From Left to Right: Gary Lum of Wing on Wo, Lucy Yu of Yu & Me Books, and Albert Lam of Albert Lam Bespoke
By: Michael Tamsuriyamit, Joie Ng and Stella Chu
CHINATOWN, Manhattan – For Gary Lum, quality family time often happens in the living room while eating meals and playing mahjong with his family.
What many may not know is that the “living room” is the main showroom of Wing on Wo & Co., a longtime family business located along Mott Street specializing in Chinese porcelain.
“Eating and convening together in this family living room, it's a gathering place primarily now for our family during the closed and open days,” Lum said. “In the past throughout our business holding, it's been a gathering place for blue-collar immigrant Asian men that populated Chinatown.”
Wing on Wo’s living room has been serving the Chinatown community since 1890. For decades, the historic Chinese ethnic enclave has been characterized by the big dreams of Asian immigrants, like Lum’s family, representing different crafts and backstories.
From porcelain to suits and books, the neighborhood has undergone years of challenges and reinvention. Along with Wing on Wo, small businesses like Albert Lam Bespoke established in 1978, and more recently Yu & Me Books in 2021, are representative of the community’s resilience.
Generations and Counting
Gary Lum, shopkeeper and co-owner of Wing on Wo & Co. on Mott Street. (Photo Credit: Michael Tamsuriyamit)
An institution in Chinatown, Wing on Wo has been in business for five generations and counting. Initially a dried goods store in the 1890s, they later expanded to include an herbalist and sold roasted meats when the shop relocated to its current location in 1925.
Most goods during this era were exported through British-controlled Hong Kong as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese laborers and products from the United States. The U.S. eventually repealed the law in 1942.
Lum’s mother-in-law, Nancy Seid, introduced porcelain ware during the 1960s and the initial rarity of the product led to sizable profits.
Business, however, went stagnant in the late 1980s. Enterprise Zones formed from the 1978 Open Door Policy allowed Chinese goods to flow into the United States, introducing factory-made porcelain that was cheaper and more durable than the delicate ware Wing on Wo sourced from Hong Kong.
“We were viewed at one point as more of an antique shop than anything else,” Lum said. “Any old stuff we have on hand dates back to 1980. Any new stuff we have is a result of my daughter's collaboration with artists, and those artists reinterpreted patterns, symbolism and dinnerware that we've had in hand and made it more accessible to the present generation.”
Gary Lum’s daughter, Mei Lum, is currently the shop’s fifth-generation owner and reprised Wing on Wo amid the business’ potential closure in 2016. The store continues to sell porcelain and also functions as a space for The W.O.W. Project, an art and activism collective founded by Mei Lum.
Mr. Lum currently serves as the store’s superintendent, resident woodworker and shopkeeper, making all customers feel at home by welcoming them into the family living room. Lum then makes personal conversations with customers, having soul-searching sessions sometimes right after the first introduction.
“It's not a push to sell anything in particular, but an experience of remembering Chinatown. Not to check it off as a destination point on your tour, but to check it off as a connection with each of our sense of humanity,” he said.
Being Chinese American in a Taishanese immigrant family, Lum grew up with Wing on Wo grappling between his two identities: being Chinese and being American. While some Chinese community members alienated him as purely American due to his fluency in English and his mobility around New York City, Lum still found Chinatown to be his sanctuary.
“Just feeling at home anywhere you are, has been my wish and dream,” Lum said.
Among all the pieces of artwork on display in the store, the ones that remind him of home and belonging are his favorites.
In the back of the shop atop a shelf sits the statue of a bodhisattva, Mother Guan Yin, with a red bowl of incense ashes and offerings of oranges in front of it. Lum’s father-in-law would pray to Mother Guan Yin every day to express his gratitude for everything the family had.
Hanging in the corner of the display window at the front of the shop is Lum’s second favorite item. It’s one of the original signage displays from Wing on Wo's grand opening, with its Chinese characters carved into camphor wood, later painted with gold leaf to freshen the look in 2016.
The newest addition to the store, which endears Lum, is a porcelain Bulldog with a red string around its neck as a collar. Lum calls the piece a Chinese American-born Bulldog, which is handpainted and sourced from Hong Kong. It sits in front of the register and has a card telling customers to pat its head for good luck.
“In rubbing the head, it affirms that you have the ability to manifest good luck. Through intentional living, you will enjoy good luck,” he said.
