62-64 Bayard
Gee How Oak Tin Association
Architect: Charles M. Straub / Developed by Samuel Rosenberg
Built in 1910; Building purchased by the association and remodeled in 1927
2024
62-64 Bayard
Gee How Oak Tin Association
Architect: Charles M. Straub / Developed by Samuel Rosenberg
Built in 1910; Building purchased by the association and remodeled in 1927
1963
62-64 Bayard
Gee How Oak Tin Association
Architect: Charles M. Straub / Developed by Samuel Rosenberg
Built in 1910; Building purchased by the association and remodeled in 1927
1940s
Interview
WITH JIANPING CHEN (SECRETARY OF THE GEE HOW OAK TIN ASSOCIATION)
Interview conducted in May 2022.
With Mandarin interpretation by Roxy Chang
+ Would you give me a brief introduction of yourself and your connection to Chinatown? How did you come to be connected to Chinatown?
I’m Mr. Chen. I’ve been the secretary/bookkeeper since 2014. I came from China in 2007. I came and joined shortly after I arrived.
+ How long has the Gee How Oak Tin association been in this building?
Does Gee How Oak Tin Association own the building?
We registered in 1924 — it’s been an association for almost 100 years.
We entered this building in 1927, but it has over 100 years of history. This building existed before the 1920s. Back then in 1924, our predecessors combined from different associations and saved up $10,000 to buy this building.
Every 3 years we have an annual conference. In 1927, it was the 4th annual conference here, which lasted for a month.
Jianping Chen at our interview session, May 2022.
The Certificate of Incorporation of the Gee How Oak Tin Association, dated June 5, 1924, is framed and displayed in the building. Photographed in 2022.
+ Can you tell me a little bit about any major renovations or changes to the building since it was first constructed? Can you share any information about the building’s past lives?
Around 1964, we changed the exterior facade’s decorative elements, and in particular the second floor — you can tell it’s different from the rest of the building. Most of the changes happened here.
The association office used to be on the sixth floor, but now it’s on the second floor.
On the ground floor, it was always similar: a Hong Kong-style restaurant similar to Mei Lai Wah. Mei Lai Wah has been there for more than 30 years.
We changed the flag in 2002 [from the Taiwan flag to the People’s Republic of China flag].
+ Who comes here to the building? What does the association do with its community members?
It’s a place for members to connect and to worship ancestors. There are certain cemeteries that we visit as a group and we have ceremonies in the spring and fall. There are also certain duties we have as an association and we gather together to discuss those. Mostly it’s about relationship building with each other.
People come to celebrate the lunar new year together. We usually hang up lanterns and our colored flags. For members who are 70 years old or above, they come to give their respects to the elders. Usually during the lunar new year and the Mid-Autumn Festival, there are more people who come back. However, with the pandemic, in the past years we haven’t been able to have bigger gatherings.
On a daily basis, people sit together to chat…
+ Associations used to be a place for new immigrants to get connected, especially during the Chinese Exclusion era. Is this still an anchor for new immigrants?
We’re an association based on the last names of Wu, Yuen, Chin… As long as they fulfill their requirements, then they can join the association. Margaret Chin is also a member of our association.
+ How many women are members vs. men?
More men, for sure! Mostly men!
+ Describe the building.
We have six floors, a rooftop (that we don’t use that much) and a basement.
Jianping Chen at the front entrance of the Gee How Oak Tin Association building, May 2022.
Page from the association’s 1924-2014 commemorative publication.
An excerpt from the association’s commemorative publication:
History of the New York Association
Edited in 1964, included in Gee How Oak Tin Association’s 1924-2014 anniversary catalog
Translated from Chinese by Lai Ying Wong
The association was first founded on June 5, 1924. At first, it was housed in the 陳潁川 Hall. During that time, the premier, 陳献南, came to New York. He led the association to buy property for the organization.
The person in charge (陳耀榮) and several staff members (names…) fundraised to raise the money for the purpose. Each share cost $50, and in total they raised $40,000. (Including Boston’s brothers, who raised $7000). With this funding, they purchased the present building at 62-64 Bayard Street.
After the renovation, the association was opened in 1927 on Mid-Autumn Festival Day. The total amount cost $125,000. They paid the first down payment of $30,000 and then paid $5000 yearly as mortgage. (The building was originally built in 1911.)
In 1960, they transformed the building. The office was moved to the second floor. The restructuring cost $1000,000 and some change. It took over 2 years to complete. (The expenses were paid for by funds raised by local brothers and brothers from other states all over the US.)
The premier at that time tried very hard, running around different states to raise the funds. The newly renovated building was completed and opened in 1963 on Mid-Autumn Festival Day. The building generated $1200 in rent each month.
[The last paragraph includes names of the different premiers.]
