Interviews:
After spending about a half hour on Doyers Street, we were disappointed by the number of people refusing to be interviewed. At that moment, we found our first interviewee sitting at a table. The man was dressed as a worker and he accepted our request to ask questions. The man is a waiter working in Nam Wah Tea Parlor. He wasn’t familiar with the historical background and the situation of gang gatherings or prostitution business we described to him, he said Doyers Street is for tourists now. We asked him if there was anything interesting during his time working here, he said there wasn’t much. He explained that he moved to New York City and started working at Nam Wah Tea Parlor just a few years ago. Most of his impression about Doyers Street is that Nam Wah Tea Parlor is the oldest restaurant here, followed by Taiwanese Pork Chop House and several barbershops.
Further, the man went on to talk about there was an incident of a man killing four homeless men in Chinatown just a few weeks ago. One of the victims was a Chinese homeless man who always settles in the corner of Doyers Street. A lot of people were shocked about this news because that homeless man has been around for such a long time. According to the man, people on Doyers Street put some flowers to mourn about this man.
At last, he recommended us to talk to older shop owners or barbershops hairdressers about the historical information here, which we did.
The second people we interviewed is a man who cut his hair in a barber shop and who lives nearby. He told us a few of the gangs’ name back in the day. He said the head of the gangs are all caught before 2000, so they are basically not exited any more. He moved here about 15 years ago so he just heard some of it, but he is not sure about the details because he did not witness any of these things. He suggested us to interview some old people who might know more than him.
He also mention many of the shops are closed because of specific reasons. Recently, the Shanghai barber shop which has a long history here are closed as well. Many of the residents here know each other although they are not quite familiar with each other.
We asked information from an elderly man sitting in front of a barbershop. He was a Shanghainese and immigrated to the U.S. twenty years ago. He used to work at the barbershop which just closed. Many businesses on this street are closing now because of their meagre profit. Real estate companies buy it and turn it to other businesses. He also told us many years ago there were prostitutes and gangs but they are all eliminated nowadays.
