#2: Chinatown

Photo: Lisa Vosper

There’s no escaping Chinatown’s stench—a putrid bouquet of sunbaked seafood with a lingering wet-trash finish. It’s one of the many gross but lovable traits about this land-unto-itself—a district overrun with cheap eats, exotic markets (pig uteruses by the pound! dried everything!) and a mom-and-pop mentality that’s banished Starbucks and Burger King to the borders.

Most of Chinatown follows the same pattern: Independent small businesses flourish alongside tenement housing, which together embody the citywide cliché of teeming streets and living in one another’s laps. The winding ways (enjoy the 90-degree detour of Doyers Street) host a coffeeshop culture of Chinatown bakeries, the place to shoot the shit with a stranger or bury yourself in a book, and several rounds of tapioca-dotted bubble tea.

Photo: Lisa Vosper

It doesn’t sound like the perfect place for rich yuppies to root down, but that hasn’t stopped development. Eight new condos, like Hester Gardens, have gone up in the past two years, or will, catering to outsiders and Chinese folks with cash. It’s unclear how much someone who can afford a $2 million pad will enjoy the one-of-a-kind bodegas-cum-minigroceries that stock frozen squid snacks, “car cologne,” “grass jelly” soft drinks and ceviche in a can, or the Internet cafés and salons. But needless to say, despite the new buildings, change rarely rears its head in Chinatown, which is a major reason it’s on this list: It’s as gritty as it is full of tradition.

Word on the street
Jan Lee, 41, furniture designer and owner of home-design store Sinotique, (19A Mott St between Pell and Worth Sts, 212-587-2393)
“Chinatown hasn’t resisted gentrification. Chinatown was gentrified 100 years ago by the Chinese. I know—my grandfather was one of the people who participated. There’s a Chinese bank on every corner. There’s a multimillion-dollar gold and diamond business. But because it’s been done by an ethnic group, it’s not considered gentrified.”

OVERALL SCORE: 28

6	8	9	-2	-1	8

Chinatown scores well on the Jane Jacobs meter with small, mazelike streets and a good mix of buildings (businesses and residences share every crammed square foot, with little new development). True to its -town suffix, the area feels like a dense, self-sufficient society of independent businesses and hot spots of insular chitchat, such as bakeries and salons. That means a high people score, and few deductions for soul-killing chain businesses.

Next: #3: Washington Heights