New York County Court House (later New York State Supreme Court), 1927.

While Fred E. French's development Tudor City flourished, the perils of private-sector redevelopment emerged at French’s next major project, Knickerbocker Village, located on the Lower East Side near the Manhattan Bridge. When his plans, which included the demolition of the infamous “Lung Block,” faltered in the Depression economy, he was left holding 14.5 acres of tenement property, optioned at about $14 psf. In 1933, French went hat-in-hand to the federal government’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation to beg for millions to realize his dream. Federal officials provided only enough for part of the project: two massive perimeter blocks that, at 12 stories, rose high above the surrounding tenements, yet covered just about half the land. The project achieved a density of 800 people per acre. NYCHA’s first Chair, Langdon Post, called Knickerbocker Village “new types of slums,” but the tenants disagreed after repairs were made to the hastily-built buildings.

5th Precinct, 1900. This 1881-station house is the oldest original police precinct in the city. (Though the Central Park Precinct is in an older building, that structure was built as a stable and wasn't taken over by the police until the 20th century.) This four-story Italianate building was designed by the Police Department’s architect Nathaniel D. Bush, who was also a sergeant on the force! Originally called the 6th Precinct, it was known as the "Bloody Sixth" for the violence in nearby Chinatown, largely enacted by the local Tong gang. The local police dealt with rampant gambling, opium dens, and gang murders. By 1911, the station had been renamed the 5th, and a new fancy police patrol telephone booth had been added to the entranceway. On two separate occasions in the 1960s and 1970s, the NYPD expressed a wish to demolish the building for a new station house and the community fought to preserve the old building. Instead of being razed, the building was renovated and modernized.

Wong Family Association, 1960s. One of Poy Gum Lee's final designs in Chinatown, the Wong Family Association Building is also perhaps his most strictly modern. While most of his other designs in New York were somewhat heavily influenced by Chinese architectural styles, this structure had an overt mid-century modern facade. The building was constructed for a Chinese benevolent society which assisted new immigrants and created and organized social, political, and economic structures within the Chinese community.

In 1763 Henry Culyer, scion of a wealthy Dutch family involved in the sugar trade, built a massive six-story, brick sugar house at the corner of what was Prince Street (later Rose and William Street) and Duane Street. The building was impressive for colonial New York, standing six-stories tall. It was used for both refining sugar and the storage of sugar and molasses. The Culyer family remained Loyalists during the Revolution and as a result, lost their property (including this sugar house) when the Act of Forfeiture was passed. Sold at auction, the building was purchased by William Rhinelander, another son of an old New York family made rich by sugar. Improbably surviving the Great Fire of 1845 and the general destruction of much of the city's colonial architecture, the sugar house was still standing in the second half of the 19th century. Once the tallest building in the area, by the 1890s, when it caught the attention of photographer Robert Brackow, it was dwarfed by taller structures and was obviously suffering from neglect. The building was finally razed in 1892 and replaced by a new Rhinelander Building. Fun fact! Not all of the 1763 building was lost! Urban legend/local lore in the 19th century suggested that this sugar house was used as a prison during the Revolutionary War. It was not, but the Livingston Sugar House on Liberty Street was used as a prison. Regardless of the provable facts, stories persisted. When the building was demolished two windows were saved. One was donated to the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York and placed near the Van Cortlandt mansion in the Bronx. The other window was installed at the new Rhinelander Building and when that building was razed in 1968 and the street demapped for the Civic Center redeveopment, it was placed within the Brutalist structure of One Police Plaza (where it can still be seen today.)

48 Henry Street, July 1967.

Citizen Savings Bank ARCHITECT: Clarence W. Brazer DATE: 1922-24 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Citizens Bank is an important example of the 20th-century Beaux-Arts bank building combining Renaissance and classical precedents, with the building’s unusual height and nearly square massing, conveying its financial strength and stability to depositors. The street facades have rusticated bases above which rise monumental, arched windows enframed by engaged pilasters supporting an entablature in the Roman Doric order. To identify the building and its purpose noted sculptor Charles Keck designed a sculptural group, with a clock, that incorporates elements from the seal of the Citizens Savings Bank, including a Native American, a sailor, an eagle, and beehives, traditional symbols of thrift.

51 Market Street, ca. 1978. This four-story building, also known as the William and Rosamond Clark House, was constructed in 1824-25 by an unknown architect. Designed for William Clark, a grocer, the building is an early example of the Late Federal style on the Lower East Side. The home was erected at a time when the neighborhood was an affluent residential area. While the structure may not appear particularly architecturally distinguished today, the building was one of the first to be designated after the Landmark Commission was created in 1965.

Spanning from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1920s, the Progressive Era left a lasting impact on the United States and New York City. During these years the nation experienced an increase in reforms meant to alleviate the suffering of the working classes. In order to accomplish this goal, Progressives believed the government needed to accept greater responsibility for its citizens' well-being. The Progressive ideals of greater government involvement and regulation was a reaction against the policies of the Gilded Age. During this period in American history, wealthy business owners and corporations accrued vast fortunes, often at the expense of working class people. Many believed something had to be done. Following the Civil War, The Gilded Age contributed to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States. While both of these processes created enormous wealth for some, it also worsened the plight of many people. Urbanization and industrialization transformed both the physical landscape and the experiences and expectations of Americans. During the Progressive Era, many municipal services, like the police and fire departments, were established or expanded. School reform and increased access to sanitary living conditions improve the lives of poorer Americans. To many, the Progressive Era provided a much needed antidote to the societal ills of Gilded Age urbanization and industrialization. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2e & 11.5. For Teachers: The Progressive Era in New York Lesson Plan

Henry Street, south side between Oliver and Catherine Street, Manhattan, showing P.S. #1, 1920. One of four public schools in New York City that have used the name“P.S. 1”, the C.B.J. Snyder designed school was completed in 1897. When opened it served the largely Italian immigrant neighborhood. Subsequent immigration waves included Polish and Russian Jews during and after World War I and later Puerto Ricans and Chinese students. It is believed that this school had the very first rooftop playground. Famous alum include singers Luther Vandross and Eddie Cantor, as well as actors Jimmy Durante and Robert Loggia. Fun fact: This school's origins date to the New York Free School 1, founded in 1809, which predates even the city's Board of Education, set up in 1842.

Sai Wing Mock, or "Mock Duck," was the leader of the Hip Sing Tong, one of the "tongs," or controlling agencies in New York's Chinatown. Tongs were essential in preserving the culture, political agency, and independence of Chinese Americans in the early 20th century. Mock, who would rise to become one of the most notorious figures in the Chinatown crime scene, was born in San Francisco in 1878 to Cantonese immigrants. At 18 years old, he relocated to New York, going by the name "Mock Duck" until the late 1910s, when a Newark newspaper mistakenly reported his death. Taking advantage of the error, Mock reverted to his given name, Sai Wing, which afforded him some privacy after years in the spotlight. This story tells of the life of Sai Wing Mock "Duck."

