Pedestrian Observations: Mapping Manhattan Chinatown’s Public Realm

Stephen Fan and Myles Zhang

Along Mott Street, boxes of fruits and vegetables from the US, Latin America, and China flow from the private open storefronts and onto the public sidewalks and curbs. Forklifts navigate around crates and delivery trucks as vendors, residents, tourists, and shoppers — from regional Asian restaurant owners to West African immigrants — animate the narrow walkways. After business hours, private produce stands become public places to sit, chat, people-watch, or nap as a sidewalk masseuse sets up two chairs on the public sidewalk to provide his private services.

Away from the commercial corridors on the Pace High School track, teenagers sit in circles sipping on bubble tea while senior citizens slap playing cards on makeshift tables along the perimeter. Inside the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, teachers begin their Chinese language classes while protesters in Columbus Park call for ending violence against Asian Americans.

These vignettes capture elements of 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.

Map Goals

This map highlights many of the complexities of the public realm, specifically focusing on the blurry boundaries between public and private spaces of Chinatown’s public realm. In illustrating these complexities, the map raises the following questions: 

What is public space? What is the boundary between public and private spaces, and where is it blurred or contested? 

Who benefits from decisions made about the use of public space? Who is included? Who is excluded?

Who is involved? Who is (or should be) responsible for maintaining and overseeing public space? 

What is at stake? How do the range of competing interests and claims to public space impact environmental sustainability, economic development, cultural identity, and social justice?

The goal of this map is to stimulate conversations about how public space can be better used, designed, managed, and reimagined: to inspire action in shaping a more resilient and inclusive public realm. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Respond to any of the prompts in the map by filling out the form below!

For a direct link, please press the “Link to Form” button.

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