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A Chinatown flower market falls victim to the economy
Last year, a small crowd of latecomers who just got out of work was gathered outside the plastic vinyl doors of the Chinatown Lunar New Year Flower Market, trying to convince the coordinators to let them in after the 8 o’clock closing time. “Just a few minutes,” one member of the crowd pleaded. “I just need to buy one thing.” The two volunteers in charge of guarding the doors declined the request, apologizing in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
The flower market was only five years old, but it quickly had become an integral and popular cultural event in Chinatown. It was a place for vendors to sell flowers, for companies to give away freebies and for non-profit organizations to promote their causes while different cultural performances were going on. “The flower market was just a great way for the community to come together and celebrate and buy flowers,” said Fannie Law, who volunteered at the market last winter. “It was fun, and I met a lot of new people.”
This year, despite its popularity, the flower market was called off due to a lack of funding. Along with events like lion dances and the annual Chinese New Year parade, the market is one of the many cultural celebrations in Chinatown that has been toned down or canceled due to the recession. At a time when attracting tourists to Chinatown is crucial to keeping its many shops and restaurants in business, the future of the neighborhood’s annual traditions is uncertain.
The flower market costs about $30,000 to run, according to Sam Quan Krueger, the chief operating officer of the Museum of Chinese in America, or MOCA, which helps organize the event. Most of the money goes toward renting, setting up and heating a tent that can fit between 250 and 400 people and dozens of vendors.
The market usually receives 20 to 30 percent of its funding from companies such as Verizon and HSBC, according to market coordinator Jonathan Choy. This year, many corporate partners bowed out due to the recession, Choy said. At the same time, government sponsors such as the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a joint city-state agency created after 9/11 to help downtown communities affected by the attacks, cut back on funding for community events such as the flower market.
Krueger and Choy started worrying about the fate of this year’s flower market early on in the planning phase. “We knew that the economy wasn’t doing well when we started planning for this, probably back in summer 2008,” Krueger said. “There was a lot of news and concerns.”
Then, in August, the Museum of Chinese in America, which dedicated six staff members and 20 to 30 volunteers to organizing the flower market each year, decided to call off the event and shift its resources to moving the museum to a larger building. “If we knew that the economic outlook was such that the economy was going to grow, maybe we would have taken on more staff to take in both projects,” Krueger said. “It was a sort of trade-off.”
The flower market’s cancellation was bad news not only for shoppers, but also for nearby businesses, many of which enjoyed increased foot traffic during the three-day event. Last year, for example, many tourists who attended the market also visited Long Moon Bakery on Mulberry Street, according to owner Long Yip-Wing. “It was less busy this year because the market wasn’t there,” Long said.
It remains to be seen if the market will make a comeback next year. “It really depends on the economy,” Choy said. Krueger is undecided as well. “It’s one of the things we’re considering,” Krueger said. “But we’re not sure yet.”
