Going back to January of this year, well before New York City as a whole began to see the coronavirus as a serious threat, Manhattans Chinatown was already suffering. Racist fears about the spread of the virus correlated not only with a spike in hate crimes against Asian New Yorkers, but in a general avoidance of Chinatown that decimated the local restaurant industry.
And yet, Chinatown remains very much a vibrant Chinatown. While many historic districts around the city have turned into condo-lined neighborhoods with a whiff of nostalgia the median home sale in Little Italy last year jumped to $2.6 million Chinatown has avoided both disappearing, and becoming a museum of itself.
For ourNew York City Tomorrow series, where we’re asking New Yorkers for their utopian (but often realistic!) ideas of how the city could look, we spoke with three Chinatown luminaries Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, Winnies Bar manager Teddy Mui, and 46 Mott Bakery manager Patrick Mock about their ideas for the future of the neighborhood.
Their interviews have been edited and condensed.
You-Line Niou, Assemblymember
Representing New Yorks 65th District, which covers much of Lower Manhattan
Assemblymember Niou: In every single tourist brochure in New York City and in our minds eye when we think of New York City theres not a single person who doesnt think about Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Statue of Liberty. When people think of New York, it starts here in Lower Manhattan.
So one thing is, we should get a particular percentage of the tourism budget. That should be something given to Chinatown for bringing people into the city, because nobody thinks of New York without thinking of Chinatown. Were on every brochure! You always see a line dancer or a dragon or something going on in Chinatown.
But does the city consider us as the priority? No. We get so little of the citys budget, and we get so little of the states budget. We get so little consideration when it comes to resources.
What would you do with those resources if the state said tomorrow, You-Line, were doubling your budget, what would you do? Folks dont realize, we have so many different languages being spoken in Chinatown, and its important that we provide services that are accessible by everyone. People dont really know how to get permits and access to things they need to know, and then theyre dinged for it before they knew they even had to go through a process.
Some people are not even able to express if theyre wrongly targeted a ticket will be written for them, and they cant say, this is not the right address. Its a small thing, but itd be great if they didnt scare our merchants to death. I think those things would be helped if there was true language access.
Also, it would be really amazing to see a robust night vision of Chinatown. We dont have that because theres just not the foot traffic or the same kind of incentive for some of the cool stuff going on elsewhere. It has to do with some permitting, etcetera. But it would be cool to have a kind of night market with fried chicken in a bag, tofu on a stick, curry fish balls the food would be great and fibrant, itd be so fun!
Regarding restaurants, I want them to be able to charge what theyre worth. I think theres a lot of racism there, when it comes to the conceptualization of this cheap Chinese food, and being able to get things for a lot cheaper in Chinatown. But the rents are not different, and the food and quality are immense.
And by the way theres a love and a sadness to it. I survived in Chinatown during grad school you can get a plate of 15 dumplings for less $4! Its insane! You shouldnt be able to get that quality and that much food for that little. Thats just barely scraping by. But thats the expectation when people come to Chinatown, theres just a weird stereotype that Chinese food is cheap food.
How do you think the neighborhood has managed to stay so activeas a Chinatown, rather than turning into a neighborhood of Chase banks and high rises? I think it manages to stay that way because a lot of these buildings and properties were bought right after the Chinese Exclusion Act was lifted, and a lot of these were bought by families together. So its not so easy to sell a property there.
Also, when youre first an immigrant and come to New York even me, I gravitated towards Chinatown, because thats where I would find family and friends, and a place to go. And thats still the case for Asian immigrants, its still the place to find resources and a friend that will speak your language.
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Mott Street outdoor dining in August 2020
Scott Lynch / Gothamist
Teddy Mui, manager of Winnies Bar
And son of founder Winnie Mui
Teddy Mui: If we had our way, wed be able to renovate our buildings most of Chinatown is still in tenement buildings. Most of our restaurants and bars are in tenement buildings, where its tight. Its hard to work out of.
Why cant you renovate? Well, I have a cousin who just recently renovated her apartment. Shes a little bit older than me Im 41. Shes lived there her whole life, and until recently, her bathtub was still in her kitchen.
What were living in are true tenement conditions, still. Its the 21st century, but no one notices because were not known for speaking up, or were under rent control, so the landlords dont need to renovate our buildings and they dont need to worry about how much the buildings are failing. Most of these buildings, the wiring is horrible if they could get fixed, that would be the first step to a more perfect Chinatown. But its hard on the landlords too, theyre rent controlled buildings.
But as soon as an apartment with rent control the bad way to say it is, dies out, where the tenant passes with no one to hand it down to the landlords renovate these apartments and then they go back to way over market price. Youre looking at one-bedrooms in Chinatown for $2,000. And your neighbor is paying $300. But her bathtub doesnt work.
When you look down the road 20 years, what kinds of big changes do you want to see? I would love to see a commingling of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, because it brings that much more community into our neighborhood. I grew up in Chinatown, but its not like I didnt hang out at the Vladeck and Smith projects, because thats where my friends were.
And theres a huge Chinese community within a lot of Latino countries if you ask a true Cuban what is the best Cuban food, theyll tell you Chino-Cubano is the best Cuban food. Cuban food cooked by Chinese people! Its this commingling Chinatown is great, but we realize Chinatown is not going to last the way it is. These little ethnic enclaves around the city, theyre going to slowly get gentrified. And thats fine with us, as long as were able to keep our culture there, to show where these neighborhoods really came from.
