Chinatown Manhattan

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About Manhattan Chinatown

Manhattan Chinatown around Mott St and Canal St was founded by Cantonese-speaking families from around Guanzhou (Hong Kong). These Chinese American families are mostly descended from the people who built the Transcontinental Railroad (1863-1869).

In the 1980s and 90s Manhattan Chinatown expanded east of the Bowery with Fuzhounese-speaking immigrants. That section is now called Little Fuzhou.Fuzhou is a coast city farther north opposite Taiwan.

Pregones are street vendor selling songs. You hear them all across the Latin world. In Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, one man has wandered the streets selling lilies for years singing “Azucena, Azucena” (Lilies, Lilies).

What is now an English children’s song “Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns, One a Penny, Two a Penny, Hot Cross Buns,” is an example of pregones in the Anglo world. People everywhere do the same things.

In New York City the push cart vendors used to sing pregones as they made their rounds. But the only place we know of where you can still hear a pregones on the street is at the vegetable markets on Mott St below Hester St in Manhattan Chinatown.

Good fresh fish and vegetables are expensive in New York City. Chinatown has the freshest fish we know of in Manhattan and it’s not expensive.

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Visit Manhattan Chinatown

Subways

• Canal St (N)(Q)(R)(W) at Broadway
• Canal St (4)(5)(6) at Lafayette
• Canal St (J)(Z) at Centre
• East Broadway (F) at Essex/Rutgers St

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