Oak and New Chambers Streets, decorated for St. Vincent’s festival, October 27, 1935. Buildings along both streets were razed between 1950 and 1953, ahead of the construction of the Alfred E. Smith Houses. The Municipal Building is visible in the background, as are the elevated tracks of the combined Second and Third Avenue Lines.

Think!Chinatown presents a walk of the heart of Manhattan's Chinatown, based on the stories of its residents, as collected by archivist and oral historian Rochelle Kwan. Follow along online or use the stories to connect with the neighborhood through the memories of its residents. As you take a walk around the neighborhood, check out the Landmarks Oral History Project stories: www.thinkchinatown.org/landmarks

Bo-Bo Restaurant, ca, 1975. The Chinese restaurant called Bo-Bo's (at 20 1/2 Pell Street, right) was a well-loved local institution between the 1950s and 1980s. The menu was up on a board on the wall and with less than a dozen tables, the wait could be an hour. Those who remember the spot even today say the wait was always worth it. The signage notes the restaurant's name and states "the home of Chinese actors." Ester Eng, who was a partner in Bo-Bo's and owned another nearby eatery was an early director in Chinese cinema, and many Chinese actors frequented the spot.

A 5-story structure, No. 68 (second from the corner), was supposed to have been the first place where stereopticon and shadow views were first shown. It also is reputed to have had the first public meeting rooms on this thoroughfare.

Pagoda Theater, 1964. The Pagoda Theater, which was designed in 1963, was the last new building in New York's Chinatown created by the Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee. Opened in 1964, the theater was the first Chinese language movie theater in the neighborhood built expressly for that purpose (the other three had been converted into theaters). The theater was rendered in a Chinese-influenced, modern style with a three-tiered pagoda at the corner. The auditorium sat just under 500 patrons. The opening of the theater was celebrated with a dragon dance through the nearby streets of Chinatown. The theater closed in the late 1980s and was razed and replaced in the early 1990s with a 15-story commercial structure.

One of the finest of the Greek Revival churches in Manhattan, it has been attributed to Minard Lafever because of the beauty of its detail. The porch is recessed between wide flanking sidewalls, as is the case with St. John's in the Village, only this church is simple distyle in antis of the Doric order.

Shearith Israel Graveyard ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1683 STYLE: Graveyard This small graveyard is what remains today of the early burial ground of the Sephardic Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel. It was established on this site in the Seventeenth Century and thus represents one of the oldest cemeteries within the City. Handsome headstones are here interspersed by marble sarcophagus with simple flat-slab tops. One little monument is surmounted by a small pyramidal stone cap. The unique quality of this small plot lies not only in the simplicity of its early tombs but in its forgotten aspect, surrounded by houses, a reminder of our earliest history.

Construction on the South Street Pumping Station, across South Street from the Long Island Railroad Freight Depot at East River Pier 32; undated photo. A May 1885 report in the Babylon Budget detailed construction of the new depot at piers 32 and 33, "which promises to be the handsomest and most substantial on the whole riverfront." The report further quoted from the Fishing Dispatch trade publication, claiming the depot's construction had been driven by a fourfold increase in freight traffic. Pier 32 was also used for Ferry Service to Long Island City. At the turn of the century, the facing block on South Street was transformed as four buildings, Nos. 191-194, were razed for the construction of the fire department's South Street Pumping Station, completed in 1909. Around the same time, the East River piers were renumbered. By 1922, freight storage for the Pennsylvania and Long Island railroads had expanded to occupy the area between the Pier 22 (formerly 30-31), at foot of Roosevelt Street, and Pier 25 (formerly 33), at the foot of Oliver Street. Most of the piers in this area were removed by 1977.

Manhattan Bridge Plaza ca. 1979 The Manhattan Bridge was completed in 1909 during a post-Consolidation building boom. The decorative grand plaza and colonnade completed in 1915 at the Manhattan entrance have been chipped away at by city administrations and the elements. It was almost torn down by Robert Moses during bridge reconstruction in 1961. Though it never achieved the elegance depicted in this postcard, the colonnade is still a part of the bridge.

Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building ARCHITECT: Sullivan Jones and William Haugarrd DATE: 1928-30 STYLE: modernist classical The Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, historically New York State Office Building at 80 Centre Street was constructed as a piece of a master plan for this area. The nine-story edifice is composed in a modernist classical style faced in granite to be contextual, but not detract from, the courthouses in Manhattan’s Civic Center. A heavy, rusticated base boasts carved seals of New York State, and “STATE OF NEW YORK”, prominently centered on the façade, rests above the seals. The cornerstone of 80 Centre was laid on December 18, 1928 by Governor Al Smith, who used a silver trowel to apply the first layer of mortar and secured a copper box time capsule containing records, newspapers, and photographs into the stone block. The impetus for the New York State Office Building came down to economics. Throughout the 1920s, the State of New York hemorrhaged money toward expensive rents for State offices, typically in midtown. This building consolidated all State offices to one location, as the New York Times explained its dire need: “Completion of the State Building marks a realization of one of the largest units in a well-defined public building program which has for its aim the unified housing of official activities and elimination of tremendous rents.” (NYT, “Civic Centre Plan Showing Progress.” 11/2/1930) In 2018 it was announced 80 Center would be demolished to make way for a new 40 story tower that would house the new Manhattan jail. Thankfully, that plan was abandoned, but the building is still not landmarked and therefore under threat.

Saint James Roman Catholic Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1835-37 STYLE: Greek Revival, Church St. James Church is a fine example of Greek Revival architecture. It has recessed porch with two columns on either side of the porch are enclosed stairs with their own doors opening on to the street. The entire front is crowned by a low gable pediment. One of the principal contributions of the Greek Revival in this country was its modification of the classic temple form.

96 Bayard Street, 1932.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Mott Street in front of Transfiguration school. A photo taken for 8th-grade graduation in 1982." —May Lew

Our Stories, Our Chinatown Landmarks is an ongoing audio exploration of memory and place, produced by Think!Chinatown. Through a story stroll around the neighborhood, we visit and remember our community members’ own personal landmarks and memories in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Our Stories, Our Chinatown Landmarks is a part of Chinatown Arts Festival 2023, produced by Think!Chinatown.

Chatham Branch, NYPL, ca. 1903. Chatham Square Branch was the first of twelve Carnegie libraries designed by McKim, Mead & White. Completed in 1903, the structure remains one of the most intact Carnegie libraries (interior and exterior) in the city. The Chinatown-located library has served that community nearly since its opening. The library began a circulating Chinese language collection in 1911. Today the Chinese Heritage Collection, a unique collection of materials in English and Chinese, is housed on the lower floor.

Children on the Allen Street median eating ice cream. No. 21, the Lucky Merchandise Co. is seen in the background, 1955.

