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Historic, kinetic and wildly complex, Chinatown is the perfect backdrop for every trendy pleasure seeker’s vomit-tinged nocturnal pursuits. A recent spate of It openings—Sasha Petraske’s White Star on a grim stretch of Essex Street; a highly stylized cocktail lounge, Apothéke, on hook-shaped Doyers Street—should draw even more revelers. And that’s making some of the neighbors nervous.
The growth of bars and restaurants on the neighborhood’s eastern fringes isn’t exactly new—Good World bar moved into a former Chinese barbershop–massage parlor on Canal Street in 1999, paving the way for places that previously would have seemed more at home, say, above Delancey Street: Bacaro (Frank DeCarlo’s latest Italian venture), Capitale (nightclub on growth hormones), Broadway East (upscale vegetarian), Clandestino (laid-back wine bar), Happy Ending (massage parlor turned watering hole) and Café Petisco, a spanking-new restaurant down the block from Broadway East.
But unlike the East Village or the Lower East Side, Chinatown has long presented significant cultural and linguistic barriers to “outsider” entrepreneurs—protecting it, many argue, from the kind of gentrification that has priced so many people out of other downtown neighborhoods. So the recent opening of a place like Apothéke, located on one of Chinatown’s most historic (and quietest) streets, prompts the question of who stands to benefit: those eager to treat Chinatown as their latest absinthe playground, or the neighborhood itself, which, far from being a static monument, could profit from an infusion of cash.
The August 25 entry of Rob Hollander’s Save the Lower East Side! blog didn’t mince words: “Chic money—Apothéke cocktail bar—has found Doyers Street,” he wrote. “The end of Chinatown, for real: It’ll be the next Ludlow & Stanton upscale nightlife destination.… Why can’t they leave us alone?”
White Star owner Sasha Petraske isn’t apologizing. “The only people who have the right to make statements like that are kids who grew up in Chinatown,” he says, speaking to the inconvenient fact that many of those who oppose gentrification are gentrifiers themselves, eager to protect the abstract notion of a neighborhood and era that they were never really part of. Petraske arguably kicked off the nightlife migration below Delancey in 2000, when he began mixing cocktails at Milk & Honey on a dodgy block of Eldridge Street. He acknowledges that he was instrumental in that neighborhood’s gentrification.
“People conflate two totally separate issues. What they don’t like are people who are inconsiderate and entitled. That’s not the same thing as money. What ruins a neighborhood is running businesses irresponsibly,” says Petraske, indirectly referencing the drunken partyers who litter certain New York City sidewalks. As for the unglamorous corner that is home to his latest venture: “This part of Manhattan is the only part left that can hold its own against Downtown Brooklyn,” he says with a laugh.
Beatrice Chen, the director of education at the Museum of Chinese in America, takes a pragmatic view of the changes. She doesn’t fall on one side or the other of the gentrification issue, clarifying that though she doesn’t want Chinatown to become the next Lower East Side, she doesn’t want it to be stagnant, either. “Chinatown is still revitalizing after 9/11,” she says. “Forty restaurants closed after that month of blocking off Canal Street. That’s a huge consideration.” She also notes that outside entrepreneurs are hardly the only ones opening businesses there. Yello, a popular and relatively new Chinese-American-owned bar on Mulberry Street, is “a sign of change in Chinatown”—the younger generation making its trendy mark—as is its neighbor, Mama Café, which is also owned by Chinese-Americans.
Heather Tierney, for her part, doesn’t see Apothéke as a nail in the coffin for Chinatown. She wouldn’t: She’s a partner, along with Albert Trummer, the mixologist responsible for the more than 250 specialty cocktails being served at the bar, which occupies the former address of a Chinese restaurant and, before that, opium den. Tierney (a former TONY staffer) said she worked for three years with a succession of Chinese brokers to get a lease on the space. She thought “[It would be] a great place for a destination cocktail bar: It’s hidden and tucked away in another world.” While she admits that it’s been “like a mob scene” since it opened on September 5, Tierney maintains that she’d love for Doyers Street to remain as it is—peaceful, quiet—and is doing her best to control the number of people loitering outside the bar.