Most of the porcelain in the shop is sourced from Jingdezhen or Hong Kong. Jingdezhen is a city in the Jiangxi province, also known as the porcelain capital of China, which in the past produced wares for the imperial family of the Ming dynasty.
Artists from The W.O.W. Project interpret traditional patterns and create new motifs for porcelain, and then the art is produced into actual ware in the factories of Jingdezhen and Hong Kong.
But out of all the colored porcelain and trinkets, Lum says the “sense of responsibility I have it's one of stewardship, guardianship of this family legacy.” In fact, Wing on Wo's business remaining within the family has not only provided Lum with financial security, but has also served as his place of tranquility and identity.
“Without ownership, you are a leaf in the wind, blowing with the wind,” said Lum.
Institutions at Risk
Albert Lam brought years of expertise as a tailor when he immigrated from Hong Kong to New York during the 1970s. He eventually set up his own tailor shop in Chinatown in 1978, and continues to serve his community for over 40 years and counting.
Unlike many tailors who may outsource garment production, Lam has remained steadfast and adamant about creating his entire suits by hand in-house. A typical client appointment includes a 45-minute customer consultation, body measurements, fabric selection, suit alterations and personal monogramming. A standard suit takes at least 70 hours to make.
“For me, it’s very important to take care of my good customers. Customers are not for today or tomorrow, they are for forever,” Lam said.
Some of Lam’s clientele include notable figures such as former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, the late Rev. Calvin Butts and comedian Ronny Chieng.
Despite Lam’s expertise and well-crafted suits, increasing rents and gentrification led him to close his original Lafayette Street storefront and downsize to a single office suite along the Bowery.
Ethnic enclaves like Chinatown have the highest storefront vacancy rates exceeding 10% due to large rent increases imposed on communities of color and high rates of gentrification, according to the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. Asian Americans, meanwhile, remain the largest group in Chinatown, making up 48.4% of the city’s racial population.
Lam said his shop and other small Chinese businesses were getting pushed out of the neighborhood by corporations like Dunkin Donuts and Glossier despite their best efforts to stay afloat.
“Before when I was on Lafayette Street, I did seven days a week. Every day, almost 11 or 12 hours, seven days with not one day off,” he said.
During 2020, business halted for Lam as New York City went into pandemic isolation. Most businesses in Chinatown struggled as visitation to the neighborhood went down by 30%. The lockdown, stigma against Asian Americans and lack of federal paycheck protection programs all contributed to the downfall of many small businesses, according to the Asian American Federation’s 2021 report.
Albert Lam, owner of Albert Lam Bespoke located at 80 Bowery in Chinatown. (Photo Credit: Michael Tamsuriyamit)
Lam’s business, however, persisted against changing times due to its social media presence and grassroots organizations like Welcome to Chinatown providing emergency grants to small businesses through crowdfunding while also offering them free publicity.
Throughout his career, Lam has serviced clients spanning multiple generations of many families, though for a long time his usual clientele consisted of lawyers, doctors or bankers. After the lockdown ended, Lam to his surprise saw an influx of younger customers in need of a suit for their weddings, all put on hold because of the pandemic.
“Albert is a bit of an institution in Chinatown, he's been here for years and years,” said Eddie Kwong, a customer of Lam’s for the past five years. Like many, Kwong had his wedding suit made by Lam, who helped him feel a sense of comfort knowing his suit was being made with such love and care.
“He really took the time to understand what the vision I was going for and went through all the different steps of making the suit from a handmade perspective,” Kwong said.
A strong 72 years young, Lam says he has no plans of retiring, citing his loyal customers as his motivation to continue empowering young men through his bespoke suits.
"For me I cannot complain, but only say I'm very lucky," he said.
A Dream Come True
The inside space of Yu & Me Books on Mulberry Street in Chinatown, Manhattan. (Photo Credit: Jordan Ji)
One of the latest additions to Chinatown is the city’s first Asian American female-owned bookstore, Yu & Me Books.
Founded by Lucy Yu, the shop originally opened its doors to bookworms in December 2021, a move that Yu said felt like “a dream come true.”
The original store, which also doubles as a bar and cafe, sits on Mulberry Street and sells diverse literature written by Asian Americans and other writers of color.
But as a young Californian entrepreneur coming to New York’s Chinatown, Yu acknowledges the harm she could have done opening up a new store in the neighborhood and understands why some may see her as a city gentrifier.
