Bowery Street, Chinatown, Lower Manhattan

Bowery Street, Chinatown, between Doyers St. and Pell Street. Bars and restaurants. Photograph taken on July 1, 1956, by Beecher Ogden. Source: The New York Public Library.

The Chinatown neighborhood was formed from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, a dynamic period in American history when waves of immigrants from all corners of the world came to New York seeking opportunity. Immigration to New York City far outweighed that in any other city in the United States and New York City’s Chinatown eventually became the largest Chinatown in the U.S.