First Chinese Baptist Church
21 Pell Street | Chinatown | built 1920
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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.
- 1912
Gunmen storm the fan-tan parlor of Mock Duck at 21 Pell Street
On January 5, 1912, three On Leong Tong gunmen stormed the fan-tan parlor of Mock Duck at 21 Pell Street, on the site of today's church, and opened fire on Hip Sing men gambling there. Lung You was killed and Chung Pun Sing, described as the Hip Sing president, was badly wounded. Police arrested more than two dozen gangsters and bystanders, including Mock Duck, who was sitting calmly with his tea and was charged with owning a gambling parlor but was quickly released.
Source: The Bowery Boys
- 1926
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee buys 21 Pell Street for a Chinese Christian Center
After her father died in 1924, Mabel Lee took charge of the Baptist mission in Chinatown at age 28. She raised money from the American Baptist Home Mission Society and Chinese American groups, and in 1926 bought 21 Pell Street for a center in his memory. It offered English classes, a medical clinic and a kindergarten, and later taught typewriting, broadcasting and carpentry.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1935
The Baptist mission building gets a cast-stone pagoda entrance
The National Register nomination for the historic district dates the building at 21 Pell Street to 1935 and lists it as the First Chinese Baptist Church and New York City Baptist Mission Society. It describes a five-story, three-bay brick building whose first-floor entrance is a cast-stone pagoda in a Chinese style. In the 1940s it also housed the Chinese Seaman's Club.
Source: National Register nomination
- 1954
The church wins sole title to its building and becomes independent
In 1954 Lee secured the title to 21 Pell Street in the name of the First Chinese Baptist Church alone, which made the church fully independent of the larger Baptist mission. Under her leadership it was called the first self-supporting Chinese church in America. Membership dwindled as younger Chinese Americans grew more secular, and Lee served the church and Chinatown until her death in 1966 at age 70.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2018
The Chinatown post office is named for Mabel Lee in a ceremony at the church
In November 2017 Representative Nydia Velazquez introduced a bill to rename the Chinatown Station post office at 6 Doyers Street for Mabel Lee, and the House passed it in March 2018. The dedication ceremony took place at the First Chinese Baptist Church at 21 Pell Street on December 3, 2018, at the building Lee bought in 1926.
Source: Wikipedia
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