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Despite Chinatown’s shady reputation, it was a tight-knit community whose residents were familiar with one another. Parents allowed their children, who were highly cherished (especially since there were so few of them due to the early lack of women and families), to roam the streets without supervision during the day. The sense of all of Chinatown as being a children’s playground was deftly captured by the photographer Arnold Genthe, who considered Chinese children to be some of his favorite subjects.