Chinatown Art Brigade Leads Environmental Tour of Chinatown

October 9th, CHINATOWN WALKS. Hosted by CALL, City As Living Laboratory.

Chinatown Art Brigade (artists) and Samuel Stein (urban geographer) will lead a "Placekeeping" Walk in Chinatown to help shift public perception of local environmental issues that go beyond pollution, dirty streets and garbage. The walk will highlight the environmental effects of gentrification and massive construction on the Chinatown quality of life. The walk will be led by Chinatown Art Brigade's co-founders, 3 native New Yorkers with deep roots in Chinatown along with Samuel Stein, an expert in housing and public policy. Jean Shin (artist) and Robin Nagle's(anthropologist) WALK will highlight the often invisible systems and economies that are part of the ecology of Chinatown. Shin and Nagle will focus on recycling work done by canners, patterns of consumption, and hidden infrastructures of waste streams and labor.

(L-R) Mansee Kong, Samuel Stein, Tomie Arai

 Artist Jean Shin introduces the crowd to a man who runs a bottle-collecting stop in Chinatown around St. James Place. There is an estimated 5,000 women in Chinatown who dig through trashcans to collect bottles, which they sell for a five cents each to a "middle-man" (above), who in turn sells it to other states.

A participant speaks about the New York Department of Sanitation.