Canal Street gets all of the attention, but the narrow streets south of that are really the thriving heart of the Chinatown. Mott Street in particular is often called the neighborhood’s “Main Street” because this is where much of the civic machinery lives. The street is lined with social clubs, business associations, and community organizations that do the essential work of helping new residents find their footing, promoting businesses, and resolving disputes.

In the early 1800s, the area was notoriously rough and poor, sitting just north of Five Points, where Daniel Day-Lewis roamed with his big knives and bigger mustache. By the late 1800s, these blocks had become a real Chinese enclave. That pattern accelerated in the mid-20th century, especially when some of the more insidious quotas were abolished in 1965 and Mott Street became a landing pad for emigres from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Today, Mott Street near Canal is a mix of 19th Century tenements, mid-20th century “Chinese modern” additions. And the street is jammed with tourists buying tchotchkes, neighborhood expats on a sentimental pilgrimage to a favorite restaurants, and neighbors just trying to weave through the crowds all under banners, bright signs, and lanterns.

Also, this post wasn’t planned to coincide with Lunar New Year (year of the horse!). I took these photos back in December. I’m just slow.

Streetview

68 Mott Street | 1870s?

This five-story tenement has a remarkable Chinese-style iron balcony that’s been added to the top floor and threaded into the fire escape. This was probably done around 1946, based on a blueprint submitted to the city around this time, according to the city Department of Records. Today, the building is associated with the Soo Yuen Benevolent Association.

This address was also a footnote in a long-forgotten scandal for Geraldine Ferraro, running as the vice presidential candidate under Walter Mondale in the 1984 election. Inquiries into her husband’s finances revealed that he was the managing agent for this building as part of a portfolio despite four previous police gambling-related arrested in the basement. He eventually stopped managing the building in time for his wife’s ticket to pick up 13 electoral votes.

Another sordid detail: In 1971 police entered the apartment of a 60-year-old man and found two ounces of heroin and $25,000 in cash, according to the New York Times. After he offered them $1,000 to go away, he got a bribery charge atop the narcotics charge.

Bonus: PBS’s Finding Your Roots found that Robert Downey Jr.’s great grandmother lived and died in here 1893, shortly after immigrating to New York. (Skip to 12:40)

67 Mott Street | 1910

In her essay for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Chloe K. Li uses the Big Wong restaurant as a jumping-off point describe the neighborhood’s gang geography in the 1980s and 90s²:

“Walking on Mott Street could mean risking injury or your life. Gang members often lurked on the streets, shadows watching over and controlling everything. They warranted fear. A peaceful afternoon could quickly be interrupted by a shootout. Business owners and residents alike agreed to the gang’s terms, with many regularly paying them in exchange for their businesses to run violence-free.”

I didn’t get to enjoy the food at Big Wong, which New York Magazine named one of the best restaurants in Chinatown a decade ago. But you can live vicariously through this Youtuber as he takes on some of their congee and rice rolls.

On Leong Chinese Merchants Association | 1951

This is probably one of the most recognizable buildings in Chinatown because of its ornate pagoda and modernist details, as well as its corner location on Canal Street. Or maybe you were just dazzled by the jewelry in the shop window.

This was the work of Poy Gum Lee who was born just a couple of blocks south of here, lived in China for several years in the 1920s and 30s before returning home, and as 6sqft writes “was the first well-known Chinese-American architect working in Chinatown.”¹

In recent years, he’s been appreciated more, with a retrospective at the Museum of Chinese in America.

The one resource you want to read about this building is this entry by Reflective Urbanisms which featured the history of the building and interviewed architectural historian Kerri Culhane and On Leong President Harvard Tang, who detailed the use of the building from the pagoda on the upper floors for people to watch parades and barbecue, the meeting rooms with the occasional karaoke or mahjong session, as well as the acupuncture studio and bakery downstairs.

65 Mott Street | 1824? Maybe later?

There have always been buildings in Manhattan set aside for multiple tenants. But in a city defined or its tenements, this is often considered the first one built specifically for that use.

Built by Jacob Weeks, this seven story building at first had no plumbing and little natural light, given that there was a separate five-story building put up in the rear. The Society of Architectural Historians features this quote from an 1879 plumbing journal:

There is a rectifying distillery on the first floor. Dark interior rooms are abundant. The owner is a rich man. He complacently says ‘the building doesn't owe me anything.’ But what does it and its self-satisfied owner owe its occupants and the community?

Assuming it was built as early as 1824 (which seems up for debate), for the next 80 years this model was the dominant means of warehousing people until the Tenement House Reform of 1901, which mandated light, bathrooms, and ventilation.

A website put together by NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House found that in 1860 the vast majority of the people living in this building were Irish immigrants. A “syndicate of Chinese investors” bought the building in 1927.

Shopping!

Chinese Community Center | 1959

Known by some as “China Tower” this is one of the most recognizable buildings on the street and one of the most interesting. It’s built for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association to resemble tong lau-style buildings of Hong Kong, often built around the middle of the 20th century and marrying bricks and cheap materials with ornate detailing. This looks weathered and worn-in, which adds to its charm.

The CCBA was founded in 1883 to provide support and training for the burgeoning Chinese community. It bought the land in the 1930s to replace what was then a public school. But getting the building up was, apparently, a long and messy process, according to an Asian American history blog hosted by Baruch College, which noted it didn’t have the money to start construction until the late 1950s and that the local organization’s “sometimes incompetent planning procedures ate up precious money” and “cut corners to get the building done, and then it sued the contractor.”

An insightful New York Magazine article on the operations of Chinatown tells how the governance structure worked, from then-CCBA president Eric Ng:

For decades, the CCBA effectively functioned as Chinatown’s government, collecting dues and overseeing business transactions. “If there was an argument, they didn’t come to court…They came to us.”

This is also home to the New York Chinese School, which offers kids and adults education into the language, poetry—even calligraphy. Again, Reflective Urbanisms has a very comprehensive entry about this building as well, filled with excellent interviews and photos.

What’s Good: It’s a vibrant mess. But if you love cities, you love this mess.

What’s Not: I can’t walk down a block like this without thinking it should be pedestrianized.

Block Rating: 8/10