Mott Street General Store
In 1891, a Chinese man named Lok Lee opened up the Mott Street General store. This was the gathering place for the earliest Chinese immigrants to socialize and maintain their kin roots with family and friends. It was very especially important because Chinatown was primarily a bachelor's society. Due to discrimination within the immigration laws during old those days, Chinese men were not allowed to bring their families into America.
This is the oldest Chinese store that remained in the neighborhood for more than 100 years. The store name is Guong Yuen Shing, located in #32 Mott Street. The architecture designs rarely changed with some of the original wooden cabinetry remaining, carved arch above the counter, formal paintings of Chinese women hanging on walls and the original clock from when the shop first opened still continued to tick. The apothecary shelves that display traditional styles of Chinese rice bowls, tea sets, and jade dragons still remained as well. A carved woodwork that twist around the counter is where herbal remedies were once sold. The store sign that once took up the storefront's two box bays are held at the Museum of Chinese in America.
Read more about this topic: Mott Street (Manhattan)
Famous quotes containing the words mott street, mott, street, general and/or store:
“And tell me what street
Compares with Mott Street
In July?”
—Lorenz Hart (1895–1943)
“And tell me what street
Compares with Mott Street
In July?”
—Lorenz Hart (1895–1943)
“[I]t forged ahead to become a full-fledged metropolis, with 143 faro games, 30 saloons, 4 banks, 27 produce stores, 3 express offices—and an arena for bull-and-bear fights, which, described by Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune, is said to have given Wall Street its best-known phrases.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“It used to be said that you had to know what was happening in America because it gave us a glimpse of our future. Today, the rest of America, and after that Europe, had better heed what happens in California, for it already reveals the type of civilisation that is in store for all of us.”
—Alistair Cooke (b. 1908)