74 Mott
Fung Loon Association / Nan Yang Association
Architect: William E. Waring
Built in 1874
2024
74 Mott
Architect: William E. Waring
Built in 1874
1940s
Interview
With HARVARD TANG (BUILDING OWNER AND OWNER OF GOOD FIELD TRADING CO. BOOKSTORE)
Interview conducted in June 2022.
The bookstore at 74 Mott closed its doors in 2023.
+ Please give me a brief introduction of yourself – Where were you born and what is your family’s story in New York City?
My name is Harvard — they usually call me Harvey.
Since 2018, for about five years so far, I’ve been the national president of the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association. I was inducted in Taipei because with the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association, the national president is chosen/elected, and not appointed, from the convention. Each term’s duration as the national president is two years, with the most being two terms. However, because of COVID, without the convention, I’ve been extended for another year, until 2023. (Our convention is usually in mid-April.) The On Leong Chinese Merchants Association in the U.S. has 14 chapters, including in Boston, New York, etc…
I immigrated with my parents in 1964 to New York from Hong Kong. I was 13. I went to school — junior high, high school, college, all in New York. I went to Junior High School 65 and high school at George Westinghouse in Brooklyn. I went to Baruch College and majored in business and got my BBA. After that, I went to military service because at that period of time, it was the Vietnam War. They sent me to Germany and I finished 2 years of military service and then came back to New York. So now, I belong to the American Legion. I’m the chairman of the committee.
+ Tell me about your family’s bookstore.
My father opened the bookstore at 74 Mott in 1982. At that time, Chinatown had 6-8 book stores, which were very popular. But today… there are only two left.
Good Field Trading Co., the bookstore that Harvard’s father founded. Photographed in 2022 before the store closed the following year.
After I came back from military service, I came back to help my father. He usually goes overseas for a few months, so no one was able to take care of the store… and since then, I’ve still been working there. At that time, we had four bookstores, including one on 28 Pell Street (open since the 1970s), another on Mott Street… There was a period of time when there were a lot of gangsters around and Chinatown wasn’t safe, so many people didn’t come to Chinatown and business was down, so we closed the Pell Street one.
We sell books, magazines, newspapers and we sell a lot of stationery. We sell hong bao (red envelopes) for the New Year. Today, as time has gone by, people don’t read books much anymore. At that time, people didn’t have casinos – in the 1960s and 1970s, people liked to read!! It was the only entertainment they had, so they came to Chinatown with their kids to learn Chinese. At that time, people came to Chinatown to shop.
The entrance of the Harvard’s family bookstore, photographed in 2022.
+ How long have you been living in Chinatown? How did you come to be connected to Chinatown?
I lived in Chinatown for over 15 years and grew up on Division Street.
After I had kids, I needed a bigger place and moved to Queens. Every day, we worked six days a week, so I came to Chinatown every day. This Chinatown had so many associations, at that time, and because our store was on Mott Street, my father became the secretary of the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association.
+ What was Chinatown like back then?
It was quiet. Chinatown in the “old times” didn’t have a lot of people around. At that time (the time of the gang wars), my grandpa, a World War II vet, was here and his advice was: Don’t go over Canal Street, because there is Little Italy… But we were good kids, so we didn’t deal with the bad guys.
Usually we ate at home.
This Chinatown, from that time until today, still has old buildings. Most are 100 years old and haven’t changed much. Chinese people own many buildings in Chinatown because of family associations. This is how we continue. No one wants to sell the building. That’s why it’s still like this in this Chinatown.
74 MOTT - BUILDING PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographs taken between 2022-2024.