Foley Square Courthouse (today the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse), 1936. The Classical Revival courthouse at 40 Foley Square was designed by Cass Gilbert, and finished by his son, upon Gilbert's death in 1934. Completed in 1936, the colonnade entrance on Foley Square fits in well with its neighbors, including the Municipal Building and the New York County Courthouse. The imposing main tower is set back from the base and rises 20 stories to a pyramidal roof. One of the first federal skyscrapers constructed, it was originally called the Foley Square Courthouse. In 2001, the United States Congress passed a bill renaming the building in honor of Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court Justice, who had sat on the resident Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the early 1960s.

Welcome to Chinatown, Manhattan! One of over 50 Chinatowns in the U.S. and nine in New York City alone, Manhattan’s Chinatown is home to the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. The story of Manhattan’s Chinatown begins in the middle of the 19th century. Immigration to the US from Asian countries, especially China, boomed due to factors such as the California gold rush, Chinese labor recruitment for the transcontinental railroad, and the Taiping rebellion in China. Post Civil War, resentment towards Chinese immigrants due to competition with white laborers drove members of the Chinese population towards larger cities in the East, such as New York, with the added incentive of job opportunities and a more diverse population. Chinatown was born as Chinese New Yorkers, mostly men, settled around Mott, Pell, and Doyer streets in the 1870s, forming a Chinatown of only 3-blocks which, when compared to the 55-60 block span of today’s Chinatown, creates a clear image of Chinatown’s impending growth. Though the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 along with other exclusionary laws passed by Congress slowed Chinatown’s population growth, its cultural development was not impeded, with many notable business and organization establishments taking place between the passing of the act in 1882 and its lifting in 1943. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 led to a dramatic population increase of Chinatown, with its boundaries expanding to an approximately 55-block area. Immigration groups shifted–where early Chinatown had been primarily populated by Taishanese-speaking Chinese immigrants, the second half of the 20th century saw a wave of Cantonese speaking Chinese immigrants from Mainland China followed by Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese immigrants and other Non-Cantonese immigrants in the 70’s and Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Fuzhou in the 80’s and 90’s. In recent decades, the vibrant community of Chinatown has been impacted by modern issues facing both New York City and the rest of the world. Gentrification and displacement have become increasingly prevalent throughout the past few decades, with luxury developments threatening to raise real estate prices and push out working class residents and longstanding family businesses. Chinatown was also hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, with businesses being affected as early as January 2020 due to stereotypes and racism surrounding Asian and specifically Chinese communities, and a 361% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021. Despite the challenges that have impacted Chinatown both then and now, it has remained rich in culture and community, and its resilience and character has cemented its importance in the past and present both in New York and throughout the country and world.

"Market Street, east side, north from Madison, to and including Henry Streets. The Manhattan Bridge is seen in the background." - P.L. Sperr, September 9, 1927.

Tracks of the Second Avenue El above Division Street, viewed from the south walkway of the Manhattan Bridge. September 24, 1927.

The Wah Yan Mue Temple was located above the Temple Garden Restaurant at 16 Pell Street in the Hip Sing Building. Hip Sing Tong is one of a dozen tongs or business and neighborhood associations that assisted new immigrants with services, jobs, and a community. Hip Sing, established in the 1850s, is also well known in the 20th century as a criminal organization. The original temple on the upper floors of 16 Pell was the Fut Cho Mue Buddhist Temple. Its successor was the Wah Yan Mue Temple, which seems to have utilized some of the same items, including the ceremonial gong (seen at right).

The Chinese Merchant's Associaton was built in 1950 by Poy Gum Lee. The Museum of Chinese America describes the building as, "a boxy modernist block with modest Chinese decorative motifs...the most iconic building in Chinatown, the pagoda-topped On Leong Tong building typified Lee’s Chinese modern style." Poy Gum Lee, born and educated in New York, was the architectural consultant for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. This was the first building to be constructed in a style reflective of Chinese-American culture. Additionally, Poy Gum Lee was the first well-known architect of Chinese-American descent to build in Chinatown. The building houses the On Leong Tong, or the Chinese Merchants Association, a tong society established in 1893. This building was part of the tong's territory. Upon its formation, the On Leong Tong feuded with the Hip Sing Tong over control of the area. Tongs were mutual aid societies established to protect Chinese families and businesses against racism and prejudice in the United States. Many tongs were quickly associated with street gangs as violence between tongs was not uncommon. In extension, tongs found profit in appealing to vices, and many tongs were sustained by running brothels, opium dens, and gambling houses. However, tongs acted as the court and police force for Chinese-American communities, providing a semi-legitimate structure for communities otherwise unprotected by the government. The On Leong Tong is still operational and maintains over 3,000 members.

Prisco State Bank, 1927. Prisco State Bank was founded in by an Italian man named Raffaele Prisco in the mid 1920s and occupied this classical style bank building on Mulberry Street in the heart of what was Little Italy at the time. In 1931 the bank was closed by a New York State Banking Agency and Prisco was arrested and charged with grand larceny. The charges involved withdrawing funds from an account held by the bank to pay a personal debt. Along with Raffaele, his two sons and a third employee were also charged and served time for the crime. When the bank closed, many of its clients, small businessmen of the neighborhood, lost their funds.

ca. 1890 The Newsboys Lodging Home depicted here by Jacob Riis was, in fact, the third incarnation of the Newsboys Lodging home. Also called the Duane Street Lodging House or the Brace Memorial Lodging House, it was set up for young boys (not necessarily newsboys) who would be otherwise homeless. The boys would pay a fee and in return, they would receive schooling, food, and a clean place to spend the night. A replacement for a smaller lodging house, the Duane Street Newsboys Lodging Home opened in 1873. Costing more than 200,000$, the Duane Street location was aimed at expanding it mission to serve the ever-increasing homeless child population of New York. It was managed, like most of the Children's lodging houses of the city, by the Children's Aid Society. With a gymnasium, school rooms, dining hall, and washrooms, the home attempted to provide an education to those that lodged with them. If a boy wanted to stay the night, the ensuing classes were mandatory. Those that could not afford to pay could defer the payments until they had the means. The rules at the home were strict, the boys had to be out by 7 am and were allowed in no later than 9:30 pm. Moreover, all were expected to pitch in with the upkeep of the house, with duties from cleaning to laundry to cooking. During the day, the boys were out, selling newspapers, shining shoes, and earning money. The mission operated until 1919.

Park Row Restaurant, ca. 1940. The Depression era deals advertised on this restaurant front include 'Pigs head and cabbage' and '2 broiled lamp chops' both for 15 cents. For 25 cents you could get '3 broiled pork chops' with soup and coffee.

Olliffe Pharmacy, ca. 1950. In 1805 Dr. William F. Olliffe opened his druggist business. The location of the original shop is unknown, though it could have possibly been here at 6 Bowery. The wealthy Olliffe family lived on Broome Street (described as a "then a fashionable quarter of New York"). Olliffe's son, also William (M.) took over the pharmacy business likely in the 1860s. A late biography of the man noted that he "continued as proprietor in such a way as to leave him large leisure for social and other engagements." William M. died in 1885, but the Bowery shop survived with his name on the sign until 1957, when it closed after more than 150 years in business!

