A community activist and former City Hall official whose support was sought by mayors, governors, and lawmakers from Chinatown to the nation’s capital, Mr. Chin died in his Boston home Monday while sleeping after dinner. He was 91 and his health had been failing for the past few years.
“He was the anchor of civic life in Chinatown for so many decades,” said Mayor Michelle Wu, who counted him as a key mentor as she became the first Asian American woman elected to be a city councilor, and then mayor.
The unofficial mayor of Chinatown, Mr. Chin was youngest sibling in an iconic neighborhood family and had served as the city’s purchasing agent during the mayoral administrations of Kevin H. White, Raymond L. Flynn, and Thomas M. Menino.
Though mayors sought Mr. Chin’s counsel, he also worked with his brother, Billy Chin, who died in 2021, to create businesses, affordable housing, social service organizations, and agencies in Chinatown that helped new residents become citizens and voters.
“Uncle Frank was always for the community,” said Helen Chin Schlichte, a longtime activist who is cofounder and president emerita of South Cove Manor, the state’s first care center for elderly Asian residents.
At City Hall, Mr. Chin honed his political acumen and, through friendships with officials such Clarence “Jeep” Jones, Boston’s first Black deputy mayor, helped build bridges between the Asian and Black communities.
Mr. Chin also spent hours on Chinatown’s streets, often speaking with workers awaiting rides to suburban Asian restaurants and setting up sidewalk voter registration tables.
“Politics,” he told the Globe in 1993. “That is the only way my community will be able to get some benefits.”
Generations of elected officials sought his support and…
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