Her desire, however, to help other “outsiders” get leases on Doyers plays directly to the fear that Chinatown will become yet another romper room for rich kids who blithely price the locals out of their homes. “I’d like to maintain authenticity while I’m at the same time gentrifying,” Tierney says, inadvertently summing up the well-meaning yet inherently unsustainable mentality that has given much of lower Manhattan the feel of a theme park. Though it may be easy to dismiss those who want to preserve the neighborhood in amber for nostalgia’s sake, it is something else to disregard the possibility of displacing the people who have made Chinatown such a great place for that destination cocktail bar.
It’s a tricky balance. But conflicted ideals can overshadow more practical considerations. “That place had been empty for a while,” Beatrice Chen says of the restaurant that previously occupied the Apothéke space. “And maybe that’s not a good thing, either.”
Frankie D.
Fri, Oct 10, at 03:15pm
Great...now I gotta fight for a table with rich, drunk, spoiled crackers at the restaurants. Prices will probably get jacked up again too. Chinatown needs to bring back the old chinese and vietnamese gangs of the 80s and send these skinny-jean wearing hipsters back to williamsburg. Keep c-town cheap and authentic!
Bob Rinaolo
Thu, Sep 25, at 09:41am
Believe me, this is not about race.
These newbies, trust-fund brats, lager louts and B&T crowd will ruin Chinatown like they have ruined the LES, the Meat Market, and the upper Bowery.
If you want a watering hole with character why not discover a new neighborhood?
If these suburban implants do not want the UES or UWS, try locating to other cutting edge communities that could use an economic boost, like East NY or Brownsville.
sefi
Wed, Sep 24, at 03:24pm
Cafe Petisco that just opened 3 weeks ago at East Broadway and Jefferson st. is not really in China town but more and the original Lower East Side......it's one of these spots that this nieghbourhood really missed and needless to say that even the city did. it's got great heakty food, super good coffee and above all the atmodphere and stuff worth every dollar u put on it......
AnswerMan
Thu, Sep 18, at 08:26pm
I frequent a bar on Mulberry and on several occasions witnessed, non natives coming in and treating the place without an ounce of respect. One hipster brought in a backpack of beers hoping he could sneak it past the bartender and not pay for drinks in the Kareoke lounge. My buddy, who is friends with the owner tossed the jerk out. Those are the people who make me want to leave NYC.
ctown182
Thu, Sep 18, at 07:34am
It's a tough call. As someone who grew up in Chinatown it's hard to see a place like this open up and thrive on the mystique of the neighborhood. But who knows, maybe those "drunk, rich kids" won' think twice about stopping by a place like 69 Bayard or Noodletown on Bowery for a midnight snack after their bar crawl.
Mei
Thu, Sep 18, at 01:20am
as a chinese american, i take offense to these places. there is root, life, stories, sacrifices, struggles, and above all a deep history in the things that get objectified in these establishments. so I TAKE OFFENSE. i obviously, don't speak for all chinese americans, and to each their own, but i will speak up when i feel that my culture gets pimped out.
seestar
Wed, Sep 17, at 10:22pm
FYI, Sasha is a native New Yorker, lifelong Downtown resident, and well on his way to "middle-age".
ETMD, I want to make out with you.
seestar
Wed, Sep 17, at 10:19pm
As a Chinese-American who was born and raised in downtown , I see nothing wrong with these places. The immigrant community in New York, especially the Chinese, have always championed the cause of small business and entrepeneurship. Doyers and Essex are dark, dirty, and desolate at night. Believe me, the "exotic" locale is not the attraction. More likely, it is the somewhat affordable rent, and convenience of a pre-existing liquor license. Reasonably behaved drunks are better than a Rat King.
Tyrone
Wed, Sep 17, at 09:25pm
i 100% agree with cindy. it's one thing to open an establishment that is out of the price range of the local residents, but it's another thing to commodify the local culture and profit off of it. stop crying "reverse racism." perhaps, open your blinders and try to see from someone else's point of view how offensive it is to take aspects of their culture that are trendy and marketable just to make a buck without knowing the deep rooted history behind it all. stop being so short sighted.
