Friendship Archway

The Friendship Archway stands forty-seven feet tall, covered in seven thousand colorful tiles and two hundred hand-painted dragons. It is a traditional Chinese paifang gate that marks the entrance to Chinatown. Built in nineteen eighty-six, the structure resulted from a city agreement to preserve the neighborhood’s character despite massive local development. Workers shipped the tiles and lacquer from Beijing, and the gate uses a system of interlocking wooden brackets held together without a single nail.