New York City in five places

The Big Apple's story features chapters of conflict, competition, immigration and social revolution.

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① Doyers Street

Immigration nation

The street layout of New York is largely rectangular and geometric, but Chinatown's Doyers Street is a throwback to the pre-grid-system city. Running one block, it's a narrow, kinked street with a sharp bend in the middle, and it opens a window onto immigrant life.

The street was named for a Dutchman, Hendrik Doyer, who operated a tavern and a distillery here in the 18th century. Later, Irish immigrants arrived and, over time, Doyers Street became lined with tenement houses - the city's prototypical apartment buildings that housed its rapidly swelling immigrant population.

The first Chinese arrived in New York in the early 1780s. Later, spurred by anti-Chinese sentiment and violence in the US West after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the number of Chinese people in the city swelled rapidly from 200 to around 2,000 in the 1870s. Chinatown grew to encompass not just Doyers, but surrounding Mott, Pell and Canal Streets.

This little alley reflects waves of immigration that have made and remade the city. It's a wonderfully atmospheric place - and every visitor should try dim sum at Nom Wah Tea Parlor, dating back to the 1920s.

② Fulton Ferry Landing

Connecting communities