The Cathay House in San Francisco was a landmark Chinese restaurant, bar, and banquet hall that operated from 1939 to 2018. Located at the corner of California and Grant Streets, the famous pagoda-style building was constructed for the Sing Chong Company in 1910. From its inception, Cathay House was a magnet for celebrities and the San Francisco elite, with regulars such as Duke Ellington, Robert Montgomery, and Fritz Keisler. The building was almost immediately an attraction for artists, as well, and appears in paintings, prints, and photographs of San Francisco as regularly as any landmark.
Anna Mae Aiello was born in 1903, and from the 1930's to the 1940's she spent most of her time working on pieces depicting the surroundings of Chinatown, San Francisco, California.
The Chinatown of San Francisco is the oldest in North America, an enclave that continues to retain its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity.