Chefs and restaurant owners have joined local Chinatown residents to demand that town abandon plans to construct the world’s tallest jail in the center of the neighborhood — saying it threatens to change into a “death knell” for local businesses, Side Dish has learned.
“The town must completely rethink the dimensions and scale of the jail. We don’t need a repeat of Rikers Island. We would like it small and controllable,” said Jan Lee, a third-generation local and co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal.
Lee – whose family is the owner for Hop Kee, the 55-year-old, late-night Cantonese restaurant at 21 Mott that the late Anthony Bourdain called certainly one of town’s hidden gems – believes many restaurants won’t survive the development of the jail.
Indeed, Bo Ky and Jaya 888 – two eateries near the development site where the Manhattan Detention Complex is being demolished to make way for the brand new mega-jail — have already closed.
Restaurants around Baxter Street are also seeing business impacted by noise and mud from the demolition site, Lee said, adding that “a lot of them are also reconsidering their future.”
As of June 2022, there have been 168 full-service restaurants in Chinatown. Twenty-three of them are in a one block radius across the jail site at 124-125 White St.
“We’re at this point liable to losing Chinatown because of reduced foot traffic and tourism, and dramatically less business at night,” said wok whisperer Grace Young, a James Beard award-winning Chinese American cookbook writer who recently hosted a dinner at Chinatown’s Hakka Cuisine to boost awareness of the difficulty.
“For the reason that pandemic, all the things has been thrown at these poor small businesses in Chinatown,” Young said. “South of 96th St., that is the one neighborhood that still has 98% of all its businesses run as mom-and-pops.
Greater than a 3rd of Chinatown’s 300 restaurants closed through the pandemic, said Wellington Chen, head of the Chinatown BID/Partnership. About 50 recent restaurants have popped up since then, but many more may close because they still owe rent that they couldn’t pay during COVID lockdowns that hit Chinatown restaurants particularly hard.
The comeback also has been slow, he added, partly due to an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes and, now, the demolition.
The 45-story, $2.3 billion “jailscraper” can be 350 feet high. Residents fear it could result in an increased police presence and that other towers would follow.
Pot Luck Club chef/partner Zhan Chen, who grew up within the neighborhood and currently lives across the road from the Manhattan Detention Center, griped, “The standard of life has already been impacted by the demolition.”
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio approved plans to demolish Rikers Island jail in 2017 due to violence there and replace it with 4 borough based jails, including the world’s tallest — in Chinatown.
However the estimated $8.3 billion project is already significantly larger in size and over budget. And constructing larger jails, not smaller ones, defeats the aim, activists say.
As a mayoral candidate, Eric Adams said he was against the Chinatown mega-jail but now he supports it. At a Town Hall meeting in Chinatown earlier this month, Lee asked Adams if the community could have a ‘seat on the table’ to find out the jail’s design. Adams agreed.
“I do know of at the least 20 businesses that have opened very bravely since COVID. These are families who’ve invested in all the things from bubble tea to food and other businesses,” Lee said. “We want to provide them a probability before throwing this jail into the combination, which is like cutting them off on the knees.”
Grace Lee, Assembly Member NY District 65, says Chinatown needs transparency from town.
“We want to shut Rikers Island which has long been a spot of systemic injustice and abuse,” Grace Lee tells Side Dish. “We also ask town to acknowledge and acknowledge the numerous potential health and business impact that the jail may have on the encompassing Chinatown community, particularly through the demolition and construction.”
We hear
Montauk’s wellness obsessed Surf Lodge is thought for its epic collaborations, from swag bags in each room to, this season, recent Land Rover Defenders available to guests, with room for surfboards. Now there’s a vegan food collab with Hellmann’s and The Surf Lodge. Chef de Cuisine Jermain Edwards and the culinary experts at The Surf Lodge created vegan “lobster” rolls, made with Hellmann’s vegan, heart of palm, and horseradish, served with fries and Hellmann’s Garlic Aioli.
A zero-proof cocktail, Pep Step (Seedlip Grove 42, Mandari, Cardamon, Lime, and Orange Garnish) is really helpful to pair with The Surf Lodge Vegan Lobster Roll. The rolls are served free on Sunday.
“Lobster rolls are a summer classic and certainly one of our hottest menu items, said Jayma Cardoso, founder and inventive director of The Surf Lodge. “As a lot of our guests are increasingly exploring plant-based options, we got down to re-imagine the lobster roll with a vegan twist.”