Memories of Doyer Street
Great photos of both Doyers and Pell Streets for the “NYC Memories of Chinatown” web page. Doyers St. being the intriguing one and its even better at night as I seem to recall as a kid in Chinatown……
<< see http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=1757 for photos and article >>
I can still remember standing outside the window of a bar & grill on the corner of Doyers St. and the Bowery watching a black & white TV inside the bar of a NY Yankee baseball game when we didn’t have a TV at home….Wow….pictures instead of just listening to the radio……what’s next?….color?
The aroma of booze & greasy smoke from the “White Tower” (hamburgers) on the other corner of Doyers St. and the Bowery made for a distinctive conflicting sensory smell of beer and grilling hamburgers & onions in the air while the 3rd Ave. El rumbled above the Bowery on the elevated tracks providing the screeching sound of brakes as it pulled into the Chatham Square Station.
Perhaps a “life lessons learned” on family values and Christian up bringing took place at 10 Doyers St., Lily Chu’s Gift Shop, where the street curves almost 90 degrees to the left towards the Bowery. A group of us kids were playing “Tops” in the middle of the street and my “Top” sprung out of control and bounced into the store where it chipped one of the display cabinet glass windows. Everyone took off in different directions and I just stood there when Mrs. Chu came out of the store and asked me to explain what had just happened and that her glass window was now cracked. I told her the truth….that it was an accident and it was my “Top”. She politely asked me where I lived and to return with my father in the evening when he came home from work to take care of the damages.
My father took it calmly and we went back to #10 Doyers where I got the unexpected shock of my life. Mrs. Chu said that she would take care of the damages and instead complimented my Dad for instilling in me the discipline and traits of being honest and forthright. Mrs. Chu had 2 sons…..Gene became an attorney and Roy became a doctor…..who was my Sunday School teacher at True Light Church…..small world
For me, it was a profound experience and a “life lessons learned” that day on Doyers St……These memorable photos allowed me the opportunity to go back in time to rekindle that “moment in time“………
Nom Wah Tea Parlor is still there on Doyers St. for a bit of Shao Mai…Har Gow….Don Tart…and a variety of other delicious Dim Sum favorites… Now that is inviting for old time sake and the ages……
Best Regards
Dan
(Dan S Lee, May 2013)