St. James Roman Catholic Church, 1938. This fieldstone Greek Revival church (right) was built between 1835-37 and is the second-oldest Catholic church building in Manhattan. Despite its status as a New York City Landmark, the church was closed in 1983 due to deterioration and concerns that its roof could collapse. The structure was damaged in a 2011 fire, but remains intact. In the middle ground, the two-level elevated tracks of the Second and Third Avenue elevated lines run above New Bowery (St. James Place), between Franklin Square and the split at Chatham Square. In the far background, the elevated tracks of the IRT City Hall Spur are visible over Park Row.

"Chinatown Today," a 1973 mural by Alan Okada, viewed from Pike Street.; ca. 1978. Okada's mural was one of several produced by the City Arts Workshop, a community organization promoting the representation of the neighborhood's communities of color through the arts, especially murals. "Chinatown Today," appeared on the eastern wall of No. 107 East Broadway, above a vacant lot along Pike Street. After Edmund Vincent Gillon's photo, the single-story Hong Kong Supermarket opened on this lot. In May 2009, a fire at the supermarket caused heavy damage to the buildings abutting this corner, leading to the demolition of No. 107. By then, however, Okada's mural had been painted over.

Division Street tobacco store, January 26, 1938. According to “Changing New York,” the collection of photographer Berenice Abbott’s WPA work: “The Scharlin family opened its snuff store in 1876. The Yiddish signs in the window say ‘Do you want real strong smelling tobacco? Come in and see for yourself-free trial.’ At its height, the business had branches throughout the nation, and, in 1906, Mrs Scharlin reportedly declined an offer of $500,000. But, by the time of the Depression, the vogue for snuff had ended and the business was in decline. The seven-foot wooden statue of "Sandy" the kilted Scotsman holding a snuff box advertised Scharlin's snuff from the 1870 until 1938. He now resides in the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.” The tenement building that housed the Scharlin storefront is still standing, a few doors west of the Knickerbocker Post Office’s rear entrance.

Christmas trees for sale outside Gogel's Delicatessen. December 23, 1941.

Anshe Chesed and Rodeph Sholom are respectively the oldest and second oldest surviving synagogue buildings in the city, and some of the oldest in the country. Both were constructed for German Jewish congregations in German architectural styles: Gothic Revival and Rundbogenstil (“round-arch style”), and feature red brick, central staircases and symmetrical façades with recessed central sections and square towers. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue is the only Greek Synagogue in New York and the only synagogue of Romaniote Jews in the Western Hemisphere. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was America’s first major house of worship built by Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The yellow brick building features Moorish and Romanesque details and rich ornament. At its peak in the early 20th century, the synagogue hosted as many as 1,000 worshippers at services, but was forced to close in the mid-20th century when the area’s Jewish population began to dwindle. In 1986, the Eldridge Street Project funded a large-scale restoration of the building, which was repurposed as a museum. The Former Congregation Anshe Chesed, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and the Former Eldridge Street Synagogue are all designated New York City Individual Landmarks.

The image shows the business card of Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee. He used the location to serve as his base of operations.

American Theatre (Thalia Theatre) In the stratified world of New York City theaters, with their implicit class associations, the American Theatre, at the corner of Canal Street and the Bowery, was considered a middlebrow house. Designed by Ithiel Town with the innovative use of gas jets for interior lighting, it had opened in 1826 and, by 1833, had been twice remodeled after fires. Three thousand patrons could be accommodated within its large central pit and four tiers of galleries, which reached across the house and down each side almost to the stage. In the Jacksonian era, urban theaters like the American Theatre had assumed new importance as democratic gathering spaces, in which ticket holders could not only relax but also vent political opinions publicly and intermingle with allies and enemies seated, depending on allegiances, in the more boisterous pit or costlier boxes. Ungovernable audiences often interrupted performances.

Opposite Mulberry Bend ca. 1898 This stretch of East Broadway was enjoying a revival of sorts after the 1892 demolition of the adjacent notorious slum, the Mulberry Bend. Here the well-dressed families and closed shops- one with a sign in Hebrew- suggests that it is Saturday and families are milling about after attending synagogue. Lazarus Levy- the proprietor of the shop at 30 East Broadway- was among twelve and a half pages of Levys listed in the 1898 city directory. He moved his business to East Houston Street within the year.

Located at 54 Canal Street, this 12 story classical-style bank was built by architects Rouse & Goldstone for Sender Jarmulowsky in 1912. Jarmulowsky established his banking business on the Lower East Side in 1873 and was operating at this location by 1878. Here, recent immigrants could set up bank accounts, send remittances, and buy steerage tickets for their European relatives – in Yiddish. The bank quickly became a household name among Jews on both sides of the ocean. According to legend, Jarmulowsky added the capital to the top of the building (now removed) so that it would be the tallest in the neighborhood. His original plan had not included this detail, but the Forward Building down the street on East Broadway went up simultaneously and was slightly taller than his bank prompting the architectural change. The bank become a testament to Jarmulowsky’s success as a businessman and reflected his prominence in the Jewish community of the Lower East Side. Jarmulowsky died in 1912 shortly after the bank was completed, and his sons took over the business. unfortunately, they lacked their father’s business acumen and mismanaged the business. In 1914, at the start of World War I, the bank closed as many depositors made “runs” on the bank to get money to help their families in Europe. According to the New York Times, 2,000 people demonstrated in front of the bank. 500 people stormed the house where son Meyer Jarmulowsky lived, forcing him to escape across tenement rooftops. Jarmulowsky’s sons were indicted for banking fraud and the bank closed. The State of New York took over the bank in May 1917 and auctioned it off. In 2009, Jarmulowsky’s Bank building was designated a landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building is currently (2015) being restored and the temple at the top will be rebuilt.

“Looking south on Orchard Street at the Sender Jarmulowsky Bank Building, 54-58 Canal Street.” The Jarmulowsky Bank Building was built by architects Rouse & Goldstone in 1912, in Beaux-Arts style. The bank failed after the United States entered World War I as immigrant depositors withtheir money to send to relatives abroad, and the bank became insolvent. Until 1990, the building featured a massive columned tower rising 50 feet to a dome ringed by eagles, allegedly added at Jarmulowsky’s behest in order to make sure his building was the neighborhood's tallest.

New York County Courthouse Interior ARCHITECT: Guy Lowell DATE: 1913-27 STYLE: Neo-Classical The Interior of the New York County Court House is one of the last neo-Classical public buildings erected in New York City and ranks as one of the best. The interior design reveals maximum attention to detail, a rich variety of materials, and elegant classical symmetry and design. It is distinguished by excellent murals designed by Attilio Pusterla under the Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project. The murals are some of the earliest executed in New York City under the Projects. It houses the Archives of the County Clerk, an invaluable collection of court records open to the public, and it reflects the Classical spirit that strongly influenced American architecture during the early 20th century.

