Gateway to Old Chinatown

In the 1890s, the Bowery at Doyers Street corner was a gateway to the tiny but thriving Chinatown, already a famed tourist destination. Squeezed between Bowery, Mott, Pell, and Doyers Streets and dominated by Chinese shops and residents, it was also a multi-ethnic enclave like the nearby Five Points. A local funeral parlor served both Irish and Chinese residents, and Chinese restaurants, unlike places uptown, welcomed African-American diners. Although Doyers Street was sometimes the scene of gangland battles and was nicknamed the Bloody Angle, it was primarily a place of culture and commerce, with Wong Kai Kee’s art store at 1 Doyers, the Chinese-American Tuxedo restaurant on the corner at 2 Bowery, and the Chinese Theatre at 5-7 Doyers, where Chinese opera drew locals and visitors on Bowery and Chinatown slumming tours. Chinese women were noticeably scarce because the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Acts from 1882 to 1943 severely restricted Chinese immigration and harshly limited the entry of Chinese women, making Chinatown’s kinship associations central to Chinese American community life during those years. The Chinese Masonic Building at 22 Mott Street was also the place where Dr. Sun Yat-sen raised funds for the 1911 overthrow of China’s imperial government.

New York, New York · United States