The Crimes of Old Chinatown Seem Trivial Compared to How the Place Looks Now…Old Chinatown, 18 Mott Street, New York, New York
The Crimes of Old Chinatown Seem Trivial Compared to How the Place Looks Now…Old Chinatown, 18 Mott Street, New York, New York
In the early 20th century, in a block that had unofficially evolved into the hub of the popular “Chinese Lottery” as well as the “Chinese mafia,” Mott Street was a small but yet premier thoroughfare at the crest of the former Chinatown environs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. At the time, what in the 21stcentury is known as the Lower East Side was then home to the greater Chinese population—comprising roughly two square miles with Kenmore and Delancey Streets at the north, East and Worth Streets at the South, Allen Street at the east, and Broadway at the west. While the slum dwellers of Five Points lingered below what had become Columbus Park, in the first block of Mott, so did the unions that governed the Chinese Lottery. They stood to standardize and bring integrity to the oriental game, but perhaps they did not?
Depicting a typical raid of the New York City Police Department, this photograph concentrates on the exotic evacuees of No. 18 Mott Street. And while historical photographs and memorbilla have their innocence, this was certainly not the case at this address. The former Chinatown had come together earlier in the 19th century and had long since included Mott Street. In fact, during the first years of the 1880s, Ah Chung (and even more evolved in certain transatlantic parlance Jung or Young) operated an opium den in the shadows of his “Chinese laundry.” And in 1883 his relaxing, but illicit potions were at once discovered even though he “never saw a thing…” Yet again, certain discoveries were made in ’84 when police dissented upon Chung’s “joint.” A relapse in 1886 occured when the same priortier was sent for a quarterly confinement on Blackwell’s Island. And perhaps its from gambling to drugs or in this case drugs to gambling…
As it was, in fact, not just the lottery, that brought this address its prevailing late 19th and early 20thcentury fame. By first decade of the 20th century, the third “Tong War,” a series of Chinese gang wars in New York City, had begun and No. 18 Mott, disguised for a time as a fruit and tobacco store, served as the headquarters of the Chinese Merchants Association staffed by On Leong soldiers–one of the prominent gangs. While serving as a headquarters to the On Leong, the building was masqueraded in several ways including the lottery. Besides On Leong had to make money too…
“The Fantan Game”…was played in at least eight rooms of Mott Street by 1894. And by the turn of the 20thcentury the lottery games had prevailed. Tickets were of a uniform price paying the same commission to each agent. Each lottery had two drawings per day—one at 3:30 PM and the other at 9:30 later that night. The lotteries fostered employment for roughly 150 agents who collected bets and sold tickets in every part of town where the “Chinaman” might have been allowed to reside.
In 1915, even after the Chinese Lottery was well established in Mott Street, the vitality of the place involved a “talked about” murder at No. 18. This was most definitely related to the Tong Wars even when unveiled through illicit gambling practices. But, we’re afraid that of all the agents in Mott Street, it is no doubt that the lottery commission representatives Hang Chung Tai and Yuen Lee of No. 18, were caught upholding union principles on this very raid day…