Oliver Street Baptist Church ARCHITECT: Isaac Lucas DATE: 1844-45 STYLE: Greek Revival The Oliver Street Baptist Church is a fine local expression of Greek Revival architecture stated in its simplest terms and it uses inexpensive materials which nevertheless produce an overall effect of great dignity. The recessed portico with its two handsome Ionic columns is flanked on either side by plain wall surfaces relieved only by the introduction of simple panels. This composition is crowned by a well proportioned low-angled gable (pediment). The sidewalls have full length windows which light the aisles and the galleries above them.

Presbyterian Church of the Sea and Land, May, 1924.

Manhattan Bridge, 1915. In 1910, a year after the bridge opened, the architectural firm Carrère and Hastings drew up preliminary plans for a grand entry to the bridge on the Manhattan side, in keeping with the City Beautiful movement’s emphasis on monumental architecture. Construction began that year, and plans were finalized in 1912. The arch and colonnade, completed in 1915, feature ornate sculptural detail, including pylons by the sculptor Carl Augustus Heber and a frieze by Charles Rumsey, entitled "Buffalo Hunt." The arch and colonnade were designated a New York City landmark on November 25, 1975. After years of neglect and appeals by traffic engineers to remove the structure, the arch and colonnade were repaired and restored in 2000.

Just as churches were often converted into synagogues by newly arriving Jewish immigrants, the inverse happened as well. This synagogue was built by Kol Israel Ansche Poland in “eclectic Moorish-Romanesque-Gothic style” by the architectural team of Herter & Schneider. It cost $100,000 and was dedicated on September 19, 1892. It gave the congregation much needed space for their rapidly growing congregation. Unfortunately, prosperity was short-lived and the congregation had to sell the building to St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church in 1926. In short order, St. Barbara’s, too, had financial trouble and the building was foreclosed in the late 20s. It sat vacant until 1934 when St. Barbara’s was able to reacquire the property. The church made some alterations, removing or altering the Gothic stained glass windows and adding cross iconography but otherwise left the facade as it was. St. Barbara’s still owns the property today.

The Greek Orthodox Church of St. John the Baptist, October 1930. Built for the Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland in 1892, the synagogue at 27 Forsyth Street (then nos. 20-22) was sold to the Greek Orthodox Church in 1926. Today, it is St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church The building was designed by the firm Herter & Schneider, whose Francis William Herter had previously designed the nearby Eldridge Street Synagogue.

88 Division Street, at the intersection of Division, Eldridge, and Forsyth Streets, looking north on Eldridge towards Canal Street. The Eldridge Street Synagogue, opened in 1887, and beautifully restored at the start of the 21st century, is visible on the east side of Eldridge Street (center).

"Thalia Theatre, 46-48 Bowery. Formerly Bowery Theatre. Photograph taken around 1881." Built originally in 1826, as the New York Theatre, the playhouse was established as direct competition to the Park Theatre on Park Row and Ann Street. The wealthy and fashionable citizens who had recently moved to the newly developing neighborhood on nearby Lafayette Street wanted access to high-class European theatre. The building itself was constructed on land that had once been occupied by the Bull's Head Tavern, one of George Washington's headquarters during the Revolution. After only two years in business, the theatre suffered a major fire in 1828, and the interior was rebuilt behind the surviving facade and renamed the Bowery Theatre. Though it would have a series of other names (American Theatre, Thalia Theatre , Fay's Bowery Theatre) it was from 1828 on generally referred to as the Bowery Theatre. The theatre's most successful period was from the 1830s to the 1850s, when it made a name for itself as a American nativist and populist hub (unsurprisingly it was during this period that it was renamed American Theatre). The building survived through the constantly changing neighborhood and populations of the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century. After a series of 19th century fires and rebuilding efforts, the theatre was finally destroyed by a fire in 1929.

The corner building at 85 Mott Street began its history as a luxurious brick-fronted home, complete with all the trappings of a Federal-style while also holding on to some Georgian elements. It featured dormers on a peaked roof, a pair of chimneys, and charming arched windows. Owing to its corner location, it perhaps received much more sunlight than most mid-block Federals. It likely only remained a single-family home for a short time, as the density of the city closed in on it. By 1835 it, and its two Mott Street neighbors, were bought by the Bull family and became multifamily dwellings. . Over the next century, the structure at no. 85 saw likely thousands of residents cycling through the various ethnic communities that inhabited the neighborhood. In the 1870s the ground floor was converted into commercial space, occupied by variously by a tavern and retail shops. . The Bull family sold the three buildings in 1939 and Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee was hired to design a new structure for the On Leong Tong, or Chinese Merchants Association. The resulting building, completed in 1951, was a cultural hybrid, which combined a Modern style with stereotypical “Chinese” features, like a pagoda roof and projecting balconies.

Row of buildings on South Street between James Slip and Roosevelt Street, April 1, 1937. In the background: the Wall Street skyline, with 60 Wall Tower (left), 40 Wall Street (middle) and the top of the Singer Tower on Broadway (right). The South Street buildings were razed in 1950 for the construction of NYCHA's Governor Alfred E. Smith Houses, which opened on April 1, 1953 — sixteen years to the day after this photo was taken.

41 Mott Street in rendering at the far right, 1950.

William and Rosamond Clark House ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1824-25 STYLE: Federal The William and Rosamond Clark House is one of New York City’s few remaining late Federal houses still retaining a significant range of rich architectural details of the period. Above the windows are their original paneled lintels on the first three floors. The lintels are more elaborate than is usual, being enriched with both panels and rosettes. The basement windows are framed with a rusticated architrave composed of alternating smooth and textured blocks of stone. Most of the exterior ironwork is original.

Built in 1887, the Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first grand synagogue built by Eastern European Jews in the United States. Now a museum, it stands as a testament to the 19th century’s great wave of Jewish migration and the Lower East Side’s legendary Jewish community. The synagogue was designed in a Moorish style and built by German Catholic brothers Peter and Francis Herter. It was only the fifth building the Herter brothers had created in New York, and the first non-tenement structure. The structure’s Moorish style is evident in the horseshoe windows on the exterior, interior domes & arches, and dazzling decorative arts in the main sanctuary. The interior also boasts a more recent addition - a stained glass window designed by artist Kiki Smith & architect Deborah Gans, installed in 2010 to replace a historic rose window damaged in the mid-20th century. In the mid-20th century, after decades of declining membership, the congregation abandoned the main sanctuary in favor of the smaller sanctuary (Bes Midrash) on the lower level. Rediscovered in the late 1970's in a state of severe disrepair, the building underwent a meticulous 20 year, $20 million restoration. In 2007 the fully restored space was officially rededicated as the Museum at Eldridge Street. Today the Museum welcomes visitors of all backgrounds, faiths, and interests for tours, concerts, book talks, and other programs. The surrounding neighborhood, now Chinatown, offers a rich foundation for exploring history, immigration, and urban culture. It is open to the public Sunday through Friday.