Interview
WITH NORMAN CHIN (SIFU / FOUNDER OF SOUTHERN PRAYING MANTIS KUNG FU AND LION DANCING TROUPE AND FORMER RESIDENT AT 62-64 BAYARD)
Norman Chin after an afternoon of teaching kung fu and lion dancing. Photographed at our interview session, May 2024.
WInterview conducted in May 2024 and June 2026.
+ Would you give me a brief introduction of yourself and your connection to Chinatown? What was Chinatown like at the time?
I was born and bred in New York, and I was born at 62-64 Bayard. My dad was born in Toishan, China and my mother was born in Weizhou, China. She moved to Hong Kong during World War II and my dad had moved from Toishan to New York back in the late 1930s.
I lived there until I was about 30 years old, and moved out after graduating [from school]. Everyone was moving out of Chinatown… later on, I regretted it. I should have kept the apartment. I moved to midtown… and then to the West Village, where I was across the street from Bob Dylan. People were going through Bob Dylan’s garbage on MacDougal Street.
+ What was Chinatown like at the time?
At that time, during the 1930s and 1940s, Chinatown was very small. People didn’t really move out of Chinatown much in those days. Chinatown was basically only four streets: Mott, Bayard, Pell, and Doyers. That was it. Some historians talk about Chatham Square or East Broadway being part of Chinatown, but it wasn’t really like that yet.
Back then, the elevated train, The El, still ended at Chatham Square. We were surrounded by Little Italy. In fact, the Italian neighborhood extended down Mulberry Street almost to Worth Street. Even on Bayard Street, there were many Jewish merchants selling pots, pans, and all kinds of goods. There were hardly any Chinese businesses on the Bowery. The Bowery mostly had Italian restaurants and even an oyster house. On Mott Street, there were Italian restaurants right at the corners.
Growing up, I attended P.S. 23 at the corner of Bayard and Mulberry Streets from kindergarten until 6th grade. It later suffered a fire, but when I was a child, we walked to school by ourselves starting at five years old. P.S. 23 was probably 95 percent Asian students at the time, with some Italian students. It was very safe; all of the store owners knew everyone and they were “aunts” and “uncles” watching over the kids.
+ This building really felt like home to you. It was a landmark of sorts, a place where you could always find family. From your perspective, through your own experiences and memories, how and why do you think this building is important to Chinatown?
62-64 Bayard is owned by the Chin Association. It’s been around for over 100 years now, dating back to the 1920s. Because it belonged to the Chin Family Association, many of the people living there were Chins. There weren’t a lot of Westerners in the four to five block area of Chinatown.
In the building, everyone knew everyone. I was close friends with some of the other apartment dwellers: distant relatives living on the fourth floor and friends on the second floor. I lived on the third floor. We lived as a close-knit community. We knew everyone in the building. Four apartments on each floor and up to 16 apartments in the building. On the top of the building, there was the association’s community room and area dedicated to the ancestors of the Chin Association. Every year we would go there to pay our respects. They had incense, a shrine, and various community activities. The association organized programs for the community and also taught kung fu.
+ Can you paint a picture of your family’s apartment? Where did everyone sleep? Where did you play?
We lived in a two-bedroom apartment – Apartment #9 – with nine people: my mother and father, my four brothers and sisters and I, and my aunt and uncle. All the apartments were two-bedrooms. At the time, there were a lot of railroad flats, and some of them had the bathtub in the kitchen.
Nine people in a two-bedroom apartment! It was old Chinese style. You would put two beds together, and my mother, father, and all the kids would sleep side by side in a row.
Sometimes we played in the hallway [outside the apartment].
In the old days, we did not have gas heating. We actually had a kerosene heater in the living room and no air conditioner, obviously! I remember that we would buy kerosene from people on the corner.
It was pretty crowded and most of us didn’t speak English until we went to kindergarten. Mom and Dad were speaking to us in their own dialects. My dad would speak Toishanese and my mom would speak Hakka and Cantonese. We grew up with multiple dialects.
There were grayish linoleum floors. The two-bedroom was nice; you had natural light all around and it opened to a courtyard… a garbage courtyard. We had lots of daylight, even if it was in the back of the building.
+ Where did you eat in the apartment and who would cook?
Everyone ate together around the dining table. It was very crowded.
My father passed away when I was four years old, so I didn’t have much time with him. My mother was working two or three jobs at once, so it was very difficult raising five children as a single mother.
She was very proud and never accepted charity. The Transfiguration Church used to send nuns or priests to invite us to join the church, but she refused. My mother did everything—waitressing, sewing, anything she could find. Like many Chinese people at the time, she worked in restaurants, laundries, or whatever jobs were available.