Landmarking some of the Chinese landmarks around Chinatown would be great, too if you walk around Chinatown right now, theres landmarked buildings for Italian-Americans, theres landmarked areas from when the Irish were there, and where Jewish people were there. But theres no landmarks for the Chinese, and were the last ones here, were the ones keeping the condos from rising up into the sky.
To the extent that the culture of the neighborhood has remained intact, why do you think that is? Whats kept Chinatown Chinatown there was a fear of going into Chinatown. Its that neighborhood where they dont all speak our language. I had friends growing up who wouldnt come to Chinatown back then, because they wouldnt know what we were saying, if we were planning to kill them behind their backs, when literally we were just asking each other what we were gonna have for dinner.
Its that xenophobia that kind of kept Chinatown Chinatown, but that has been changing. When you can offer a one-bedroom for $1,500 when across the street in Little Italy, its $2,500, people will start not caring about it being Chinatown.
If you go all the way back to the beginnings of Winnies Bar, and talk to native Chinatown sons and daughters, you will hear that back in the day, Winnies Bar was a Chinese gangster bar. And it was! A lot of Chinese gangsters hung out during those days at the bar, but they were the only ones there, because everyone was afraid of them. But in the 90s after they took down John Gotti, they went after the Chinese gangs, too. So for a period of 3 years or so, we were very close to closing.
And then we noticed young professionals from the Financial District coming down and singing karaoke, it was starting to hit Western culture. And our crowd grew from there. College students. The bridge-and-tunnel crowd. And now we have I dont like labeling them hipsters, but we have the hipsters. But we have a beautiful mix! Its some tourists, some young professionals, but we also have our Chinese regulars sitting there playing dice games while youre singing your Shania Twain song. Every weekend, I see the perfect mix of what my customers should be.
What makes you feel optimistic about the future of the neighborhood? Whats making me feel optimistic about the future is the younger generation that’s starting to step up and voice their concerns and opinions on how things should be done.
Chinatown is very traditional, almost to a fault, where weve let our elders take over. And we need to learn from our elders, but young people need to be making decisions now, and move Chinatown further. And seeing people like Patrick Mock start standing up and speaking out on the injustices weve suffered, it gives us a hope for the future.
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Patrick Mock outside of his bakery in August 2020
Scott Lynch / Gothamist
Patrick Mock, manager of 46 Mott Bakery
Anda local advocate whos been providing free meals during the pandemic
What do you want to see change, coming out of the pandemic? I want Chinatown to be as vibrant as it ever was, but I want it to be more accepting of the younger generation, too.
In Chinese culture, were always taught to respect our elders. And I always have I always listen to them. But in times like Covid, even their experiences arent enough to make them deal with whats going on. Our younger generation adapts faster, changes faster but explaining it to our elders, they dont understand. Or they feel like were trying to take power away from them.
Whats an example where that conflict comes up? Well one of my ideas that Ive been trying to talk about is to just close the streets for the weekend. Or just Friday night and Saturday night, no vehicles, from Bayard Street down. Just to set up outdoor dining, lights, entertainment. Any way we can attract people coming down to Chinatown on a weekend night, to bring foot traffic and revenue back into the neighborhood.
But some of my elders have voices concern about Access-a-Ride, not being able to find parking. And then they bring up, Oh, you guys are gonna make it a rowdy nightmare like the East Village. But on Mott Street, theres only one place with a full liquor license, out of the whole street.
Me trying to explain it to them, and theyre coming up with one reason after another. I respect all my elders, but right now, we need more business down here and more foot traffic. I understand theyre not comfortable with it, but doing nothing doesnt help at all. Just finding ways of explaining, talking, and having my elders think the way Im thinking. Because I understand where theyre coming from, but they dont understand where Im coming from.
I know youve expressed ambivalence about how Chinatown relies on tourism… Yeah, I really hate that We rely on it so much, and look where its taken us. With tourism done, we dont know what to do. I want Chinatown to be more local, more friendly, more of a city destination for New Yorkers, where you want to take your kids during the weekend, or you want to take your family out for some type of special occasion.
Our neighborhood is very rich in culture, its very rich in history, and at the same time, we have so much youth the best thing I see about Covid is that it shows the younger generation has interest in Chinatown. We can use that to our advantage. Just because some of us are not working doesnt mean we dont have the creative talent to get things done. We can see it in new nonprofits started up by people my age. Theres so much that our younger generation could help with. But we need elders to be more accepting of our help, instead of fearing that were going to take power.
Whats a big idea you have for something new coming out of this? You know how we lost Lunar New Years? Thats our biggest festive holiday. Theres another one coming up October 1st, the Moon Festival, the Autumn Festival. Thats another big festival for being Chinese, because it represents family and unity. I want to promote that as the second big holiday for the neighborhood. [Because large events were canceled through September 30th, the hope is to have a street festival when October arrives.]
And I want it to be something elders can be proud of, where they can be proud of the younger generation for giving it our all. Young people have to be respectful, but it doesnt hurt to speak your mind and ask questions. Everything is not okay.read more
Chinatown Luminaries On The Future Of The Neighborhood
