Hey, what are you doing right now? Head to our #DocumentedTalks event about the future of Chinatown. We're just getting started. Register: https://docu.nyc/chinatown 

I'll be livetweeting the discussion as well.

Journalist @xqrong is interviewing:
- Wellington Chen, executive director of @ChinatownNYC
- Joanne Kwong, president of @PearlRiver_Mart
- Yin Kong, founder of @ThinkChinatown. If you have questions for the panelists please tweet at us with the #DocumentedTalks hashtag.

Chinatown was hemorrhaging business before the pandemic had shut down the rest of NYC, says @xqrong, due to rumors about the virus's origins. What were those early days like?

"We were the first ones to take that dive, and we haven't recovered from that dive. Now we're dealing with the second virus -- xenophobia," says Wellington Chen with @ChinatownNYC #DocumentedTalks

Last summer, there were 312 restaurants open in Chinatown. Now, the area has 29 restaurants open.

We're speaking now with Joanne Kwong of Pearl River Mart, the iconic Chinatown shop that recently shuttered. "At the time, I was most worried about our employees who were older," she says.

@lamthuyvo penned a community love letter to the shop. https://documentedny.com/2021/02/12/pearl-river-mart-was-never-just-a-store-it-was-always-a-movement/

The next 18 months to 3 years are going to be very difficult for small businesses. Without a landlord who views tenants as partners, the local economy can't recover, says Kwong of @PearlRiver_Mart.

She has some good news, however. Pearl River Mart is reopening in Chinatown!

. @PearlRiver_Mart is opening a flagship store this Saturday at 452 Broadway between Howard and Grand!
More here https://pearlriver.com/blogs/blog/new-year-new-beginnings?fbclid=IwAR25w1VB4ecwqsDVBqA5eGIIhBnyuzgKb9x7cSSrqq0ve0v8yKppo1J_Krc

NYC used ZIP code data to determine who needed pandemic relief. So Chinatown, which is close to SoHo, was excluded, and small businesses have suffered, says Yin Kong of @ThinkChinatown.

More about how Chinatown survived because of volunteer efforts https://documentedny.com/2021/04/29/when-their-community-suffered-these-asian-americans-stepped-up-where-the-government-didnt/