First Chinatown is a retronym for a former neighbourhood in Toronto, an area that once served as the city's Chinatown. The city's original Chinatown existed from the 1890s to the 1970s, along York Street and Elizabeth Street between Queen and Dundas Streets within St. John's Ward (commonly known as The Ward). However, more than two thirds of it was expropriated and razed starting in the late 1950s to build the new Toronto City Hall and its civic square, Nathan Phillips Square.