“We were the first one to take a dive - a thousand tables got canceled and even Asians stopped coming,” said Wellington Z. But they disappeared in early 2020 as alarming reports proliferated about a virus outbreak in China, weeks before the first case was confirmed in New York on March 1. Tens of thousands of office workers, tourists and visitors descended daily on Chinatown’s narrow streets, filling lunch tables and souvenir shops. Chinatown, with more than 3,000 businesses, including about 300 restaurants, cafes and bakeries, has been pummeled by the pandemic longer and harder than almost anywhere else in the city. It also highlights the economic plight of one of the country’s most celebrated immigrant neighborhoods. “An empty Jing Fong leaves a crater in the middle of Chinatown,” said Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, an industry group. It closed for good on Sunday after 28 years. The banquet hall, which served 10,000 customers a week, was emptied by fears of the coronavirus and social distancing restrictions. “It’s been around for so long, it’s the center for the social fabric of Chinatown.”īut the very things that made Jing Fong so special - the boisterous crowds, shared tables and dishes, and communal spirit - left it vulnerable to a virus that preyed on close human contact. Zhang, 24, a community organizer who grew up in China. “Jing Fong is the go-to landmark,” said Ms. Not long after Yolanda Zhang arrived in New York City in 2019, she found her way there, too. And tourists learned the point-and-eat tradition of Chinese dim sum. Immigrants were reminded of the food and lives they left behind. Inside the cavernous red-and-gold banquet hall in the heart of Chinatown in Manhattan, generations of Asian families toasted weddings, birthdays and graduations.

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