Details from Adams on Chinatown revitalization, but questions remain
Mayor Adams, along with city and state officials, unveiled more details Friday about a $56 million effort to revitalize a section of Manhattan’s Chinatown, an effort he first announced last month at his State of the City speech.
Hizzoner said at a news conference that the new city and state partnership allowed the team “to really reclaim the narrative of what we always focused on: public space, public safety and making this city livable for everyone.”
“Open space means open business. It brings tourists, it brings visitors and it brings dollar bills,” the mayor said. “We want people to spend money in this community.”
The plan, which will draw from $44.3 million in city funding and $11.5 million is state cash, is aimed at redesigning Chatham-Kimlau Square to ease vehicular traffic at the busy five-point intersection, possibly closing Park Row off to cars and erecting a traditional Chinatown arch in the historic neighborhood.
That arch will be paid for through $2.5 million of the $11.5 million in state funding as well as through a private fundraising effort, according to city officials, who noted that the completion date for the arch will depend on private fundraising.
Creating the gateway for the neighborhood could be fraught for the mayor, though, given his past forays into such efforts.
An archway that Adams pushed for in Sunset Park during his days as Brooklyn borough president still hasn’t gotten off the ground, and Winnie Greco, the woman who led that effort and now heads up the mayor’s Asian affairs operation, is the target of a probe by the city’s Department of Investigation, a development first reported in The City news outlet. That investigation came on the heels of The City reporting that two people alleged Greco used her Adams’ administration post for personal gain.
The effort to fund a 40-foot arch in Sunset Park’s Chinatown depended, in part, on private donations — in that case to the Sino America New York Brooklyn Archway Association, a nonprofit launched by Greco in 2012. From 2013 to 2018, the group raised $221,000, but most of that money has been spent, and there’s still no arch in Sunset Park.
That arch itself was initially supposed to come to the city as a gift from Beijing, and Greco said the money she was helping raise would go toward maintaining it.
Jennifer Sun, vice president of planning with the city’s Economic Development Corporation, appeared with the mayor Friday and said what makes the arch in Manhattan’s Chinatown different than other Chinatown arches is that it originated from a stateled process and that EDC will work closely with the Chinatown Business Improvement District to ensure donors understand what they’re contributing to.
“We are putting systems and protections in place to make sure that when individuals or organizations are donating to the gateway, they understand what they are donating for — for the design, construction and maintenance of the gateway — and that they understand that when they are making that donation, it is for that use only,” she said.
Aside from the arch, the plans for Manhattan’s Chinatown will also include shortterm improvements to “enhance the pedestrian and bicyclist experience” such as “art interventions,” new plants and additional signs. That part of the project will begin this year with a community engagement period, with the ultimate goal of making permanent improvements to Park Row.
The plan will begin with a traffic study of Chatham-Kimlau Square with the goal of transforming it into a four-way intersection with shorter pedestrian crossings. That part of the plan is expected to be complete in 2029, city officials said.