Chatham Square in Chinatown

If all had gone to plan, Chinatown’s Chatham Square would look rather different from what you see today. The Department of City Planning wanted a design that would have made the area somewhat more gentrified and pedestrian-friendly. But this was met with considerable opposition from the locals, who felt that it would harm their businesses.

Although the mayor’s office has not entirely ruled out some modification of the important public thoroughfare, any such plans are on hold for at least the next few years. As things stand now, in any case, Chatham Square at the confluence of Park Row and the Bowery, with its noble statue of Confucius, remains one of the better conceived parts of Chinatown, a part of the city singularly lacking in any evidence of urban planning. [more]

The young, artistic populace that is the precursor to gentrification has descended upon one of the last corners of Downtown Manhattan yet to be inundated with glassy new development.

According to the Wall Street Journal, cheap rents have brought an artistic community to the area known as Two Bridges, in eastern Chinatown south of East Broadway, which new residents have begun to dub “Chumbo” — a combination of Chinatown and the upscale Brooklyn neighborhood that sits directly across the East River. At least one resident interviewed by the Journal called it “the last cool neighborhood on the island.” [more]

Several retailers are pushing the City Council to pass a bill to create a Chinatown Business Improvement District that they believe would improve business conditions in the neighborhood, the New York Times reported. Under the plan, property owners would have to pay annual fees to enhance street cleaning, outdoor lighting, security, tourism and signs to steer visitors.

Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, estimated that 35 percent of the neighborhood’s 1,891 property owners would pay $200 or less a year and 74 percent less than $1,000. But other property owners oppose the plan, saying they have already been suffering financially since the September 2001 terrorist attacks. [more]

Madison Capital, a real estate investment firm, bought two Chinatown tenement buildings for a total of $20 million in 2008, and according to the New York Times, it is pushing out rent-stabilized tenants to ensure a faster return on its investments.

Though no lawsuit was filed, and no comment was obtained from Madison, the Times alleges that Madison Capital  stopped fixing leaks, cut the heat and even accused tenants of soliciting prostitution at 55 and 61 Delancey Street in an effort to push existing tenants out, including the subject of the story, Zhi Quin Zheng, in order to convert the units to market-rate apartments. [more]

Several neighborhoods are changing significantly along ethnic and racial lines, the 2010 census reveals, according to news reports. In Bedford Stuyvesant, for example, the population is only 60 percent black, the New York Times reported, down from 75 percent. And in the older Bedford section, blacks have become a minority for the first time in 50 years.

John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, attributes the change in the neighborhood to the fall in the crime rate and improvement of subway conditions. [more]

After more than two decades, Chinatown is moving closer to forming a business improvement district that would give property owners services for a fee, charging as much as $5,000 per property, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Department of City Planning is now reviewing the plan, which must be approved by the department’s board of commissioners and the City Council. Though two earlier attempts to create a district were defeated, the measure has overcome early opposition. The proposed district would run between Broadway and Rutgers Street, stretching north to Broome Street and south to Madison Street. Comments

• Tweet

A group of tenants in a 20-unit Chinatown rental apartment building claim that their new landlord, KBK Associates, is improperly evicting them, according to the New York Daily News. The residents at the Henry Street building, which sold for $2.6 million in August, claim they were given fewer than two weeks to vacate their apartments, and say that the landlord doesn’t have the legal grounding to remove them. One resident at the building, Wi Lian Jiang, said that KBK has accused him of keeping too many tenants in his apartment, even though he said only he, his wife and his son live there. [more]

The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission wants to designate
135 Bowery as a landmark, against the wishes of building owner Ricky
Wong, the New York Observer reported. Five months after the Department of
Buildings approved his proposal for renovation, Wong received a letter
on June 7 from the commission telling him that they wanted to
designate his three-story building — a specimen of the early
19th-century Federal style — as a city landmark. That designation
would likely prevent Wong from adding four stories, a project he’d
been planning since he bought the building in 2003. The DOB approved
the project in August 2008 and again in January of this year. Wong has
since hired an architect and gutted the structure. Located on the edge
of Chinatown and the Little Italy Historic District, Wong’s home is in
an area in which the LPC has already designated 18 Federal-style
buildings as landmarks. Five other buildings, including 135 Bowery,
have had construction halted and hearings scheduled until the LPC
rules on their landmark status. [NYO]

[more]

The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission wants to designate
135 Bowery as a landmark, against the wishes of building owner Ricky
Wong, the New York Observer reported. Five months after the Department of
Buildings approved his proposal for renovation, Wong received a letter
on June 7 from the commission telling him that they wanted to
designate his three-story building — a specimen of the early
19th-century Federal style — as a city landmark. That designation
would likely prevent Wong from adding four stories, a project he’d
been planning since he bought the building in 2003. The DOB approved
the project in August 2008 and again in January of this year. Wong has
since hired an architect and gutted the structure. Located on the edge
of Chinatown and the Little Italy Historic District, Wong’s home is in
an area in which the LPC has already designated 18 Federal-style
buildings as landmarks. Five other buildings, including 135 Bowery,
have had construction halted and hearings scheduled until the LPC
rules on their landmark status. [NYO]

[more]

Demolition is underway on the Chinatown buildings destroyed in last week’s devastating seven-alarm fire on Grand Street near Eldridge Street, according to Bowery Boogie, while displaced residents try to adjust to their new, temporary homes in Harlem and outside LaGuardia Airport. Although residents had been staying in the Skyline Hotel at 725 10th Avenue on the corner of 49th Street, the approximately 200 people who are in need of temporary shelter were moved on Saturday. The residents, many of whom worked or attended school in their Chinatown neighborhood, are distressed over the move, citing a potential loss of livelihood. [Bowery Boogie] and [NYDN]