0:00 - Introduction and home at 21 Mott street; relationship to Chinatown; starting his own business in Chinatown and how it has evolved; 9/11; born in 1965; describes family; story of his grandfather and how he came to buy a building on behalf of the trade company he worked for
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13:18 - The building was a five-story tenement; mixed housing of Italians, Jews, and Chinese; describes the relationships; family living through the great depression; anecdote about father as a mechanic; compares his version of Chinatown to his father’s; struggle between native born and Chinese born
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18:33 - Describes public school and smaller Chinese social network in the 1960s; immigration in the 1970s and how it changed Chinatown; gang presence; Chinatown Community Young Lions was founded by his sister to keep kids occupied and away from gangs; importance of an activity to give kids identity; CCYL was always multi-racial and inclusive; Chinatown new year's parade experience; the new year’s parade after 9/11
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32:42 - Once his father became successful, he could have moved out but he chose not to; coping mechanisms for the difficult times; when he opened his store, people tried to extort him but he played dumb; thoughts on Mayor Giuliani’s impact on crime; recalls the dangers of Pell street but now things are safer
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38:54 - Experience of school in Harlem; his perceived borders of Chinatown; difficulty of imposing health standards on the neighborhood because of perceived racism; pride of being a merchant is gone because merchants aren’t from the neighborhood and serve outsiders; the stakeholders in the community and their importance; Chinatown on the precipice of change
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45:53 - Foreign and external-American investment trying to exploit Chinatown; preservation of neighborhoods; no necessity of tourism for the survival of the community, he believes in the economic engine of the low-income Chinese community; maintenance of old buildings; Chinatown landlords; his own ideas for revitalization; current strategy of improving Chinatown needs to be stopped; there has been a loss of a single ethnic voice; his critique of the bid system
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59:25 - A core group of stakeholders need to balance old-fashioned views; he taps into the old-fashioned knowledge and doesn’t dismiss them; effort to shift lower income people to the outer boroughs and develop the neighborhood; need to prevent turning it into a suburban mall
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63:10 - Gentrification; the Chinese improved the community and made it a more desirable place; doesn’t want to label gentrification as racial because it negates ethnic agency and success; impact of the mayors’ policies on commercially developing the city; need for responsible development; tourism is a part of Chinatown but not everything, need to replace the lost garment industry
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75:11 - What happened to Canal Street and the neighborhood black-market; Canal street under pressure for development; illicit businesses take the space of tenants; tendency to resist change by the older generations needs to be matched with solid reasoning; Chinatowns across the country have been abandoned by Chinese; anecdote about food stand built by grandfather
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88:31 - Saddened by favorite Philippino restaurant closing, but they are reopening; how older generations felt towards the transformation of Chinatown by the immigration wave in 1970s; people loved the diversity of foods that came over to Chinatown; criticism by oversea Chinese about Chinatown being dated; the issue is with the city and their lack of enforcement; generational divide between attention to cleanliness; need to stop selective enforcement in Chinatown
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