S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building ARCHITECT: Rouse & Goldstone DATE: 1911-12 STYLE: Modern Renaissance The S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building was described at the time of its construction as “the first strictly high-class tall bank and office building” on the Lower East Side. It was completed in 1912 as the architectural showpiece of Sender Jarmulowsky, one of the Lower East Side’s most prominent bankers. Jarmulowsky achieved wealth and fame on the Lower East Side by providing steamship tickets and banking services to the immigrants of the neighborhood, which was then unrivaled as the world’s largest Jewish community. It was executed in the “Modern Renaissance style” and the tripartite configuration that was standard for tall buildings of the time.

173 Worth Street, April 7, 1928. A home on the north side of Worth Street, east of Baxter Street. Today this land is part of Columbus Park.

Timbering below street level for construction of the BRT Centre Street Loop, July 31, 1911. Above street level, the steeple and church facade belong to the Church of St. Andrew at the intersection of Duane Street and City Hall Place. Today, these streets have been de-mapped with the plaza where they once ran part of the judicial complex at the eastern side of the Manhattan’s Civic Center. The church building pictured dates to as early as 1812, and was known as Carroll Hall, a meeting place for the Congregational Society of United Christian Friends denomination, until 1842, when it became the Church of St. Andrew. The church, just a short distance from the offices of the city’s major newspaper became known as the “printers’ church,” after Father Luke J. Evers established a 2:30am mass in 1900, accommodating the late hours of printers at work on morning editions. By the late 1930s — by which point St. Andrews was dwarfed by the adjacent U.S. Courthouse by Cass Gilbert — the structure’s condition had deteriorated, and construction started on a new church on an overlapping site. The original church was razed in 1938. The Centre Street Loop, was an early 20th century project connecting lines running over the Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridge, thereby providing Manhattan transfer for the various Brooklyn lines terminating at Park Row and reducing the need for trains reversals at bridge terminals. The Center Street Loop connection to Brooklyn Bridge lines was not completed as planned. Instead, the Centre Loop connected to the companion Nassau Street Loop (designed to provide a similar service for Manhattan Bridge trains). Together, the remaining tracks form the BMT Nassau Line (J/Z trains) with extraneous loop tracks presently out of service.

St. James School, ca. 1980.

47 St. James Place, ca. 1975.

24 Henry Street, July 1967. The small Federal style two-story house at 24 Henry Street was likely constructed, along with its four-story rowhouse neighbor at no. 22, in the 1820s. The well-known star of Ziegfeld Follies, Franny Brice, once lived with her mother in an apartment in this building. The musical based on her life, Funny Girl, has a scene set at and titled "24 Henry Street." The two buildings were demolished quickly and somewhat surreptitiously in 2010 and replaced with a double lot, contemporary masonry building.

Public art represents and is represented with many different forms and ideas, its creation, concept and location all come into play when looking at a piece's place in an urban landscape such as New York City. Public art takes up a space, one that is always shared with a community, part of this story would like to address how the two intersect. In some cases a piece can even breed its own community, in the case of 5 Pointz, which in itself was its own piece of public art but also a space that created a community of artists. The Graffiti Mecca can also lead us to ask the question, “What is considered public art and where is the line drawn?” This question will be explored as well as looking to an ideal future for a city where art is put at a higher priority. Where graffiti artists aren’t criminalized for their work or used for profit. Looking at spaces and experiences where a community can be represented and enhanced by public art with ways of giving back and giving all people ways of expressing themselves.

Workers lay pipe for the high pressure water system beneath on New Bowery (now St. James Place); undated photo. The elevated trestle carried trains on the combined Second and Third Avenue lines, which split at Chatham Square (in the distance at far left, obscured by the horse-drawn carriage). The buildings at center-right are No.63, the Atlantic Hotel (left), and No. 59 (right), which housed the shops of furniture maker Timothy A. Garvey and John Dahlgren, a producer of decorative moldings. At far right is the entrance to First Shearith Israel Graveyard, the city's first Jewish cemetery.

Soy Kee Co. Soy Kee and Company was an importer and exporter of Chinese goods, selling curios, chinaware, lamps, silks, ivory carvings, imported Chinese teas, candies, coffees, and other accessories. It was first located here at 36 Pell, under a Chinese eatery before moving to 7-9 Mott Street where it occupied the ground floor space of a building known for its busy upstairs restaurant, called Port Authur. It is unknown when Soy Kee and Company opened, but its move to Mott Street occurred sometime after 1903. In 1921 Soy Kee and Co. became the owners of the building they had long rented at 7-9 Mott Street.

Three-alarm fire at No. 20 Oak Street, February 3, 1917. On a frigid Saturday morning, a fire broke out at a five-story loft building "occupied by printing concerns," near the intersection of Oak, Roosevelt, and New Chambers Streets. The New York Times described the firefighting efforts: "Three times the benumbed fire fighters thought they had the blaze under control, but each time the fire got a fresh start and burst through the roof."

The Church of the Sea and Land, viewed from the Manhattan Bridge. Photographed by Berenice Abbott as part of the Federal Art Project, March 30, 1937. At the turn of the 19th century, the Rutgers family — for whom nearby Rutgers, Henry, and Catherine Streets are named — owned a farm on the Lower East Side. After the Commissioner’s plan of 1811, Henry Rutgers donated land along Rutgers Street for the construction of churches, including the Market Street Reformed Church (also known as the Northeast Dutch Reformed Church, and variations on the same). The Georgian Gothic Revival church was constructed from field stone and Manhattan schist and completed in 1819. In 1864, following the dissolution of the Dutch Reformed Church, it became the Presbyterian Church of the Sea and Land, its new name a reference to waterfront laborers who made up the congregation. In 1972, the Sea and Land Church transferred ownership of the building to the First Chinese Presbyterian Church, who had shared the space since 1951.

Chatham Square Cemetery, ca. 1900. The Chatham Square Cemetery is the oldest extant cemetery of the Shearith Israel Congregation and the second oldest cemetery in Manhattan. The Sephardic congregation dates to the middle of the 17th century when Spanish and Portuguese Jews arrived in New York and established a synagogue. Their first cemetery, established in 1656, is long lost. The cemetery was purchased in 1682 with the first interment the next year. Situated on a hill overlooking the East River (or it was a hill in the colonial era) the cemetery was actually used as a strategic position by both General Washington and the British during the Revolutionary War. A ban on burials below Canal Street in 1823 signaled the end to (most) interments here; a second ground for the congregation was opened on 11th Street near Sixth Avenue. Later a third cemetery was established near Sixth Avenue and 21st Street (1829) and a fourth in Ridgewood, Queens (1850s). The size of the cemetery was somewhat drastically reduced in 1855 when the expansion of the Bowery took a sizable portion of the cemetery by eminent domain. In all 256 graves required re-interment. Today the tiny cemetery sits a few feet above the adjacent street level and about one hundred headstones and above ground tombs are visible.

Gruzen & Partners designed this pair of 25-story cement towers in 1965. Part of the Civic Centre Urban Renewal Project, they were built by the Committee of Middle Income Housing and only used 15% of their lot, allowing for an elevated public plaza (designed by often Gruzen collaborator, landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg) and a 125 car garage that sits below the plaza.

