San Diego Chinese Historical Museum in downtown San Diego has occupied a restored 1927 Chinese mission building at 404 Third Avenue since 1996, preserving Chinese American history and culture in the heart of the city's original Chinatown within the Asian Pacific Historic District. The permanent exhibition traces a dual timeline from China's Shang dynasty through the Qing era on one wall and Chinese American immigration history focused on the San Diego community on the other, joining a museum corridor that includes The New Children's Museum blocks away on Island Avenue. Ethnographic collections span traditional Chinese medicine and herbalism, folk art, religion, philosophy, and the social history of Chinese laundries, with artifacts contextualized alongside a research library of bilingual volumes. A tranquil Chinese garden with koi pond occupies the grounds and hosts private events, while rotating exhibitions at the companion Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Extension on J Street expand the curatorial reach into territory also explored by Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park. The museum's annual Lunar New Year Street Fair, a free community celebration drawing thousands to the Third Avenue corridor, represents its highest-attendance public programming.