{"id":90266,"date":"2025-12-11T07:17:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/90266\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T07:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:17:16","slug":"those-were-all-houses-new-report-quantifies-99-freeways-path-of-destruction-in-west-fresno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/90266\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Those were all houses.\u2019 New report quantifies 99 freeway\u2019s path of destruction in West Fresno"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by Fresnoland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kathy Omachi used to wonder why there was no D Street in Fresno\u2019s Chinatown.<\/p>\n

The street names otherwise went in order from A to G in the West Fresno neighborhood, then continued through the alphabet in downtown proper.<\/p>\n

Omachi later learned that there indeed used to be a D Street \u2014 but that was all before State Route 99 came along. The north-south freeway was built over what was once D Street in the 1950s, taking down hundreds of West Fresno homes with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wiped out two full blocks,\u201d said Omachi, whose grandfather once ran a pool hall in Chinatown. \u201cWhere you see the freeway now going through, those were all houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those people had to relocate,\u201d she said. \u201cThey had to find other places to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new report from the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies<\/a> helps quantify just how destructive the freeway\u2019s construction was for West Fresno.<\/p>\n

Four hundred homes were demolished to make way for the freeway\u2019s construction, touted by state transportation planners at the time as the area\u2019s \u201cfirst real freeway\u201d that would benefit Fresno\u2019s economy. Those demolitions forced the displacement of roughly 1,000 West Fresno residents, UCLA researchers estimate.<\/p>\n

But the report also approximates how much of that destruction could have been avoided \u2014 had state officials instead selected one of the alternative routes that West Fresno community leaders pushed for back then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more destructive route was chosen in Fresno,\u201d said Jacob Wasserman, the project manager for the UCLA study.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found evidence of chambers of commerce and a (former) Congressman that was advocating for bypass routes that bypassed downtown Fresno and West Fresno altogether,\u201d he added. \u201cBut those voices were not heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

This chapter in West Fresno history \u2014 from 1949, when state officials announced the selection of the D Street route, to 1957, when construction was complete \u2014 is one that fewer and fewer surviving Fresno residents were around to see.<\/p>\n

But its impacts can be seen and felt to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just created a further geographic isolation of West Fresno,\u201d said Veronica Stumpf, a realtor whose family has roots in West Fresno\u2019s Germantown that once thrived before the 99 cut it in half.<\/p>\n

Communities like Germantown virtually vanished from West Fresno as former residents scattered north. West Fresno\u2019s overall population began a decadeslong downward spiral.<\/p>\n

For the advocates picking up the pieces roughly 70 years later, this historic legacy is always present \u2014 but it doesn\u2019t stop them from fighting for West Fresno.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat freeway is there. How we address its impact today,\u201d said Jan Minami, project manager for the Chinatown Fresno Foundation, \u201cis what\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the 99 freeway reshaped West Fresno<\/p>\n

Before the 99 tore them up, West Fresno was home to extremely diverse neighborhoods. Japanese, Chinese, Italian, German, Mexican and Black communities \u2014 to name a few \u2014 settled in the area, many because the city\u2019s racist housing policies forced them west of the railroad tracks.<\/p>\n

Stumpf\u2019s family was among them. Her father\u2019s side put down roots in Fresno\u2019s Germantown in 1898 after living on the Volga River in Russia for 150 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia was becoming a harder and harder place to live,\u201d she said, as Russian leaders rolled back promises to German immigrants. \u201cSo in 1898 they packed things up, moved from Russia to Fresno, and Germantown was their first home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their neighborhood was roughly bounded by Church, Mono, G and Fruit streets, according to city documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From her family\u2019s stories, Stumpf said she heard of a tight-knit community of newcomers to the United States. They owned a home in Germantown and went to Lutheran Cross Church.<\/p>\n

But when the freeway sliced up Germantown, the Stumpfs and other families scattered into the Fresno High and Tower District neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had the privilege and the financial means to move north,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if they received any relocation assistance,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019m not too sure about that. But my understanding was that they were homeowners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the West Fresno residents that relocated within the city in the wake of the freeway\u2019s construction, the report found that, overall, more white residents left West Fresno while residents of color stayed in the west area.<\/p>\n

\u201cNon-Hispanic white immigrants were economically and socially assimilating in that era,\u201d the report continues, \u201cwhich provided them with more opportunities to leave West Fresno.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, as West Fresno areas like Germantown became more affordable with the economic \u201cdevastation\u201d brought on by the 99, more residents of color moved in.<\/p>\n

Racially-restrictive covenants<\/a> legally barred people of color in Fresno and other cities from moving north in the ensuing decades before those practices were banned in 1968 under the Fair Housing Act.<\/p>\n

An alternate route?<\/p>\n

D Street was the route ultimately chosen by state transportation officials, due to largely economic factors, the UCLA report notes.<\/p>\n

