Mott Street
Mott Street is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north–south direction in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is regarded as Chinatown's unofficial "Main Street". Mott Street runs from Bleecker Street in the north to Chatham Square in the south. It is a one-way street with southbound-running vehicular traffic only.
History
Early configuration
Mott Street existed in its current configuration by the mid-18th century. At that time, Mott Street passed just to the east of the Collect Pond; Collect Park today is three blocks to the west at Centre Street. Like many streets that predated Manhattan's grid, Mott Street meandered around natural features of the landscape rather than running through or over them. It was the need to avoid the now-long since paved-over Collect Pond that gave Mott Street its characteristic "bend" to the northeast at Pell Street.Having been previously known as Old Street, as well as Winne Street for the section between Pell and Bleecker, Mott Street was renamed in the late 18th century to honor the prominent local family of the same name, likely in particular businessman Joseph Mott, a butcher and tavern owner who provided support to the rebel forces in the American Revolution.
During the 19th century, the lower portion of Mott Street south of Canal Street was part of the Five Points, a notorious slum in lower Manhattan. In 1872, Wo Kee, a Chinese merchant, opened a general store on Mott Street near Pell Street. In the years to follow, Chinese immigrants would carve out an enclave around the intersection of Mott, Doyer, and Pell Streets. At the time, it was mostly Guangdongese males who immigrated, and what was to become Chinatown first began as a very small Bachelor's Society. Most of these immigrants were from Taishan, in southwestern Guangdong, China, so as a result it was originally a Taishanese community. That all changed during the 1960s, when an influx of Cantonese immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan began arriving, as well. As a result, Chinatown began expanding quickly, and Standard Cantonese, which is spoken in Guangzhou, China and in Hong Kong, became the dominant language of the neighborhood. Chinatown had fully emerged and grown into a veritable Little Hong Kong.
Manhattan's Chinatown has since grown into the largest Chinatown in the United States, engulfing a large swathe of the Lower East Side. Nevertheless, the historic heart of Chinatown, as well as the primary destination for tourists, is still Mott Street between Canal Street and Chatham Square. This comprises the center of what is known as the Old Chinatown of Manhattan.
The Beginning of the Chinese Community
is reported to have arrived in the area in 1858; he is the first Chinese person credited as having permanently immigrated to Chinatown. As a Cantonese businessman, Ah Ken eventually founded a successful cigar store on Park Row. He was "probably one of those Chinese mentioned in gossip of the sixties as peddling 'awful' cigars at three cents apiece from little stands along the City Hall park fence – offering a paper spill and a tiny oil lamp as a lighter", according to author Alvin Harlow in Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street.Later immigrants would similarly find work as "cigar men" or billboard carriers, and Ah Ken's particular success encouraged cigar makers William Longford, John Occoo, and John Ava to also ply their trade in Chinatown, and eventually form a monopoly on the cigar trade.
It has been speculated that it may have been Ah Ken who kept a small boarding house on lower Mott Street and rented out bunks to the first Chinese immigrants to arrive in Chinatown. It was with the profits he earned as a landlord, earning an average of $100 a month, that he was able to open his Park Row smoke shop around which modern-day Chinatown would grow.
Historic Cantonese gangs
For more than 20 years, Cantonese gangs based on Mott Street terrorized Chinatown. The 1970s was the most violent gang-related period in Chinatown. Gunshots often rang out, and sometimes tourists would be unintentionally injured. Other gangs that existed were Chung Yee, Liang Shan, the Flying Dragons, the White Eagles, and the Black Eagles.Nicky Louie, who immigrated from Hong Kong to Manhattan's Chinatown in the late 1960s, ran the Ghost Shadows gang with 50 or more members also originating from Hong Kong. By the 1970s, following a bloody battle over territory, the Ghost Shadows controlled Mott Street with the approval and affiliation of the On Leong Tong, the wealthiest and most influential gang organization in Chinatown. Working with the On Leong earned the Ghost Shadows a portion of money earned by the Tong's activities. The gangs were the guards of the On Leoong gambling houses operating in the poor conditions of lofts and basements along Mott Street. During the 1980s and 1990s, the gangs also ran a protection racket, whereby shopkeepers paid the gangs a negotiated cash fee for protection. The negotiations often involved drinking tea and were often very peaceful.
