Although it was touted as potentially drawing more tourists to the area, it soon became known as a dangerous place, with the July 4 shooting over fireworks sales that occurred at Ping Yuen leading to the Golden Dragon massacre of 1977.

The murder of Julia Wong in 1978 inspired residents to go on a rent strike, led by future mayor Ed Lee, for improvements to building maintenance and security.

Ownership of Ping Yuen passed from the city to the Chinatown Community Development Center in 2016, which is continuing to work with residents' associations to improve conditions.

Although Chinatown was mentioned as a notable exception, the "unsavory, unsightly quarter" was thought to be "rapidly growing smaller and may finally reach the vanishing point" as immigration had been throttled by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

[6] At the same time, Chinatown was rebuilt but remained geographically limited by restrictive racial covenants that prevented Chinese residents from purchasing or renting outside its boundaries;[7] the transformation from what used to be a largely bachelor society of Chinese laborers through the immigration of women and the growth of families, combined with the hard borders of Chinatown, meant the population and density grew steadily through the early 20th century.

However, starting in 1938, support from prominent officials (including SFHA commissioner Alice Griffith) began to build, and a location was proposed in Hunters Point, although that site was unacceptable due to its distance and poor transit connections.

"[8]: 99  The San Francisco Junior Chamber of Commerce announced they would perform an independent study, which was published in October 1939 and largely confirmed the earlier report's findings.

[10][15] Although federal funding had been approved, the unnamed project (then known as Cal-1-15) was unable to proceed, as the cost of land exceeded guidelines; the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Resolution No.

[16]: 17  This was approximately 1⁄3 of the projected amount in excess of the guidelines; the United States Housing Authority had previously agreed to cover the remainder.

NEHC was at 799 Pacific on the ground floor of Central Ping Yuen, serving the Chinatown, Russian Hill, and North Beach neighborhoods.

[30] The clinic moved one block northwest to a new building at the eastern portal of the Broadway Tunnel and was renamed the Chinatown-North Beach Health Center in 1970.

[32] A site was chosen for an expansion by 1956, tentatively named Ping Yuen Annex, but the cost to acquire the land exceeded the allowable formula for the number of housing units that would be built.

[33] The Annex project was expanded and ground was broken on February 2, 1960, during Chinese New Year festivities in a ceremony attended by Mayor George Christopher and Miss Chinatown USA Carole Ng.

[35] Demand for housing at the Pings was high; by June 1968, the SFHA indicated that 778 families classified as 'other' races (97% of these were estimated to be Chinese) were on the wait list for an open apartment.

[31]: 51  Additional low-income/senior housing was approved in 1977 as the Mei Lun Yuen project by the San Francisco Planning Commission, to be built near the corner of Stockton and Sacramento.

[62] The SFHA was placed on a list of "troubled" local agencies in early 2013 by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development after receiving 54 out of 100 possible points during an audit.

[69] Under CCDC, the Sustainable Chinatown initiative was launched in 2017 to improve the environmental impact of the entire community, including Ping Yuen, which is scheduled to receive a photovoltaic array and additional efficiency upgrades.

[71] Daniels published an initial set of sketches showing a multistory building topped with fanciful pagoda roof elements in the December 1939 issue of Architect and Engineer; the work was commissioned by the San Francisco Junior Chamber of Commerce[72] and received favorable local press coverage.

[76] At the time, Daniels described the style as originating from "western and northern China";[72] Gwendolyn Wright has called it "Chinese regionalism superimposed over a functionalist design".

[21] The "Pailou Gate" in front of Central Ping Yuen was modeled after the paifang to the Marble Pagoda of the West Yellow Temple in Beijing.

[29] Similarly, a quote credited to Confucius is on the back of the entrance monolith to North Ping Yuen at 838 Pacific: 四海之內，皆兄弟也; Sìhǎi zhī nèi, jiē xiōngdì yě.

[35][79][80] By 1959, plans for the Annex had grown to be eleven stories tall (nearly twice the height of the older six-story Pings), holding 194 families (almost as many as the three original buildings combined), at a cost of $3,182,159.

[81] Security measures, including the locked fence surrounding each building, were not added until after the murder of Julia Wong and subsequent rent strike of 1978–79.

[85] North Ping Yuen consists of a single twelve-story building that is within the block defined by Pacific, Stockton, Cordelia, and Broadway.

However, the SFHA censored at least one scene, which Leong had tentatively named "The Denis Kearney episode" after the notorious Workingmen's Party of California leader and the San Francisco riot of 1877.

[100] It is dedicated to "Sing Kan Mah and those who have struggled to make America their home"; the faces depicted in the mural are actual people, drawn from photographs of congregation members at Mar's church, Chang Jok Lee (a Ping Yuen resident since 1952 and longtime leader in the Ping Yuen Residents Improvement Association),[101] and archived photographs of railroad and agriculture workers.