State engineers\u2019 reasons included cheaper land acquisition costs, as well as \u201cthe potential for business development in West Fresno that they believed the freeway could bring,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

But before that, an alternative route was also considered along G Street, closer to the railroad tracks.<\/p>\n

That route would have displaced \u201cless than half\u201d that number of households as the D Street route, according to the report.<\/p>\n

As many as 2,000 West Fresno community members spoke out against the D Street route and urged leaders to consider alternatives, researchers found through newspaper articles and other archives.<\/p>\n

That included former Congressman Bertrand Gearhardt, who called the D Street route a \u201csentence of death on West Fresno\u2019s community life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The West Fresno Chamber of Commerce, which the report says was formed in 1949 \u201cas a direct response\u201d to the D Street route and claimed over 200 members, staged some of the most well-documented opposition.<\/p>\n

West Fresno religious leaders were also some of the \u201cearliest and most vocal opponents,\u201d the report adds, since many of their houses of worship were in the path of the D Street route.<\/p>\n

These opposition efforts came at a time when state agencies largely weren\u2019t yet \u201cforced\u201d to undertake robust community engagement processes, said Paul Ong, one of the report\u2019s authors and director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question in early freeway development, planning, building \u2014 that state agencies were not held responsible for lots of things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even with the few opportunities that existed for the public to weigh in, some forces held more weight with state planners than others.<\/p>\n

That included \u201cpowerful economic agents\u201d like the railroad industry, Ong said, which held more influence at the time. The report also notes that the central Fresno Chamber of Commerce and Merchants Association supported the D Street route, unlike the West Fresno merchants.<\/p>\n

These outcomes don\u2019t surprise Omachi, looking back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in the community with really no political representation, no political power, no economic muscle,\u201d she said, \u201cand it was the easiest route for them to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n

West Fresno today<\/p>\n

The highway\u2019s construction and the housing destroyed in its wake helps explain the beginning of a \u201cdownward population spiral\u201d for West Fresno, the report says.<\/p>\n

Within two decades of when the route was selected, \u201cWest Fresno\u2019s population decreased by 42 percent compared to two decades earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 1980,\u201d the report continues, \u201cit had dropped to less than half of the 1950 population.\u201d<\/p>\n

This set the stage for some of the biggest obstacles to revitalization efforts for areas like Chinatown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to build (and) revitalize a commercial neighborhood without a residential population,\u201d said Minami, whose organization works to support both commercial and housing development in Chinatown.<\/p>\n

Stumpf, whose family now has a real estate business, said she sees the difference in her work, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Chinatown,\u201d she said, \u201ca property might be worth $50 per square foot, max. But then if you cross the train tracks into another part of downtown, the central business district, that same building is probably worth $100 per square foot \u2014 maybe $125 per square foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can clearly see how the train tracks and the freeway 99 definitely create a barrier when it comes to real estate values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some critics also hear echoes of this in more contemporary state infrastructure projects like the embattled high-speed rail. The controversial bullet train \u2014 which has both supporters and detractors in Chinatown<\/a> \u2014 is supposed to have a station in Fresno with entrances from both downtown to the east and Chinatown to the west.<\/p>\n

Omachi, a vocal critic of the project, is worried to see the state acquiring properties in Chinatown again and displacing businesses that give a window back into the neighborhood\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone brought up with me the issue of (how) all these other countries have high-speed rail, like Japan. I said, yes, but they also acknowledge \u2026 what they\u2019ve lost to do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also went through many historic areas or low-income (communities).\u201d<\/p>\n

But advocates also see hopeful paths forward for neighborhoods like Chinatown.<\/p>\n

Minami said it\u2019s her dream to get a freeway cap built over the 99 in Chinatown to help restore walkability in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Other cities like San Diego<\/a> and Denver<\/a> have built so-called \u201ccaps\u201d or \u201clids\u201d over freeways and built parks overtop them in efforts to reconnect communities that were severed by major roadways.<\/p>\n

Despite her fears for its future, a love of the neighborhood also fuels Omachi\u2019s fierce efforts to preserve Chinatown history, even after the state literally paved over some of it.<\/p>\n

Omachi didn\u2019t get to see much of the Chinatown her own father, or his father before him, spent time in. Her family relocated to become sharecroppers, and then the highway came in.<\/p>\n

But she cherishes the stories her father told of her grandfather\u2019s participation in a sumo ring in Chinatown, or his days studying at the old Fresno Buddhist Temple \u2014 even if as a kid, the stories went in one ear and out the other.<\/p>\n

Her preservation efforts now, she said, are \u201cin honor of him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by Fresnoland. Kathy Omachi used to wonder why there was no D Street…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113,1825,1967,36410],"class_list":["post-90266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-highway-99","tag-transportation","tag-west-fresno"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}