Elizabeth Street (Manhattan)

Elizabeth Street is a street in Manhattan, New York City, which runs north-south parallel to and west of the Bowery. The street is a popular shopping strip in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood.[1]

The "Candle Building" on the corner of Elizabeth and Spring Streets

The southern part of Elizabeth Street was constructed in 1755 and it was extended north to Bleecker Street in 1816.[2]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Elizabeth Street was filled with tenement buildings, largely populated by Italian immigrants making the street part of the onetime Little Italy of lower Manhattan.[3][4] However, by the late 20th century, many Chinese immigrants moved to Elizabeth Street, south of Kenmare Street, forming Manhattan's Chinatown. The northern portion runs through the modern neighborhoods of Soho and Nolita. [5][6][7]

Notable buildings

Elizabeth Street has several buildings of note, including the New York Chinese School which caters to both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers; the Trust in God Baptist Church; and the New York City Police Department 5th Precinct.

11 Spring Street, a former stable and carriage house at the corner of Elizabeth Street, was built in 1888. It was once a noted magnet for graffiti artists, who covered the exterior of the building with their artwork. When the building was bought for conversion into condominiums, the developers, in collaboration with the Wooster Collective, mounted a show inside the building, inviting well-known graffitists – many of whom had work on the outside – to cover the entire five floors of the building's interior. The show opened in December 2006 for a few days, before work on the conversion began and the artwork was covered over or destroyed. Prior to its days as a canvas for graffiti, the stable had been the home of IBM employee John Simpson for 30 years. Simpson had filled it with Rube Goldberg-like mechanisms, and put burnt candles, surplus from the 1964 New York World's Fair, in the windows, giving the building its nickname at the time, the "Candle Building".[8][9]

Chinatown businesses

On Elizabeth Street near the New York City Police Department's 5th Precinct house, there is a very long time famous restaurant staple as well as it has been the largest restaurant in all of Manhattan's Chinatown named Jing Fong located at 20 Elizabeth Street selling various Cantonese dim sum dishes and often very popularly and attractively used for banquets, cultural events, and parties. In addition to serving Chinese customers, it has also attracted many non-Asian customers.[10] [11]

Also near the 5th Precinct, there is a small shopping center called Elizabeth Center at 13 Elizabeth Street. Because of the increasing property values and rents, since the 2000s, some storefronts have become empty.[12][13][14][15]

Elizabeth Street is also home to three Cantonese food markets. Hong Kong Supermarket, at Hester and Elizabeth Streets, is the neighborhood's largest Cantonese supermarket, containing two floors, and sells items such as dried food products, refrigerated items, fresh seafood and meat, vegetables and fruits. Deluxe Food Market is a smaller food market stretching from Elizabeth to Mott Street, between Hester and Grand Streets, which sells mainly meat and seafood. Po Wing Hong Market is similar to a regular grocery store selling only dried food products and refrigerated items, but also has a large stand of selling traditional Chinese herbal medicinal products.[16][17]

Street sign at Canal Street. The stretch of Elizabeth Street south of Canal Street is now co-named Pvt. Danny Chen Way.

Private Danny Chen Way

In May 2014, a portion of Elizabeth Street below Canal Street was given an extra name called Private Danny Chen Way (陳宇暉路) in memory of Danny Chen, who was a Cantonese Chinese American New Yorker born and grew up in Manhattan's Chinatown and joined the military, but unfortunately very shortly he had died from an apparent gunshot suicide in the United States Army as a result of anti-Asian bullying from other American soldiers, which some were eventually charged with Anti-Asian harassment that led to Danny's apparent suicide. This became a very important landmark for the Chinatown neighborhood and since Danny Chen and his familial background are of Cantonese culture and the street is located in the western half of Manhattan's Chinatown, which is the original oldest longer time established part of Manhattan's Chinatown also known as Manhattan's Cantonese Chinatown as it has been traditionally for many decades and is still dominantly populated by Cantonese speakers being the primary main base concentration of the Cantonese residents in the area including continuing to maintain as the primary traditional commercial and social gathering district for the Cantonese residents that reside within this part of Chinatown and in other parts of the Chinatown and Lower East Side/Two Bridges areas, it became an especially very important deep hearted historical cultural moment and landmark for the Cantonese Chinatown area and overall for the Cantonese residents residing throughout the whole Chinatown and Lower East Side/Two Bridges areas in addition as a symbol of fighting anti-Asian discrimination and getting justice for Asian Americans being discriminated in society.[18][19][20][21][22]

In literature

In 2009, Laurie Fabiano published the novel Elizabeth Street, which presented a fictionalized account of a 1909 kidnapping in the Little Italy neighborhood.[23]

References

Notes

  1. Silverman, John (2008). Frommer's Portable New York City 2009. John Wiley & Sons. p. 164. ISBN 9780470289686.
  2. Presa, Donald G. (24 June 2003). NoHo East Historic District Designation Report (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee. p. 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
  3. Homberger, Eric (2004). Mrs Astor's New York: Money And Social Power In A Gilded Age. Yale University Press. pp. 29–30. ISBN 9780300105155.
  4. Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra: A History Of The Sicilian Mafia. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 163–164. ISBN 9781403966964.
  5. https://forgotten-ny.com/2013/09/elizabeth-street-chinatown%E2%80%93soho/
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/fashion/30CRITIC.html
  7. http://www.nychinatown.org/storefronts/elizabeth.html
  8. Kennedy, Randy. [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/arts/design/14graf.html?_r=0 "Last Hurrah for Street Art, as Canvas Goes Condo" The New York Times (December 14, 2006)
  9. "Spring Street" on New YUork City Songlines
  10. https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lobel17/2017/05/16/the-jing-fong-restaurant/
  11. http://jingfongny.com/
  12. http://www.christinaofchinatown.com/blog/shopping/elizabeth-center-ec-for-short
  13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmhmYxX3cLY
  14. https://macaulay.cuny.edu/seminars/brooks10/shopping/index.html
  15. https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/pawprint/?p=1688
  16. https://www.timeout.com/newyork/shopping/deluxe-food-market
  17. https://nyulocal.com/shop-right-in-chinatown-at-hong-kong-supermarket-3d8171800d46
  18. https://nymag.com/news/features/danny-chen-2012-1/
  19. https://www.amny.com/news/private-danny-chen-way-is-dedicated-in-chinatown/
  20. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/street-named-honor-danny-chen-chinatown-soldier-driven-suicide-hazing-article-1.1796590
  21. http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/tag/private-danny-chen
  22. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/10/04/nine-years-later--danny-chen-s-family-fights-to-keep-his-story-alive-
  23. Roberts, Sam (9 July 2009). "When Albany Got Things Done". New York Times. Retrieved 30 November 2012.



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