Lunar New Year Celebrations begin in chinatown
One hundred years ago today … Lunar New Year celebrations began in Chinatown at midnight. The Daily News ran some images supposed to represent the celebrations (admitting in a caption that one was merely “a feast typical of those in Chinatown”) and reported that “Mott, Pell, and Doyers Streets are congested with activity.”
The Daily News, 20 February 1920, p.1. Newspapers.com (Part 1)
The Daily News, 20 February 1920, p.1. Newspapers.com (Part 2)
The New York Tribune reported that “Chinatown echoed to the wail of fife, the moan of wooden tomtoms … Bits of blood-red cloth fluttered over every doorway in Mott, Pell, and Doyers Streets.” (Feb. 29, 1920, p. 68).
Here’s a 1920 photograph of the neighborhood taken when the celebrations were not in swing:
60 Mott Street, 1920. East side south of Canal Street. Board of Education, N.Y.C. New York Public Library.
However, not everyone was satisfied with that year’s celebrations. The Sun and New York Herald interviewed Chinatown resident Fu Yi Ki, who saw “little but contempt for the old ways,” among the younger Chinatown population. He decried the new generation’s attitude toward tradition, saying they “disdain the old worship, sit in the smoke of their cigarettes with their feet upon table tops, and tell each other that they are new, made over people.”
The Sun and New York Herald, 21 February 1920 p. 16. Newspapers.com.
– JONATHAN GOLDMAN, FEBRUARY 19, 2020.