“My top priority was to make sure I didn't do that and make sure that I was consulting with what the community in Chinatown needed,” Yu said. “Understanding that needed constant readjustment as well, while also integrating my own opinions into how I wanted to build out my business, was not a super easy thing to navigate.”
Yu says her team has regular discussions about the “suffocation” of Chinatown. A historically underserved neighborhood, Chinatown residents constantly face setbacks to their homes because of anti-Asian sentiments and urban development. More recently, Chinatown is preparing to become home to a new 100-floor-high mega-jail in the middle of a residential area.
A lack of understanding within the Asian American diaspora is something Yu believes still needs to be addressed in order to combat the shrinking of Chinatown.
“I really believe that we can all come towards a better understanding of each other, and a lot of that comes from education,” she said. “I'm trying to reach people and give them resources on how they can possibly prevent that through literature.”
Yu admits that opening a bookstore in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic openly seemed like a ridiculous idea.
While working as a supply chain manager at a food startup, Yu realized her passion of advocating for education and making information accessible to people who needed it most. For her, the most effective way to do that is through books.
In the first few months of the bookstore’s opening, Yu initially faced a lack of support. Pushback from her inner circle stemmed from the belief that the business would not be lucrative due to the rise of ebooks and audiobooks, as well as the general decline in interest in literature.
But to her surprise, people were drawn to the store, leading to positive media coverage.
“I opened up and was fully prepared to close in four months,” she said. “I was working ridiculous hours, but months went by and we became profitable.”
Yu has since quit her supply chain manager role, and now operates the store as her full-time job. Yu and Me Books has subsequently become a staple on the block – until tragedy struck this past summer on Independence Day.
The interior of Yu & Me Books before versus after the July 4 fire (Credit: Michael Tamsuriyamit)
“I thought it was fireworks, but my neighbor from upstairs came down and asked for a cup of water and told us we all had to evacuate, because there was a fire happening upstairs.” she said. “I stood across the street as I saw the fire get progressively worse.”
The windows of the neighboring apartments were broken to get the smoke out of the building. Two of Yu’s coworkers also lived upstairs.
Along with the help of a colleague, Yu saved more than 3,000 books by quickly stuffing them into trash bags. With no time for grieving, she immediately went into logistical planning.
“I wasn't even going to release a GoFundMe, as it was very difficult for me to ask for help,” Yu said.
After hearing from renovators that it would take over a whole year to rebuild the store, she knew she needed the support of her community.
“Our original goal was $150,000. I didn’t even want to go that high, but it was a realistic number and what we needed,” she said.
They reached their fundraising goal in just four hours, with the bookstore still receiving donations to this day while the excess money goes towards “strengthening our recovery fund for the next year and beyond,” according to Yu & Me’s GoFundMe campaign.
In the meantime, Yu & Me Books has since temporarily relocated from its Mulberry Street location to the lower level of The Market Line, part of Essex Market on Delancey Street.
Despite these hardships, the book shop is set to move back into its original storefront and home sometime next year, with Yu seeing a bright future and comeback for her bookstore.
For Chinatown as a whole, the fresh ideas of young, newer community voices combined with the wisdom of longtime residents and business owners are essential for its survival.
“The future of Chinatown is completely contingent on the interweaving within generations of businesses,” Yu said. “How can we fully integrate that into the history of Chinatown, the generations of businesses that can be there, while also figuring out a way to move forward with our own stories and passions?”
As a young business owner, this is a question that Yu is constantly discovering answers to.
“My favorite part of the community at Yu & Me is figuring out ways we can all help each other and how we can be even kinder to each other every day,” she said.
Yu & Me Books owner, Lucy Yu, at her temporary shop at The Market Line. (Photo Credit: Michael Tamsuriyamit)
“I would not have chosen for a fire to burn down our original location, but it has seriously made me realize I don’t have control over the things that happen to me. All I can focus on is how we can increase the amount of arms we have extended towards each other.”
Like Yu, Lum acknowledges that change is inevitable, but says he’s been fortunate to have stability throughout his life as Chinatown continues to evolve over time. And with the continued support of longtime customers and passersby, Lum doesn’t see Wing on Wo closing up shop anytime soon.
“Where I see Wing on Wo 5, 10 years from now – I see us being here still doing what we do,” he said.