NYC Chinatown: Reconstruction of 70 Mulberry Street Begins After the 2020 Fire

New York City broke ground on November 9 on the $184 million reconstruction of 70 Mulberry Street in Chinatown. A fire on January 23, 2020 badly damaged the building. The city is replacing it with an eight-story cultural hub due to finish in 2030. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the commissioners of the Departments of Design and Construction, Citywide Administrative Services and Cultural Affairs took part in the ceremony.

C.B.J. Snyder designed the original building, which went up in 1892 as Public School 23. After the school closed in the mid-1970s, it became a community center for five organizations: the CPC Chinatown Senior Citizen Center, United East Athletic Association, Chen Dance Center, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) and the Chinatown Manpower Project. Since the fire they have operated from interim locations, many at reduced capacity.

All five will get a permanent home in the new building, with about 30% more public space than before. Two stories of the original façade and the historic stairwell are preserved. There will be six community rooms, plus a new kitchen for the senior center. A sixth-floor multipurpose room overlooks Columbus Park and opens onto landscaped terraces along Mulberry and Bayard Streets. The spaces can hold up to 475 people in total. Three elevators and new accessible restrooms make the building fully ADA compliant.

Grimshaw is the architect and Hunter Roberts Construction Group is the construction manager. The building will be all-electric, with a rooftop solar canopy and photovoltaics in the façade expected to supply up to 30% of its annual electricity. It is targeting LEED Platinum. The city says this is the first time its design and construction department has used the CM-Build method outside library projects and emergencies.

The project also includes "Wings of Everchange 易之翼," a three-part work by artist Jennifer Wen Ma, commissioned through the Percent for Art program. Its centerpiece is a suspended sculpture about 33 feet long, made of metal, glass and objects salvaged from the fire. Amber glass orbs act as time capsules holding memories and stories about the building. An ink painting on glass panels runs along the stairwell. Hyperallergic reports that Ma also plans a website and app with oral testimonies from 70 community members.

MOCA moved its main museum to 215 Centre Street in 2009 and kept its former Mulberry Street space as an archive and research library for its 85,000-item collection.