The gangs also acted as runners in the Chinatown Connection heroin trade between the Canada–US border and New York, and spread the drug throughout the state. The On Leong Tong, like most historical Chinatown gangs, also ran a legitimate enterprise, serving as a business collective known as the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association, providing services such as loans to immigrants. The Ghost Shadows were very territorial about Mott Street; in one example, the Ghost Shadows spotted a White Eagle member walking alone, kidnapped him in a car, and threw him in the East River, attempting to drown him.
Description
In Chinatown
As Chinatown's "Main Street"
Today, this stretch of Mott Street is lined with souvenir shops, tea houses, and restaurants catering largely to tourists. In 2003, the 32 Mott Street General Store closed due to the effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Chinatown economy. The proximity of the attack along with street closures in lower Manhattan had cut off much business to Chinatown. 32 Mott had been the longest continuously operating store in Chinatown, established in 1891.Mott Street north of Canal Street was historically part of Little Italy. Today it is predominantly Chinese. This section of Mott Street between roughly Canal and Broome Streets has a number of Chinese-owned fish and vegetable markets, as well as some remaining Italian businesses. The commercial establishments here cater more to the day-to-day needs of Chinatown residents than tourists. There are also shops that sell baby jackets, bamboo hats, and miniature Buddhas.
Little Hong Kong/Guangdong
This portion of Chinatown along with the rest of the western portion of Chinatown continues to be the center of the Cantonese community in New York City and the main Chinese commercial business district for the Chinatown neighborhood. The western portion of Chinatown is historically the oldest, original section of Manhattan's Chinatown, sometimes known as the Old Chinatown of Manhattan. The eastern part of Chinatown, east of the Bowery, became more fully developed due to the influx of Fuzhou immigrants during the 1980s-90s, primarily on the East Broadway and Eldridge Street portion, and together they became the new Chinatown. The Bowery, which once served as the eastern border of Chinatown, is now the divider between the Cantonese Chinatown to the west and Fuzhou Chinatown to the east.A new branch of New York Mart opened up in August 2011 on Mott Street, although in the late 2010s, it was renamed to iFresh Supermarket. Just a block away from New York Mart is a Hong Kong Supermarket located on the corner of Elizabeth and Hester Streets. These two supermarkets are among the largest Cantonese supermarkets in Chinatown.
The historic core of the Cantonese Chinatown was bounded by Pell, Mott, Doyer, and Bayard Streets below Canal Street. The latter separated Little Italy to the north and Chinatown to the south from the 1800s until the 1950s. After 1965, newer Cantonese-speaking immigrants expanded the Cantonese Chinatown north to Broome and Kenmare Streets.
Culture
Little Guangdong or Cantonese Town are additional terms for the neighborhood, since Cantonese immigrants have come from all different parts of Guangdong province. Despite the large Fuzhou population to the eastern section of Chinatown, and the increasing prevalence of Mandarin in Chinatown in the 20th century, Cantonese is still the predominant lingua franca in Mott Street and the rest of the western portion of Chinatown. The long-established Cantonese community stretches onto Pell, Doyer, Bayard, Elizabeth, Mulberry, and Canal Streets and onto Bowery.Due to the migration of Cantonese immigrants into the Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay/Homecrest neighborhoods of Brooklyn, newer Cantonese enclaves have started to emerge in those areas, including in Bensonhurst on 18th Avenue and on Bay Parkway and 86th Street, and one portion in Sheepshead/Homecrest on Avenue U, now sometimes known as Brooklyn's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong. As of the 2010s, they are still closely intermingled with other ethnic enclaves and still developing.
In recent years, the Cantonese population of Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay/Homecrest has surpassed the Cantonese population in Manhattan's Chinatown. Along with a declining number of Chinese residents and Chinese businesses in Manhattan Chinatown due to gentrification, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay are increasingly becoming new main attractions for newly arrived Cantonese immigrants in New York City.