ETMD
Wed, Sep 17, at 08:21pm
Bla..bla..bla..ENJOY THE RATDROPPINGS on Doyer Street. Long Live Chinatown and the Chinese People down there. Who wants annoying loud white trash vomitting up the streets while people are trying to sleep?
Di Oh Lay!
john
Wed, Sep 17, at 03:54pm
Just want to point something out here, people. You are all poor.
BradS
Wed, Sep 17, at 09:37am
well regardless of how people feel about these issues...i went to Apotheke during fashion week and this place was overpriced, hokey, pretentious, and all-around just laaaaame. way too much hype around this bar. not recommended.
Cindy
Wed, Sep 17, at 09:28am
These claims about "reverse racism" are ridiculous. These bars are owned by non-Asians who make money by marketing it as a "exotic" location, do not funnel money back into the community by employing locals, create noise disturbances (it's a quiet residential street), are out of the price range of residents, and contribute to their displacement. It's not racist to point this out. Would you cry racism if this was in the South Bronx? Look at who benefits: cultural tourists, not Chinatown
Keeping It Real
Wed, Sep 17, at 06:19am
Prior to the obscene gentrification that's been going on since 9/11 people moved to New York neighborhoods because they liked the neighborhood. Not to tear it down and put up some hideous middle america shopping mall looking dream ontop of it.
Sasha Petraske, who is that? Like this spoiled mommy's yuppie, whose probably 25 knows anything about the long term residents of downtown. Petraske has contributed nothing to Delancey Street or the Lower East Side, except frat and Wall street vomit.
blossom
Tue, Sep 16, at 07:50pm
Cindy has it right!!
Meanwhile, these drunken, spoiled, hipsters will just ruin the specialness of Chinatown. I've wandered by Apotheke ever since it opened and noticed how incongruous it is to have wealthy scantily clad women hanging outside this bar while Chinese waiters sit outside the restaurants on their smoke breaks. This bar has nothing to do with Chinatown- so why is it there??? I hope it fails!!
Rondaddy
Tue, Sep 16, at 07:00pm
Actually Adam, you're wrong...the Chinese have been down in lower Manhattan
since the Five Points days...many escaped lynch mobs out west by coming here
after the railroads got built which predates much of the Italian Jewish immigration...We banded together in Chinatowns for protection from
racism, and maybe it's time we remember that...these new businesses are not
for Chinese people's benefit, and are just exploiting the city's refusal to help
renew Chinatown after 9/11.
Adam
Tue, Sep 16, at 05:49pm
This article is not only insulting but condescending to people of all cultures not Chinese. Alsp why do you assume that people going to establishments that are white owned in Chinatown are rich kids? Plenty of middle class even poor by NYC standards go to bars/restaurants in Chinatown. Happy Ending has also been there for years.
Cindy- you are short sighted and racist and have no business writing articles.
ALSO: The Italians and Jews were there before the Chinese.
Peter
Tue, Sep 16, at 05:33pm
New York changes - that's what gives it vitality.
But to insinuate that whites (or anyone not Chinese) should not be living/working/hanging out in Chinatown is racist! Would such an argument hold water if applied to Asians trying to open businesses in white neighborhoods?
k
Tue, Sep 16, at 04:54pm
Cindy,
what about the many karaoke bars that have littered mott street for the last 5 or 10 years, what do we make of them?are they more authentic? scores of asian american and FOB kids goto these places, where they charge an arm and a leg for drinks...
realist
Tue, Sep 16, at 04:45pm
dumb comment and totally racist. way to propagate ridiculous "gentrification is so terrible" myths, cindy.
Cindy
Tue, Sep 16, at 04:13pm
If these new hip bars like Apotheke and White Star were Chinese-owned and places where locals could realistically go, they wouldnt be as problematic. But the bottom line is these bars are exploiting and profiting from the "authentic" environment of Chinatown. While bar owners could locate practically anywhere, Chinatown residents, who are mostly low-income, limited English-speaking, and elderly, are extremely limited in their options of where to live, eat, and access needed services.