Founded by Sender Jarmulowsky, the Jarmulowsky Bank provided vital services to the immigrants of the LES and today serves as a marker of the neighborhood's heritage.

Northern Reformed Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1817-19 STYLE: Georgian Gothic The Northern Reformed Church has what were probably among the earliest pointed Gothic windows and doors in Manhattan. it is an especially fine, simple example of a well-constructed church of the Federal period, and its construction was made possible through the generosity of one of New York’s leading citizens, Colonel Henry Rutgers. It was built in Georgian Gothic style.

13 Mott Street, October 28, 1927.

Tracks of the Second Avenue El above Division Street, viewed from the south walkway of the Manhattan Bridge. March 9, 1934. The car at left is traveling on the northbound track, from Chatham Square toward Canal Street. This segment of the elevated line closed in 1942. The building under construction in the background is the United States Courthouse at 40 Centre Street (today the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse).

25-29 Oliver Street, March 30, 1937. No. 25 (at right) was the childhood home of Al Smith, four-time New York State Governor. Constructed circa the 1830s, the row house was built as a single family house in a Federal style. The two-and-a-half-story home had a full third floor added in the early 1870s by its then owner, Thomas Coleman, a politician. The home was purchased by the nearby St. James Church and used as a rectory and rented out, at one point to a funeral director. Al Smith, an up and coming politician rented the building beginning in 1909 to house his family of seven. During his run for Sheriff in 1916 (Tammany-supported, he won, of course), a large painting of the man bordered in red, white, and blue hung in front of the building. By that time Oliver Street had become something of a Politicians Row, home to magistrates, state senators, and even the coroner. Smith remained on Oliver Street until the mid 1920s. 25 Oliver Street returned to its occupation as a funeral home once again after the Smith family moved upstate while their patriarch was Governor. In 1939 Berenice Abbott photographed the building and two years later a section of bluestone sidewalk from the front of the house was dislodged and placed in the SS Alfred E. Smith, a transport ship. Though named a National Historic Landmark in 1965, today the building is considerably run down.

78 Mott Street, 1914. James Naughton (referred to as Joseph in at least one source) was born in Ireland and immigrated to New York in the 1860s. For more than five decades he served the Chinatown/ Five Point area as an undertaker. He purchased a number of local buildings including Nos. 37 and 78 Mott Street, as well as the stables at Nos. 31-37 which operated for both mortuary and police horse needs. Though Irish and certainly having enough Irish clients, he also advertised to and served both the local Italian and Chinese communities.

The Bowery is one of New York’s most storied streets with a rich and varied past that reflects the hurly-burly history of New York City itself. As Manhattan’s oldest thoroughfare, the Bowery began as a Native American trail and originally extended the length of the island north to south. New York’s early Dutch settlers widened the trail for their own use to connect New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan with their farms, or bouweries, farther north. This “Bouwerie Lane” became simply “Bowery Lane” under the English in 1813 and the name has remained unchanged since. By the 1830s, the Bowery was mostly developed into single-family Federal-style rowhouses inhabited by New York’s wealthy merchant class. Remarkably, some of these buildings still survive today. Massive immigration to New York beginning in the 1840s led to new residents, and Germans became a large presence just east of the Bowery in an area which became known as Kleindeutschland. Many prestigious institutional buildings from this era survive today on the Bowery and reflect this German presence. As immigration continued to increase in the decades before the Civil War, the upper class who resided in the townhouses moved northward, and the rowhouses were then converted to multiple dwellings and businesses like beer halls and saloons. By the end of the Civil War, the Bowery had become a primarily commercial area with little new residential development. To accommodate the waves of returning and homeless veterans, the area increasingly became home to flophouses and other types of cheap lodgings. During this period, it also became a major theater and nightlife district, where vaudeville and other popular entertainments were developed. The Third Avenue elevated line opened in 1878 and cast the street into deep shadow, further discouraging new residential development. Regardless, due to prevalence of affordable lodging, at the turn of the 20th century the Bowery was housing more than 25,000 men per night. With this large transient population came a host of social ills and during this period, the Bowery gained a national reputation as a “Skid Row” and a “Thieves’ Highway.” The area upheld this reputation until the Second World War, when the draft depopulated the area. The G.I. Bill and other social programs of the post-war era greatly reduced homelessness and the seemingly permanent transient population of the Bowery never returned to its early 20th-century peak. The street developed into a thriving light fixture and restaurant equipment district, although many of those businesses have recently closed in the face of new hotel and commercial development. The Bowery remains an architecturally rich area with a unique mix of Federal-style rowhouses, grand institutional buildings, tenements and commercial loft buildings, each type speaking to a different era in the boulevard’s storied history. Many of these buildings were spared because the elevated rail line, which was removed in the 1950s, deterred speculative development for decades. In recent years, however, new large-scale development has increased and is putting the built heritage of the Bowery greatly at risk.

32 Mott Street (tall building, second from right), ca. 1890. 32 Mott Street is a dumbbell-shaped "old-law" tenement that was built in 1897 by the architect Louis Heimeeke. This section of Mott between Pell Street and Chatham Square was the center of late 19th century Chinatown. The ground floor of this building was occupied for more than 100 years by a Chinese store run by generations of the Lee family. The Quong Yuen Shing and Company shop opened here in 1899, changed its name to 32 Mott Street General Store in the mid 20th century and only closed in 2003 due to rising rents. Chinese-American architect Poy Gum Lee lived here at no. 32.

Doyers seen from Bowery, ca. 1900. The Chinese Tuxedo opened in 1897 as a high-class restaurant catering to both Chinese and white patrons. Established around the same time as a number of other eateries of similar ilk (including Port Arthur on Mott and the Chinese Delmonico on Pell), this restaurant had a district advantage over the others. Location, location, location! The restaurant at the corner of Doyer Street and the Bowery was so close to the Third Avenue elevated that passengers could practically climb out the train car window onto the ornate second-floor balcony. The pretty balcony and large eagle that topped it were eye-catching from both the street and the el, and when those same passengers exited the nearby Chatham Square Station, this was the first Chinese restaurant they encountered. The owners spared no expense with decoration. The entrance included a large and colorful stained glass awning with a dragon perched atop. The balcony was not metalwork but delicately carved teak panels. The interior was a showy display of mosaic tile floors, tin ceilings, lush plants, fountains, and hard carved screens, statues, and moldings. The Chinese Tuxedo was out of business by the 1920s (closing its doors decades before some of it local contemporaries). The ornate facade features were lost and today the building houses a Chase Bank. In 2016 a family-run Chinatown investment company opened a new Chinese Tuxedo Restaurant just down the block from its historical predecessor. The new eatery is located at 5-7 Doyers, a building with its own history. In 1983 a local merchant established the Chinese Opera House at no. 5-7, the first Chinese language theater in New York City and the only Chinese theater east of California at the time.

