Chinatown

When I lived on Mulberry Street, one heard Italian spoken north of Canal Street and Mandarin south of Canal Street. Today Little Italy has become increasingly fake, gentrified and plastic. But Chinatown has resisted gentrification and it’s still a community, a rare phenomenon in Manhattan. At the end of Mulberry Street is Columbus Park where at weekends in warm weather the Chinese community meets and plays and I sometimes go to paint.