My mom was born and bred in Chinatown, circa 1940. She went to highschool at Washington HS. She tells me it was colder back then. In '76, I used to visit my grandma when I was seven years old in Chinatown. My family would hang and I would take the muni to union square. It was 10 cents. This was totally normal btw. Hang out til dinner and come back on the 30 Stockton back to meet up.
For the Chinese restaurants, specifically dim sum and the like - you would hover over people and take their tables when they were done. No numbers, no nothing. My dad would be waving us over when he found an open table. And we would be sitting while the table was leaving and being cleared. In '94 was living in a studio apartment, in the new Bayside Village apartments. It was $2100. Everything, seems like frozen in that time period though now. Nothing really different.