Congregation Sons of Israel Kalwarie, ca. 1978. The Romanesque Revival synagogue was designed by Alfred E. Badt and completed in 1904. Also known as the Pike Street Shul, the synagogue closed in controversial circumstances, beginning in September 1979. Just prior to Rosh Hashanah, the trustees sold the building without notifying the congregation, beginning a 15-year legal battle which ended with its eventual sale to a developer. Though 13-15 Pike Street was made a New York City landmark in 1997, the designation came too late to save its original stained glass windows. Today, it is home to the Sung Tak Buddhist Temple.

7-9 Mott Street, undated postcard. The restaurant here on Mott Street was once the most famous Chinese restaurant in the world (according to some). Port Arthur Chinese Restaurant, seen here on the second and third floors of no. 7-9, opened in 1897. One of the ethnic enclave's first eateries, it became a neighborhood landmark and an important cultural hub (Sun Yat-Sun may have eaten here while in New York). The ornate pagoda-styled facade hid an equally showy interior, replete with carved teakwood furniture, massive electric fans, and Chinese lanterns The second floor operated as a space for American tourists looking for an "authentic" experience, while the third floor banquet halls were largely used for private parties, political entertaining, and wedding for the business's Chinese patrons. The well-known and loved restaurant survived until 1974. Thousands of postcards of the restaurant still exist in archives, private collections, and on eBay. The postcards were produced and printed by the business itself as promotional material.

“Looking west from the intersection of Division and Canal Streets at Ludlow Street.” The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, completed in 1973, are visible along Division Street, at left.

View of the Manhattan Civic Center, including the Municipal Building, U.S. Courthouse, and Woolworth Building, ca. 1935. The building at extreme right, in the foreground is the Church of Land and Sea, at the northwest corner of Henry and Market Streets.

Cass Gilbert's final work, the United States Courthouse was completed by his son two years after his death in 1934. It is arguably the last classically themed skyscraper built in New York, which Gilbert used to reflect the building’s function as a public federal building. While the thirty-eight story, 590 foot tall tower lacks the rich ornamentation of earlier work, such as the Woolworth Building, or 90 West Street, its pared-down decoration seems more appropriate for a court of law. The building’s shaft emerges from a six-story classical colonnade, decorated with sculpted American eagles. The tower culminates in a dramatic gilded terra-cotta pyramid roof topped by a lantern. For security reasons, the building's interior is not accessible to the public unless on court business.

Doorway to 113 East Broadway, March 30, 1937.

Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church, Oliver Street, ca. 1977. The Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church was completed in 1845 as the Oliver Street Baptist Church for a congregation likely dating to the 1790s. The first Oliver Street church, a wooden structure, was lost in an 1843 fire. The Landmarks Preservation commission credits the present Greek revival structure to architect Minard Lafever, while other sources suggest Isaac Lucas, a member of the congregation. In 1863, the church was renamed to Mariner's Temple to reflect its ministry to seamen and immigrants. After decades of declining attendance during the 20th century, church membership has lately rebounded.

155 Worth Street. ca. 1911. The Italian school opened by the Children's Aid Society on Worth Street was originally established in 1855. Situated in the neighborhood known as Five Points, the school (located within the building known as the Five Points' House of Industry) was considered a successful experiment of public education. The eight-story classical designed building seen in this ca. 1910 photograph was likely constructed in the early years of the 20th century. It would not survive long. In 1930, it was replaced by the Egyptian decorated Art Deco New York State Office Building (which today is the location of the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, and thousand of 'city hall' weddings).

20 Mott Street (three-story building with double balconies), ca. 1900. The Baohuanghui (Protect the Emperor Society or the Chinese Empire Reform Association) was founded by exiled Chinese reformer Kang Youwei in 1899 to promote constitutional reform in China (and the return of Guangxu Emperor to power). It became the first and the largest Chinese transnational organization. Various locations on Mott Street housed the New York headquarters of this organization in the first half of the 20th century. In 1902 and 1903 the Baohuanghui used an address at 20 Mott Street to communicate with their members, before moving on to nos 5, 6, 7-9, and 12 Mott in later years.

"Riots in New York July-Aug '63; northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry Street during the Draft Riots in 1863." The New York City Draft Riots were a week-long violent action that occurred in Manhattan in the summer of 1863. The impetus for the riots was discontent among working-class populations (largely Irish immigrants) with new laws regarding a draft for the Civil War. The working classes were upset at the wealthy who could buy their way out of conscription for $300. What began as a discontent regarding the draft, in the days as the first draft numbers were being drawn, quickly devolved into race riots. White mobs attacked black people and their homes, public buildings, the homes of abolitionists, churches, and in a violent conflagration, the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue was burned to the ground. The police department attempted to quell the violence but had little luck. (The police superintendent John Alexander Kennedy was brutally beaten.) The military eventually arrived and by July 16 (four days after the riot had begun) there were several thousand Federal troops in the city, and news had begun to spread that the draft was being postponed. The results of the riots were drastic, 120 people killed, more than 2000 injured, hundreds of homes and business damaged and 11 black men lynched. As a result of this violence, many blacks who lived in Manhattan left the city and moved to Brooklyn. The population shift was so dramatic that by 1865, the number of blacks living in Manhattan was lower than it had been in 1820.

Soy Kee Co. Store, undated postcard. Soy Kee Co. was a department store of Chinese goods, offering silks, antiques, ceramics, embroidery and tea leaves. Originally established prior to 1897 at a space at 36 Pell Street, the shop moved to nos. 7-9 in the early 20th century. The date of the store's closing is unknown, but it was out of business by 1970.

41 Mott Street, 1933. No. 41 (at the center of the frame with the balcony at the top) was home to the Chinese Merchants Association or the On Leong Tong, in the first half of the 20th century. The Association celebrated the opening of their new headquarters in 1921 with an eleven-day celebration. Its opening night saw 15,000 revelers crowding the narrow street of Chinatown and more than 6,000 merchants from 20 different cities. In 1950 the On Leong Tong Merchants Association moved into a new Chinese Modern building on Mott and Canal Streets. Since 1977 No. 41 was has been owned by the Lee Family Association, the oldest and largest tong in New York City. The building today has a modern style white facade, installed at an unknown date in the midcentury. Its lower floor has long been home to Golden Fung Wong Bakery, one of the oldest bakeries in Chinatown.

The Canal Street Station on the Third Avenue Elevated Railway, c. 1880. The Third Avenue El opened in 1878, with operations from South Ferry to 129th Street, later connecting to service in the Bronx. The Third Avenue El was the last of the Manhattan elevated railways to close — after the Second, Sixth and Ninth Avenue lines — following pressure from City Hall and property owners along Third Avenue. On May 12, 1955, the Canal Street Station closed, as Third Avenue service was eliminated south of 149th Street in the Bronx.

Henry Street view towards City Hall and the Woolworth Building, 1938. Surprisingly little has changed on this block in nearly eighty years: many of the tenement buildings are still standing, and a parking lot continues to operate on the south side of the street.