Every now and then, a student is interested in looking at Chinatown in Boston for architectural history classes.
The following sources could guide us through a virtual journey back to the initial settlement by those Chinese merchants and students in the late 1870s in the same locale.
A Chinatown Banquet 
(Tisch Media Center: FDV4056)
Videos: Perceptions of Chinatown (4:19) ; The Chinese Exclusion Act (3:57) ; Landfill, immigration & transportation (3:04) ; History lessons (1:25) ; Early Chinatown (5:35) ; Occupation: Laundryman (3:40) ; Family associations (4:25) ; It dates back that far (6:35) — About “A Chinatown Banquet” — Boston Chinatown: Historical context and overview ; Street interviews.
Watch it onYouTube.
Chinese in Boston, 1870-1965 (Tisch Bookstacks: E184.C5 C4445 2008)
Chinese Historical Society of New England.
More sources on the buildings:
Buildings of Massachusetts: Metrop olitan Boston/ edited by Keith N. Morgan; principal authors, Richard M. Candee … [et al.]; photography by Peter Vanderwarker with additional photographs by Antonina Smith.
Oversize & Ref: NA735.B7 B85 2009
The research guide: Built in Boston.