A Chinatown Block Party
Letter #84: Never a dull moment when visiting New York City. 🍎
8/26/24
Katlin, Thibault, and I dressed in our Sunday best, and headed out to catch the C train into Manhattan. It was a walk I’ve done countless times over the six or seven years that Ally and Lars had lived in that Bed Stuy brownstone, and now for the past almost two years that K & T have been living there.
I was in NYC for the week as we were celebrating Katlin’s birthday that weekend, and made a somewhat spontaneous decision that Sunday to go to a block party in Chinatown for the afternoon.
We’d already stayed up much too late the night before, dancing to a DJ set until 4am in Bushwick, but Thibault was planning to meet some friends at this party boasting a Hong Kong-based DJ specializing in spinning salsa music, and Katlin wanted soup dumplings on her birthday. So even though were were tired from the long night previously, this sounded like the perfectly random, NYC Sunday afternoon that I crave. We all decided it was a great idea.
We got off at the Chambers Street stop and walked seventeen minutes from the Financial District into Chinatown. We found Sasha waiting for us on the corner just in front of this peculiar DJ booth built right onto the street. But was it a DJ booth? It looked like a narrow vegetable stand or counter, but that held nothing behind it, with the exception of two beautiful DJs, their huge headphones framing the sides of their faces. The heat was hot and their long hair was pulled back into ponytails, fastened with oversized scrunchies, both of them sporting that cool, 90’s Shanghai or Hong Kong vibe I love so much.
The crowd was small and subdued, and the music wasn’t yet pumping. We walked down the narrow street (blocked off to traffic) to find Thibault’s friends, Mack and Gibson. We found them sitting along the side of a Chinese restaurant’s back door, on the little green and red stools that I remember sitting on when eating bowls of noodles in street-side restaurants in Hanoi, Vietnam. This back alley-like street in Chinatown the perfect setting for our agenda-less Sunday afternoon.
We decided to head into a bar called the Basement (also perfectly named) to have a drink while we waited for the sun to set and the weather to cool off.
Kounthear, one of Katlin’s best friends, met up with us when we reached the Basement—it was only on this trip that I learned she’s a pool shark—I mean how often do you meet a beautiful, young woman in your life that also happens to be a pool shark?! We all shared some laughs around the table, reminiscing about the previous night, then finished our drinks before heading back out to dance in the street.
By the time we reached Mosco Street again, the crowd had quadrupled and the salsa music was on full blast. There were people of all ages, all skin colors, all styles, all abilities out on the street dancing. One man had his sleepy old dog sitting in the basket of his bike. An older man had propped up a lounge chair at the head of the crowd, a drink in hand, enjoying his evening as he bobbed his head to the beat, surveying all the dancers.
A wonderfully stereotypical NYC staple, a can collector—an older man with a cart full of aluminum cans to recycle for a small profit—came waltzing through the crowd, attired in a white button down shirt and black slacks, waving his cane to the music as the people parted to let him through. Everyone burst out in a cheer, egging on his dance moves as though he were a hero (to me, that day, he was). He must’ve been in his 80’s.
Several couples spun each other back and forth across our made up concrete dance floor to the rapid beat of the salsa music. I watched as one man jumped from one woman to the next, zeroing in on whoever was willing to keep up with him and his moves.
And my friends danced in the humid New York City evening heat for nearly 2 hours straight. I had the best time just watching all their beaming faces as they watched each other, watched the crowd, enjoyed the music, enjoyed being outside, enjoyed the wild diversity that is NYC.
The DJ played Cantonese versions of the YMCA and classic Madonna hits, all of us singing at the top of our lungs. The evening was unpredictable, playful, and unexpected.
Around 8:30pm, we decided to wrap up our dancing and head out to get some soup dumplings. Katlin chose a spot, and we immediately placed an order for dumplings, as we took some time to figure out what other items we may want to order. We all found ourselves cursing as we bit into the dumplings too early, the soup so hot it was burning our tongues.
We ordered a spicy chicken dish, scallion pancakes, crispy pork, and Chinese broccoli. Everyone slugged a Tsingtao as we cheers-ed to the perfect birthday weekend for Katlin, our soup dumpling dinner so gratiously Venmo-paid for by Hilary. And I found myself feeling especially grateful for such a spontaneous, fun NYC weekend with some of my closest friends. ❤️
Hey! Would you like to connect over creativity, self-growth, and problem-solving? Please book a time on my Calendly for us to chat! I can’t wait to see you. XOXO.
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