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Mother and daughter
“Loiterer”
Baker
Trash collector
Trash collector
Senior citizen in Columbus Park
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Chinatown is both static and dynamic: Static in its resilience against gentrification, dynamic in its cultural interplay between past and present, immigrant and American.
Everywhere in Chinatown, past and present intermingle. Dusty and decrepit Jewish textile stores struggle onward; their elderly owners wait to close up shop and sell out for millions to developers. By Division Street rests a former synagogue with an AT&T outlet on one side and a Chinese-language job agency on the other. Bustling bakeries and bodegas abut reminders of past immigration. Lyricist Ira Gershwin’s birthplace is still inhabited up the street, red paint flaking off its brick walls. Weathered brick tenements, serving successive waves of Germans, Italians, and Irish, still serve elderly Asians and urban “hipsters.” Chinatown is still a living, breathing being in constant flux.
On select corners sprout feeble tendrils of gentrification: a pricey café, a garish painted crêperie, a chic souvenir shop advertising “I love Chinatown” tote bags. This neighborhood is devoid of its youth; little children and wizened elderly remain. The rest have left to work in the America beyond the dense city. Beneath the Manhattan Bridge a sign reads in Mandarin: “Chinese-American special carrier to return infants to China.” The shabby A Train rumbles in the sky.
On the neighborhood’s fringes is the touristed Tenement Museum. The museum’s cycling documentary chronicles life on the Lower East Side. Black and white imagery flickers across the screen: Italians and Irish, Germans, and Jews, the immigrant experience, dreams of coming to America. It is all too convenient to reflect on the past and to conclude: That what was New York no longer is. That its immigrant travails have now vanished. That overcrowding and grime is no more.
Much has changed. Much has not. The city awaits the next tide of tired, poor, and huddled masses.
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Seafood restaurant displays its produce.
Religious iconography for sale next door.
Seafood restaurant displays its produce.
Henry Street
Allan and Broome Street
East Broadway window reflections
Forsyth Street fire escape
Mott and Canal Street
Eldridge and Division Street
Mulberry Street
Eldridge Street
Columbus Park
Columbus Park
Mott Street
Eldridge Street tenement
Job prospectors
Job agencies on Eldridge Street
Pamphlet man
Canal Street
Grand and Allen Street
Mott Street
Pell Street
Shoe repair beneath Manhattan Bridge
New China Barbershop
New China Barbershop
New China Barbershop
Mott Street Laundry
Broome Street Laundry
Eldridge and Broome Street trash can
Vanessa’s Dumpling House
Henry Street dumpling factory
Mott Street kitchen
Butcher on Mott Street
Paris: Vietnamese Cuisine (Colonialism leaves long tendrils.)
Multicultural grocery
Mott Street grocery
Mott Street grocery
Bayard Street bodega
Seafood on Mott Street
Seafood on Mott Street
Advertised as “Field Chicken,” these frogs are sold for $5.19 each.
God Bless America
Church of the Transfiguration
Broome Street temple
“All-purpose Flower Shop and Funeral Services”
“Prosperity” jewelry made of metal thinly coated in low-karat gold.
A neighborhood in need of serendipity
The “serendipitous” ones
Mulberry Street fortune teller (center)
Doyers and Pell Street
People Watching on Broome Street
Eldridge and Broome Street
Broome Street
Chinese New Year’s shoppers
Martial Art Gifts Shop
Mondrian in Chinatown
Bayard Street
Origami artist
Greengrocer on Canal Street
Old age in Columbus Park, Chinatown
Musician in Columbus Park, Chinatown
Cardplayers in Chinatown
Henry and Market Street
Storefronts near Eldridge Street Synagogue
Kenmare Street
Eldridge and Division Street
Canal and Mott Street
Bayard and Mulberry Street grocery
Eldridge Street Synagogue
Forsyth and Delancey street grocery
Mosco Alley and Mulberry Street
Doyers Street – Barbershop Row
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This high-density tenement on Eldridge Street is home to a myriad of businesses including:
– Third Brother’s Fuzhou Snack Bar
– Green Forest Internet Bar
– United Express and Lottery Tickets
– Universal Phone Cards
– Everything OK Job Agency
– International Job Agency
– Twinkling Star Job Agency
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These frogs, marketed as seafood and known as “Field Chicken,” are sold for $5.19 each.
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This all purpose establishment advertises the following services:
– Weddings
– Conferences
– Concerts
– Gatherings
– Ceremonies
– Western Chinese Music
– Performing Arts
– Potted Plants
– Floral Arrangements
– Funerary Flowers
– Funerals and Birthdays
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