Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Building

60A Mott Street | also 11 Elizabeth Street, 62 Mott Street, 64A Mott Street | Chinatown | built 1959

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1948

    The CCBA speaks for 60 Chinatown groups and flies the Nationalist flag over 62 Mott

    Since 1948 the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association has represented about 60 clan and family associations, tongs and merchant groups. It settles disputes, brokers business deals and speaks up for the rights of Chinese Americans. The association is aligned with the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan, and the Nationalist flag flies over its headquarters at 62 Mott Street.

    Source: National Register nomination

  2. 1959

    Poy G. Lee and Ben Ronis design a purpose-built CCBA headquarters on Mott Street

    Most of Chinatown's association halls were made by altering older tenements, but the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association's new headquarters at 60 Mott Street was built from scratch for Chinese clients. Poy G. Lee and Ben Ronis designed it in 1959 with Chinese architectural motifs. The National Register nomination counts it among only a handful of such buildings in the district, alongside the On Leong Merchants Building and the Lin Sing Association.

    Source: National Register nomination

  3. 1959

    Architect Poy G. Lee, who designed Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum, draws the CCBA's new home

    Poy G. Lee was an American-born architect, trained at Pratt Institute, who worked in Shanghai from 1923 to 1945. There he designed the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Canton. Back in New York he produced the original design for the new Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association building in the late 1950s, and he also designed the Kimlau Memorial Arch in Chatham Square.

    “Lee created the original design for the new CCBA building during the late 1950s. He is also the designer of the Kimlau Memorial Arch…”

    Source: National Register nomination

  4. 1962

    After decades of money trouble, the CCBA finally opens its China Tower on Mott Street

    The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York bought the Mott Street land in the late 1930s but could not build for years. A journalist, Y.K. Chu, alleged that mismanagement of the construction pushed the association into bankruptcy at one point. Corners were cut to finish the work, and the association later sued its contractor. The building, known as the China Tower, opened in 1962.

    Source: blogs.baruch.cuny.edu

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Chinatown