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| HI DUK LEE |
ASAM NEWS
The man credited with making Los Angeles’ Koreatown the most vibrant in the United States has died at the age of 79, reports LA Taco.
Hi Duk Lee immigrated to the United States in 1968 and opened Olympic Market, the first Korean market in the neighborhood at Olympic and Normandie in 1971. He also owned Young Bin Kwan, the first restaurant to feature traditional Korean architecture in LA. His VIP Plaza became a gathering point for many Koreans in the community.
“They didn’t have any good restaurants for entertainment or a meeting place,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “I planned to make Koreatown. Chinese people have Chinatowns everywhere: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montebello. But there’s no Koreatown.”
His daughter, Helen Lee, fondly remembered him.
“I’m sure he’s in heaven, cleaning there, making changes and bossing people around,” she said to the Times. “Definitely, he was always the boss.”
Lee passed away March 7 from colon cancer.
About 100 people attended a service for him March 14. According to LA Taco, his son Roger remembered him as a “true American,” a fearless man who “took all the risks and dealt with all the consequences.”
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