Chinatown 'dying a thousand deaths'

10/03/2001

By TOM HUANG / The Dallas Morning News

NEW YORK – This is the week of the Harvest Moon, a special time for families here in Chinatown. Every year, by tradition, residents bring their children to the bakeries to buy moon cakes – small pastries filled with sweet bean paste – to celebrate their prosperity.

But the attack on the World Trade Center changed that. Maybe they're mourning. Maybe they don't feel it's appropriate to celebrate. Maybe they're holding tight to their money. Few customers are picking up the cakes.

And that has hit John Hung hard. He's the owner of May May, a bakery and dumpling shop on Pell Street in Chinatown, a 15-minute walk northeast of the Trade Center area.

"We've lost 90 percent of what we used to sell," Mr. Hung, 50, said Tuesday. "We used to bring moon cakes to all of the vendors, but after Sept. 11, they blocked all of the traffic and commercial trucks from making deliveries. I lost a whole week of business because I couldn't open the shop."

Such is life in Chinatown, where business owners and residents are struggling to get back on their feet three weeks after the attack.

Most shops, businesses and homes still don't have working phone lines. Verizon has placed mobile phone banks on street corners, where residents can make three-minute calls. Police barricades still block off parts of the neighborhood, and delivery trucks are hard-pressed to get supplies to restaurants and stores.

The closing of a main subway line has reduced foot traffic. Because many downtown workers have been displaced, the lunchtime crowd is gone. And tourists, the lifeblood of businesses here, have all but vanished.

"It's been like a ghost town," said Mei Chan, 42, who lives near Confucius Plaza and owns Antica Roma, a Chinese-Italian restaurant. Her place is now open, but business has dropped off 60 percent.

For more than a week after the attack, Ms. Chan had to show a photo ID to get into her neighborhood, and the National Guard patrolled the streets. There was no garbage pickup. Most of the stores were closed, and people were afraid of looting.

She opened her restaurant at night for a few residents – her bartender insisted – but she had trouble getting her workers through a security checkpoint north of Chinatown.

"It was really like a state of war," she said. "It's been so depressing for the past few weeks. I just want things to get back to normal."

On the street, vendors sold Chinese cabbage and bitter melon, and a sign on Mulberry Street read: "USA: Stand tall and proud." A flag of red, white, and blue flowers graced Kimlau Square, a plaza named after a Chinese-American bomber pilot who died in World War II.

Elsewhere, butchers strung roasted chickens and pressed ducks across their showcases. The elderly waited to get on a bus to an Atlantic City, N.J., casino. The smell of ginger and five-spice mixed with smoke that lingered from the attack.

An old woman selling oxtail and honeycomb tripe at Tommy Lee's meat shop said in Cantonese, "No one comes here."

Paul Lee, 51, whose grandfather founded the 32 Mott Street General Store in 1891, is a vocal community leader.

"We're dying a thousand deaths here," he said.

It's no better for other businesses. Because of the lack of visitors, he said, about 10 restaurants that normally stay open until 5 a.m. have had to cut back their hours and fire their night-shift workers.

Elderly residents have been the most affected, said Kwong Hui, 35, of the Lower Manhattan Residents Relief Coalition.

"From the first day, the air quality was horrendous," he said, and some of the elderly developed respiratory problems. Another problem: Many elderly use swipe cards to get their prescriptions and food stamps electronically, but the cards no longer work.

Gordon Wong, 38, stepped out of his funeral home and examined the names of the dead, listed on scraps of paper on his door. Some Chinese are superstitious. They won't walk into a funeral home, so this is how they learn about upcoming services. The names have been dwindling.

"Ninety percent of our business comes by phone, and our phones aren't working," Mr. Wong said.

He has organized one funeral for a World Trade Center victim. It was hard because the family had to walk all the way to the Wah Wing Sang funeral home. The streets were closed to traffic.

"People are not optimistic," he said. "They don't know how long this will go on. I hope my phones come back. Otherwise, my business will die, and I'll die with it."

Like Mr. Wong, Stephen Boon, president of Harold L. Lee & Sons Insurance Services, depends on communications for his business.

"Our infrastructure has been hit: no phones, no e-mail, no faxes," he said. "This is our lifeline. We've gone to the pains of mailing 3,000 clients to tell them we're operating by cell phones."

So far, he has received a half dozen insurance claims for business interruption, and "it could be months before we find out what's out there." Several banks have moved their operations to other branches. "It's been a drain on Chinatown's economy," he said.

But while the neighborhood is reeling, Paul Lee, the general store owner whose family has been here for more than a century, remained confident, and he put on a suit and tie as he prepared to go to a business meeting.

"Chinatown has been here since the mid-1850s," he said. "I think we'll be around for another few years."