The Rebuild Chinatown Initiative plans on reinvigorating the entire community

In the Chinese calendar, the year 2014 will be the year of the horse. And as the snake of 2013 glides inaudibly into yesteryear's oblivion, it's a smart bet that the new year's powerful stallion will gallop in, sure-footed and fleet. Heralded with his equine presence will be significant phases of the 10-year plan of the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative (RCI), announced at a city press conference this spring. First launched in the aftermath of 9/11, the initiative focuses not merely on ameliorating the specific impact of that tragedy on the 150-year-old Chinatown community, but also, and more broadly, on reinvigorating the entire area into a tourist destination to rival Times Square or the Statue of Liberty.

The RCI plan will be implemented over the next 10 years

"The tragedy helped sharpen the focus on the slow decline of various aspects of our Chinatown community," says Christopher Kui, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE), which helped spearhead development of the RCI. Established in 1974, AAFE is a not-for-profit organization that seeks, through advocacy, to help Asian Americans and others in need access civil rights, immigrant assistance, social services, and affordable housing while encouraging general economic redevelopment.

After 9/11, many businesses in Chinatown were forced to shutter for a variety of reasons. Contributing to these closings were reductions in both vehicular traffic to the area, and the valuable foot traffic that invariably led to impulse purchases. While Chinatown was hardly at the center of the post-9/11 crisis area, it had been in decline for some years, Kui says, and 9/11 dealt the final blow to teetering businesses. It would take months, though, for the full impact of these economics to be felt. In the end, as many as one-third of the small businesses did not come back, Kui notes.

According to a report prepared for AAFE by Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc., some of the problems that had been plaguing Chinatown for decades became more transparent after 9/11: "On the one hand, Chinatown is just far enough from Ground Zero to be peripheral to most spending and priorities. On the other hand, Chinatown is close enough to be significantly affected by and part of the solution."

AAFE worked for more than two years and with more than 25 local, cultural, and community organizations, as well as with neighborhood businesses, to formulate various facets of the comprehensive RCI master plan. The overall design calls for a thriving financial, manufacturing, fashion, and business center; access to the waterfront and to the financial hearts of downtown, and prosperous cultural and tourism industries.

The RCI plan intends to remake Chinatown into a national center for Chinese-American businesses

"Chinatown is at a critical juncture in our 100-year-old history, and this plan provides a realistic roadmap to our future success," Kui says. The result of unprecedented cooperation between community organizations and government agencies, it mixes realistic short-term goals with attainable dreams, he says. "As the RCI plan is implemented over the next decade, Chinatown will become a national center for Chinese-American businesses, commerce, the arts, fashion, and tourism. In other words, it will become America's Chinatown."

The plan was announced in a press conference in mid-April by a consortium of groups, led by AAFE, which conducted research, interviews, focus groups, and workshops with more than 3,000 local residents, businesses, and civic leaders. Developing an extravagant list of area residents' blue-sky fantasies was the first goal; fine-tuning those pipedreams into a practical, realistic plan while still maintaining the "thrill level" was the second. 

A panel of advisors provided further guidance, and funding for the research was supplied by the Freddie Mac Corporation, Deutsche Bank, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Future funding for realization of the plan has yet to be announced. Several city officials attended the press conference and spoke in support of the proposal, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; Councilmember Alan Gerson, and City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden.

Currently, New York's Chinatown, with 80,000 residents (60,000 of whom are Chinese-American), is the largest Chinatown in the Western Hemisphere. It is also home to 55 percent of all Lower Manhattan residents. While the area was originally very insular, the social upheaval of the 1960s, combined with an influx of immigration from mainland China and Hong Kong, transformed the neighborhood, extending its reach outward from the community's center.

Chinatown's economy has also diversified beyond the garment, restaurant, and retail industries that traditionally garnered the greatest revenues. Today, that economy has expanded to include professional and personal services, communications, arts, education, and other wholesale industries. In total, the area employs 40,000 workers in 4,000 businesses. Surprisingly (but not so to the neighborhood-savvy business moguls), twenty-five banks within the community are guardians to $6 billion.

The RCI plan, with three targeted goals, will catapult Chinatown even further beyond its geographic boundaries. As part of the first goal, the commerce and culture of both East and West are destined to meet in Chinatown: A "Pacific Rim" office center will be established that would include an Asia Commerce Building, housing -- among other things -- a hotel, business offices, and a trade center promoted by the Asian-American Business Development Center. In addition, there would be a Hong Kong department store -- a destination marketplace with goods and services that will undoubtedly prove appealing to eager uptown shoppers and tourists alike.

While detailed plans have not yet been finely etched, early incarnations have included things like a Chinese garden, a floating restaurant, and other crowd-pleasing, tourist lures. Other ideas under consideration would make the area a 24/7 attraction complete with easy parking and pedestrian walkways. Additionally, there would be a Chinatown cultural district, the crowning jewels of which would be visual and performing arts centers. There also would be an expanded Museum of Chinese in the Americas, as well as numerous outdoor cultural venues and commissioned artwork. On the business side, the RCI plan calls for strengthening Chinatown's garment sector by creating modern, yet affordable, facilities that can easily be linked with the uptown garment district.

The design also calls for new cultural facilities

Thus, the rehabilitation of Chinatown is clearly linked to Lower Manhattan's future vitality as a global center of culture and commerce. And it's no coincidence that the word linking is used consistently throughout the RCI plan. The idea of connecting various resources is critical to the area's lifeblood. The connectivity of Chinatown, as envisioned in this plan, makes it an essential part of the overall development of Lower Manhattan.

Another key element of the plan will be a continuous waterfront promenade, from the Brooklyn Bridge to East River Park, including the construction of new piers, which will provide better access to the heart of the financial district and riverfront district through linkages for pedestrians, transportation, and businesses. The plan also calls for realigning the Bowery and Water Street to provide direct access to Lower Manhattan, reopening Park Row and Pearl Street, and redesigning Chatham Square to create an exciting meeting place for residents and visitors.

The plan's third goal is to assure Chinatown's abiding affordability and authenticity as an ethnic community by creating invigorated mixed-income housing, building new parks and amenities, and improving the basics of safety, services, and sanitation. Work has already begun to change Allen Street from a "speedway" into a charming boulevard with widened sidewalks and a landscaped median. Additionally, Community Board 3 has approved the co-naming of Allen Street to "Avenue of the Immigrants," and Councilman Gerson is expected to propose legislation to the City Council in the very near future. Indeed, when all of these revitalizing facets of the RCI are considered, Kui's words seem prophetic: "The building of America's Chinatown has clearly started."

For further information on the Rebuilding ChinatownInitiative, please visit www.RebuildChinatown.org.