MAKING HOME, MAKING PLACE: Chinatown Digital Storymap

What memories do you have?Which places matter to you?

About

Chinatown has always been more than a neighbourhood: it was, and continues to be, defined by the social and community life that gives it meaning. Making Home, Making Place: Chinatown Digital Storymap is a collaborative mapping platform by the JIA Foundation that documents the stories, memories, and lived experiences of Montréal Chinatown. From buildings and streets to the spaces in between, each place carries traces of the people who have passed through it. While a physical space may change, these histories endure. By archiving these stories together, we hope to reveal the diverse ways in which how Chinatown has been lived, remembered, and narrated.

How to use

Pan and zoom to explore Montréal's Chinatown. Click any pin to read a memory left by someone else. To contribute your own, click the location on the map where your story belongs and a window will open for you to write. Stories will appear after review.

Context

In December 2025, the JIA Foundation launched a project to develop a Community Vision for Wing's Block, aiming to establish this heritage-designated sector of Montréal Chinatown as a much-needed cultural heritage anchor for the neighbourhood. Since then, the Wing's Block Partners Table—bringing together institutions, businesses, property owners, and space activators around the block—was created as a platform to develop and implement this vision, which envisions a future for Wing's Block that showcases Chinatown's cultural heritage and social history, meets the needs of its living community, and actively contributes to its urban revitalization.

As one of the two engagement activities for the exhibition Wing Noodles: The Heart of Chinatown, this interactive program gathers and amplifies diverse community stories about the past, present, and future of Wing's Block. The initiative aims to document community knowledge about the relational, cultural, and spatial conditions that make this neighbourhood unique. Your contributions will inform and guide the development of the Wing's Block Vision.

Land acknowledgement

The JIA Foundation acknowledges that Montréal’s Chinatown is located on unceded Indigenous territory, and recognizes the Kanien’kehà:ka Nation as the custodians of the land on which it operates. We also acknowledge that these same colonial legacies continue to displace poor and marginalized people from the land. As Chinatowns have often been a place of belonging for marginalized groups of people, we currently operate from a perspective that aims to facilitate inclusive visions of development which foster growth and revitalization, while combating displacement and gentrification for all, including the unhoused community.

Consent & privacy

By submitting a story you agree to have it displayed publicly on this map. Please do not include full names, addresses, or other identifying details about other people without their permission.

Moderation

All submissions are reviewed before they are published. Any content that is hateful, discriminatory, or otherwise inappropriate will be flagged and deleted.

Click anywhere on the map to drop your story.

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