Clash in Chinatown over landlord, cultural museum and city funding
BY MARK HALLUM
After fi nding itself the target of allegedly
false accusations in regard
to funding from the city budget,
a museum in Chinatown dedicated to the
Asian experience in America is fi ghting
back.
While hundreds have protesters on the
streets around it’s Centre Street location
in recent weeks, the Museum of Chinese
in America’s (MOCA) attempt to recover
from a fi re has become thoroughly knotted
within the politics of criminal justice reform
and displacement from gentrifi cation.
But many have found themselves wondering
what a $35 million grant to MOCA
from the city Department of Cultural Affairs
has to do with the borough-based jail
plan and the rezoning of SoHo and NoHo.
Zishun Ning, with the Coalition to
Protect Chinatown and Lower East Side,
is opposing the notion that Mayor Bill de
Blasio can “buy off” the community to
achieve the goals of the rezoning and the
borough-based jail.
“Who’s going to benefi t? It’s the Chu
family and Jonathan Chu is co-chair on
the MOCA board,” Ning said.
According to Ning, Chu is a central ally
in Chinatown’s supposed destruction having
helped secure a community partner in
the form of MOCA.
“It’s a connection, right, because
Jonathan Chu is the biggest landlord in
The Museum of Chinese in America.
Chinatown and we see that the city is actually
siding with Jonathan Chu, actively helping
him with more money and the SoHo/
NoHo plan,” Ning added.
Landlord’s role
Representatives of MOCA challenged
the factual nature of Ning’s claims, stating
that the museum is mired in a confl ict that
has nothing to do with the mission of the
institution, having issued a fact sheet of
their own.
“With displacement and gentrifi cation
occurring in nearly every neighborhood
PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
across New York City, it is not uncommon
for self-serving, misguided, myopic, and selfproclaimed
community activists to opportunistically
produce sound bites and social
media fodder through blaming community
institutions that work hard to elevate their
programming and upgrade their facilities
and infrastructure,” the factsheet reads.
Regardless of these factors in the ongoing
community dispute, community organizations
say the Chu family sowed the seeds
for a bitter harvest when Jing Fong, the
largest Chinese restaurant in Manhattan,
was forced to close its doors in February
and March. Alex Chu, as landlord, was the
target of blame for up to 100 restaurant
workers losing their jobs permanently.
“Nobody has tried harder to keep Jing
Fong in this space than we have. Jing Fong’s
base rent has remained the same since 1993
– and the restaurant hasn’t paid any rent for
the last 12 months,” Jonathan Chu said in
a statement at the time.
Defending the museum
But not all of Chinatown believes MOCA
should be the target of scorn.
Rocky Chin sees MOCA as a grassroots
cultural heritage museum that is necessary
considering the infl uence of the Chinese
Exclusion Act on culture in America, even
in recent decades.
Archives and belongings that tell the
story of immigration from China were not
only easily found despite the history of the
population in North American preceding
the victorian era.
“During the last pandemic period and
the anti-Asian violence, it’s really become
clear that many Americans of all backgrounds,
including Chinese, do not know
this history,” Chin said. “Concessions are
given by government all the time because
the government feels they have to mitigate
backlash to whatever they’re doing. So it
surprised me that what was a very united
Chinese community against the jail turned
into this anti-MOCA thing.”
More at amny.com.
City doubles investment in resurrecting charred Chinatown building
BY MORGAN C. MULLINGS
Nearly two years after the multipurpose
building at 70 Mulberry
St. in Chinatown went up in fl ames
in January 2020, the city is nearly doubling
its investment to rebuild the structure and
tack on two fl oors at the top.
The investment, which Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced Tuesday, doubles down
on a commitment of about $80 million to
restore the structure, made not long after
a fi ve-alarm inferno engulfed it.
City Councilmember Margaret Chin,
whose district covers Lower Manhattan,
joined the mayor to discuss the potential
for the Chinatown building. Chin once attended
the elementary school that formerly
existed there.
“It will represent a brighter future for
this community who have … suffered so
much from the COVID,” Chin said.
The building houses a few nonprofi ts,
but is city-owned. The plan is to return the
space to community use, and preserve the
facade of the building.
“We talked to the community, we heard
what the community thought was right for
the future of this crucial site, the community
wanted more,” de Blasio said.
The building at 70 Mulberry also housed
the collections of the Museum of Chinese
in America, with over 85,000 objects. The
museum has an online database of some of
their collections, but many of the historical
artifacts were destroyed in the fi re.
“MOCA is deeply saddened and shocked
by the devastating fi re at Chinatown’s
beloved 70 Mulberry. The MOCA team
stayed on site until hoses stopped last
night. We have reached out to emergency
conservators. Thank you for the outpouring
of community support re: MOCA archives.
We will update as we get more information,”
the museum team wrote via social
media on the night of the fi re.
They documented every part of the crisis
until they reopened a year later. Over the
course of that year, the museum team found
that 95% of their archives survived the fi re.
“We will fi nally see my former elementary
school become a vibrant community
center for generations to come,” Chin said.
When Chin arrived in the U.S. in 1963,
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Councilmember Margaret Chin celebrate the
investment at 70 Mulberry street, during the mayor’s press conference Oct. 5.
this is the building where she learned English,
she said in a press conference just after
the fi re. Now it is the home of the history
of Chinese immigrants.
“There is still a long road ahead of us, but
the outlook has just been made much promising
as the City has taken a substantial step
toward re-building 70 Mulberry Street”,
said Echo Wong, Board of Director of the
SCREENSHOT VIA NYC MAYOR’S OFFICE
United East Athletic Association (UEAA).
“We look forward to the additional space
for the community that the new funding commitment
has made possible, and the added
programming potential it creates,” Wong said.
The UEAA thanked the mayor for staying
committed to a pre-COVID promise,
after speculation that that pandemic would
slow the process down for too long.
12 OOccttoobbeerr 77,, 22002211 SScchhnneeppss Meeddiiaa
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