Chinatown POV: Reflections on September 11th presents first-person accounts and perspectives of residents, workers and stakeholders of New York Chinatown, a neighborhood just ten blocks away from Ground Zero. On view are the community photo-documentation, studies, reports, artwork, and ephemera related to Chinatown and its recovery that the museum began collecting shortly after the tragic events of September 11th.
While 9/11 was not the sole cause of Chinatown’s difficulties, it did exacerbate them. Although the economic impact of 9/11 on Chinatown’s largest industries – garment, restaurant, retail jewelry, and tourism – was immediately evident, the lack of baseline socio-economic documentation made advocating for Chinatown’s long-range development a challenge. 9/11 was a national tragedy that exposed local fault lines. Nine years later, we ask the questions: Where are we now? How have we been impacted as individuals, and as a community? Have we recovered? And where do we go from here?
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