(also known as J-Town or historically as Japanese Town, or "Nihonmachi" ("Japan town", in Japanese)) is a neighborhood in the Western Addition district of San Francisco, California. Japantown comprises about 6 city blocks and is considered one of the largest and oldest ethnic enclaves in the United States. Location The main thoroughfare is Post Street, between Fillmore Street (to the west) and Laguna Street (to the east). The Japantown neighborhood is generally considered to be bordered on the north by Bush or Pine Street, and on the south by Geary Boulevard. Its focal point is the Japan Center, which opened in 1968, and is the site of three Japanese-oriented shopping centers. The San Francisco Peace Pagoda, also at the Japan Center, is a five-tiered concrete stupa designed by Japanese architect Yoshiro Taniguchi and presented to San Francisco by the people of Osaka, Japan. History Up until 1906, San Francisco had been the main U.S. port of entry for Asian immigration and had the largest ethnic Japanese concentration of any city in the United States. Prior to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, San Francisco had two Japantowns, one on the outskirts of Chinatown, the other in the South of Market area. After 1906, Japanese immigrants began moving to San Francisco's Western Addition, which then became San Francisco's main Japantown, with a smaller one in the South Park area. The South Park area was located between the docks used by Japanese shipping companies and the Southern Pacific Railroad Station, and primarily served travelers between Japan and the United States. The South Park district businesses suffered following the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. By 1940, the Western Addition Japantown area (referred to as Nihonjin-machi) was one of the largest such enclaves of Japanese outside Japan, as it took an appearance similar to the Ginza district in Tokyo. The ethnic Japanese population numbered over 5,000, and there were more than 200 Japanese-owned businesses. In February 1942, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which forced all Japanese of birth or descent, including Japanese-American citizens of the United States, to be relocated from the Pacific coast and interned. By 1943 many large sections of the neighborhood remained vacant due to the forced internment. The void was quickly filled by thousands of African Americans who had left the South to find wartime industrial jobs in California as part of the Great Migration.