Reflective Urbanisms:

Mapping New York Chinatown

+ When was this building constructed? Who is the architect for this building? Can you tell me a little bit about the history behind its design and/or construction?
When I last spoke to the maintenance staff, there are about 80-something units, with about 120 senior citizens who live there.

According to my online research:
Construction ended in 1991.The residential tower was designed by Edelman Partnership and the retail base was designed by Anschuetz, Christidis & Lauster. Link for more info here.

The housing project was completed in 1992 with 88 units serving roughly 105 residents. The majority of the seniors are aged between 85-100. Link for more info here.

I don’t really have this information but I do know that this was one of the main community concessions as a result of the city wanting to build a jail in Chinatown. According to the Chung Pak website here:
In the 1980’s, former Mayor Ed Koch planned to build a detention center in Chinatown due to its proximity to the court area and NYPD headquarters. However, the proposal triggered a series of community protests and rallies with the apprehension of deteriorating security and quality of life. Although the effort to revoke the plan was unsuccessful, through community advocacy and a united front, Chinatown was able to negotiate with the City for a parcel of the land next to the detention center to build the Chung Pak complex.

Today, the Chung Pak complex consists of two non-profit organizations that provide 88 senior citizen affordable housing units, 15,000 square feet community facility spaces as well as many retail establishments serving the working families in the Manhattan Downtown area.

+ Can you share any information about the building’s past lives?
I remember, at the beginning, even if it was shiny and new, you still faced the jail, which was a downer. I slept over and  at night, the lights of the jail were really bright and on all the time It made me wonder what was going on inside the cells.


+ What are your most impressionable memories of this building?
I was sick a lot as a kid. There were two times when I remember being sick at my grandma’s place. One time, when I was 4 years old, was less fun when I had a stomach bug and was told by my doctor to fast. My mother told me to take a shower first. I lost strength in the shower when standing up and I fainted. My mom took me to Gouverneur Hospital…

Another time, maybe when I was 3 or 4, my aunt was taking care of me and she had trouble booking an appointment for me. I remembered I half woke-up when she was leaving to go make an appointment. I fell asleep again and when I woke up, I didn’t recall that she had left. I woke up by myself in a panic. I took a blanket and a stuffed animal – a plush Dalmation dog from San Gennaro’s – and walked over to a sweatshop where my grandmother worked. Two adults stopped me and escorted me to my grandmother’s work. I remember going up the elevator, with metal grates, and going to her sewing machine station. She was really surprised to see me. She took me back to the apartment.

+ How have you seen Chinatown change over the past decades?
For one thing, the sweatshops seem mostly gone. 

I remember Chinatown being a ghost town after 9/11… I still went because that’s where my church was, but it was sad. 

I remember a blackout in August, in the summer of 2003 or 2004. I was teaching at the summer day camp at the Overseas Chinese Mission and the lights just went out. I remember going up to my grandmother’s place as a place of refuge during the blackout. The pumps to get water up were electric, so we ran out of water. I spent the night there.