Hip Sing Association headquarters

16 Pell Street | Chinatown | built 1915

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1920
A mid-1800s tenement at 16 Pell Street gains Chinese-style metal balconies by the 1920s
The four-story, three-bay brick tenement dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. During the 1920s it was given elaborate metal balconies in a Chinese style, along with an inset porch on the fourth floor. The National Register nomination for the Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District lists it as the home of the Pell Street Social Club Association.
Source: National Register nomination
1949
The Hip Sing Tong moves its headquarters to 16 Pell Street
The Hip Sing Tong began as an advocate for working-class Chinese, among them the many laundry workers, and first kept its headquarters at 13 Pell Street. In 1949 it moved a few doors along to number 16. The tong's long rivalry with the On Leong Tong, with its protection rackets, gambling and shootings, had by then shaped how outsiders saw Chinatown.
“Hip Sing established headquarters first at 13 Pell, and later, in 1949, at 16 Pell.”
Source: National Register nomination

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