Chinatown Projects & Programs
Active Projects
Pedestrian Observations: Mapping Manhattan Chinatown’s Public Realm
A multitude of elements make up Manhattan Chinatown’s public realm: its sidewalks, curbs, and streets, and its parks, storefronts, and institutions. Illustrated in the following map, many vignettes highlight the complex and fluid relationships between public and private spaces, overlaid with public and private uses. By highlighting these relationships, we hope to stimulate conversations about how to foster a healthy symbiosis between these spaces and uses: how the public realm can be better used, designed, managed, and reimagined to shape a more resilient and inclusive public realm.
Related Programming:
Upcoming: Pedestrian Observations CALL WALK
Walk with us to experience: Pedestrian Observations: Mapping Manhattan Chinatown’s Public Realm
Please join CALL and Artists and Designers, Myles Zhang and Stephan Fan on a WALK to experience the opening of Pedestrian Observations: Mapping Manhattan Chinatown's Public Realm.
We appreciate your patience as we work on creating an even more engaging program. More information to follow soon!
Additional Projects
Mapping Chinatown’s Food System
We’ve been working with our partners to create an interactive map of Chinatown’s food system. Join us on this virtual ‘walk’ in your own time, and add to the content of the map and our larger project by giving us feedback on the existing stops, recommending stops to add, or sharing your personal stories, recipes, and photos!
The map is bilingual, and stories can be shared in English or in Chinese.
You can also share your images and stories with us on social media- just be sure to tag @cityaslivinglab #foodstories so we can be sure to find it!
CALL has been active in researching and exploring the food systems of Chinatown, led by designer and urbanist Stephen Fan and economic botanist Valerie Imbruce. Fan grew up shopping its crowded markets with his parents to supply their family restaurant in Connecticut and keenly understands it central importance to the Chinese diaspora in the North East. Imbruce is an expert in Chinatown’s food system. The current research she is conducting with CALL updates her seminal book from 2015, From Farm to Canal Street.
This initiative aims to bring together stories from the diversity of people’s lived experiences connected to this neighborhood, highlight the ecological benefits of a food system where growers and sellers are in a direct relationship, dispel misinformation, and engage residents in imagining the future of their neighborhood, advocating for solutions that prioritize the community’s needs and preserve their access to fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate foods.
Architecture of Endurance in Manhattan Chinatown
Welcome to Chinatown! With a population of ~150,000, this neighborhood is the largest ethnic Chinese community outside of Asia, and the neighborhood has gone through many transformations in it’s journey from a wetland to what it is today. Join historian and illustrator Myles Zhang on a mile-long walk through space and time.
You can explore this walk by clicking on the google map on this page. You can navigate it on this site, or you can click the box icon on the top right corner of the map to expand it; if you are using your phone and you have the google maps app, it will open up right there in your app