She cooked dinner [for us] at night. But the association in the building also had clubs, including community spaces in the basements and sometimes they cooked meals for the community. People who were hanging around in these spaces would eat together, so we would get food from there as well: Chinese food like chicken, rice, vegetables, meat: a very traditional Chinese meal.
+ What are your fondest childhood memories of this building?
My favorite memories of living in the apartment were of Chinese New Year. It was even more important than Christmas. We looked forward to a midnight Chinese New Year dinner – we would have only vegetarian dishes to open up the New Year. It was always exciting. The food would be set out and the family would get together on New Year’s Eve. At that time, with the lion dancing, we had a club in the Chin Association. Once you heard the drumming, you’d know that Chinese New Year was around.
I have another memory that’s very vivid and almost dreamlike.
When we were young, we wore knickers—pants with bands around the ankles—and little caps. I remember walking to school in the morning and seeing the sunrise in the east. When I stepped out of the house and looked down the street, I could see the sunlight coming up.
I also remember Jewish pushcart vendors selling pots and pans. There was a knife-sharpening wagon where the machinery was powered by leather belts that turned as someone cranked it.
For some reason, these images have always stayed with me. Sometimes I think that maybe one day I’ll make a movie about them… They’ve always remained in my mind.
Lion heads of the Southern Praying Mantis troupe.
+ Did you ever visit the Association in the building or were you connected to them in any way?
My family was a part of the association – we were always a part of the Chin Association. We would go up to the top floor and do our prayers and burn incense at the family altar on New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s day. That room used to be a lot larger. The impression was that the ancestral altar was very unique and it was a special place to go to once a year.
+ Can you share any information about the building’s history, or its past lives?
Originally there were two stores in the front of the building. On the left side, facing the building, was a dry cleaner and on the right side was a Chinese music store. The owners lived in the back of the store. Back in the 1950s, they had a great collection of Chinese records and sold Chinese musical instruments. The shop owners were very nice, but very traditional. It was a unique place. You could go in and buy any Chinese instrument. It lasted until about the late 1960s, when it became a coffee shop – Mei Lai Wah, which was famous for their cha siu bao.
+ Today, you teach kung fu and lion dancing. Tell me about the history of the founding of the Southern Praying Mantis troupe. How do you see this as a powerful way to preserve part of our Chinese culture and hold on to your connection to Chinatown?
I have been studying kung fu and lion dancing since I was seven or eight years old. It was taught at the Chin Association. In Chinatown, there were other associations and clubs that taught kung fu and lion dancing, to continue the tradition. I have been interested since then.
During my training period – during high school in the early 1960s – I became a [Free]Mason and then the chief instructor there until the late 1980s… That’s where I learned Mantis. To me, every martial arts and kung fu teacher is the same thing: you’re supposed to be strong and disciplined. There are traditional values like respect and honoring the elders, but nowadays, some of this is not thoroughly practiced. Kids are more independent and don’t have a hierarchy that they respect.
As I was growing up, even in high school, I studied different styles of martial arts. In my junior year, I studied Praying Mantis. It was a system I embraced, and I started teaching back in 1972, I believe. I opened my own school. I hoped to preserve our martial arts heritage and also lion dance techniques. In Chinatown, it’s very difficult because there are a lot of people who don’t consider taking the time to learn it… but these days, hopefully we can keep our culture alive.
+ Every Lunar New Year, your Southern Praying Mantis lion dance troupe has been performing its finale in front of 62–64 Bayard Street for decades. Can you tell me about this tradition of performing in front of your childhood home and the association?
In the 1940s and 1950s Chinatown only had a few lion dance groups. The Chin Association had one troupe, the [Chinese Free] Masons had another, and the Hip Sing had a third. There was also the Chinese Community Center, who had their own group made up mostly of American-born Chinese.
Because Chinatown was so small back then, the parades ended early. We’d start around ten in the morning and finish by 1, 1:30pm. There simply weren’t that many performances.
As Chinatown grew, more groups formed. Some weren’t martial arts schools—they just bought lion heads and performed lion dances. In the old days, though, most lion dancers came from a martial arts background.
For us, performing every year in front of our association is a way of paying respect and representing the Chin Association.
Before I opened my [kung fu / lion dance] school, performances were always held in front of the association. Later, after working professionally in industrial design, I opened my school. Around 1994, we officially began bringing the school to perform for Lunar New Year at the association as well.
+ Why is it important that this ritual continues today?
Chinese New Year is one of the most important festivals of the year. For us, it’s a way of paying respect, welcoming the New Year, and wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous year.
The Southern Praying Mantis’ Lunar New Year lion dancing festivities in Chinatown, February 2025.
62-64 BAYARD - GEE HOW OAK TIN ASSOCIATION - BUILDING PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographs taken between 2022-2024.