debates. Sometimes, I think that capturing community stories of what happened is actually more important as it helps to paint a picture of what life was like, rather than keeping a building that is no longer used in its original form and the meaning of it may be lost,” says Tam.

“Another part of this is to help capture the histories of different ethnic communities in Toronto. I don’t feel that this is currently done well and I hope that this project could become a platform or case study to spur discussion about how we can do this better around our diverse city.”

Read more about: