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From Chinatown, With Love
From Chinatown, With Love: Lunar New Year 2026
Celebrating Lunar New Year
2026 arrives as the year of the double fire horse, embodying the duality of people's power. It has been traditionally seen as a time of upheaval, an opening of cultural war, yet we reclaim it as a time of radical possibility. Our disruption of the status quo can open space for transformation, which, if we steer it with love, passion, and integrity like the hard-working horse, will lead to a new world order rooted in healing and justice.
Let 2026 be our invitation to exercise our power with care: Its double fire illuminates structural injustices and calls on us to transform our grief and anger into action, not despair. Its horse spirit, steady and enduring, reminds us that our strength lies in persistence, in the everyday acts of mutual aid and solidarity that sustain our communities. Like the thundering gallop of ten thousand horses, our determination to fight for and to win our liberation is unstoppable.
2026 Year of the Fire Horse Participating Businesses
2026 Participating businesses
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Sun Vin Grocery
Sun Vin started as a fish and veggie stall and was renovated in 2009 to be the abundant supermarket it is today. Jasmine has been managing the storefront since 2020 and loves serving her intergenerational customer base. When asked what her favorite product in the shop is, Jasmine pointed to the sprawling wall of many arrays of ramen.
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Bangkok Center Grocery
Bangkok Center Grocery opened around 2000. In addition to selling Thai spices and sauces, owner Tom loves to share cooking tips and Thai recipes. Drop by for kaffir lime leaves, fresh holy basil, curry pastes, and the best frozen treats.
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Bok Lei Po Trading
The last remaining martial arts specialty store in Chinatown, Bok Lei Po serves a dedicated community of kung fu enthusiasts, Samurai sword shoppers, and practitioners of other martial arts, like muay thai and karate.
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Bayard Market
Bayard St. Market has been serving the Chinatown community fresh and affordably priced meats for over 40 years. They have 4 locations in Chinatown, each taking on its own specialty. Bayard St. Market is their original location, offering fresh vegetables and meats with conveniently pre-packaged and marinated goods for the average working person.
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Jade Crystal Craft
Jade Crystal Craft is a purveyor of Buddhist statues, ritual objects, jewelry, crystals, and jade alike. The shop has been in the neighborhood for over 30 years. They have a vast collection of jade pendants and jewelry, and offer on-hand jewelry assembly of necklaces and bracelets.
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Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is a beloved neighborhood mainstay. Christina’s father Phillip Seid opened the business in 1978, beginning with offering classic ice cream flavors alongside Asian inspired ones, and has continued in the same location until today. CICF is still a family-run business and prides itself in the love and family spirit they pour into their ice cream.
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New Kam Man
Kam Man Food was started in 1972 by Chen Jing and his family, with a mission to bring Chinese goods to the U.S. Today, Kam Man Food continues to operate on bustling Canal St., offering a wide selection of dried and packaged goods, roasted meats, tea, and home goods.
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Hop Lee
Hop Lee has been serving traditional Cantonese food in the heart of Chinatown since 1973. Owner and manager, Johnny Mui recommends their famous lobster yi mein perfect to celebrate the opening of Lunar New Year!
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K.K. Discount
KK Discount has been in business since 1990. Owners Ken and Vicki have covered every inch of their store with a wide range of household items and kitchen supplies. From carbon steel woks to rice cookers to shopping carts and mahjong sets, you are guaranteed to find what you're looking for and more!
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Bo Ky
Bo Ky is a beloved Teochew restaurant in the heart of Chinatown. Their menu reflects their migration journey to New York, featuring dishes from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and of course Teochew. Bo Ky is known for its flavorful broth noodle soups and country-style duck.
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Spongies Cafe
Spongies is owned and operated by Fernando, who started baking with his grandmother at age 5 and eventually learned from a master sponge cake baker just a few doors down from the current Spongies location. Regulars of all ages frequent the cafe to say hi to Fernando and his family, stock up on rotating flavors of sponge cake, and grab their signature tea!
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Wing On Wo & Co
Wing on Wo is an over-century year old porcelain shop located in the heart of Manhattan's Chinatown. W.O.W.'s offerings span their very own custom porcelain pieces, zines by artists and individual presses, and many unique trinkets from a bygone era.
Eight Horses Print by Singha Hon
The classic versions of traditional「八駿圖」’Eight Horses Galloping’ ink paintings depict a herd of fierce fighting horses as a representation of power, strength, and victory. Created by artist Singha Hon, this queer interpretation of this archetypal painting draws inspiration from the W.O.W. Team’s conversations with the 12 participating businesses in the sixth iteration of From Chinatown, With Love for Year of the Double Fire Horse. The piece honors the values of Chinatown’s working-class struggle and the power of the people: the horses gallop side by side with gentle fierceness, showcasing a collective determination that ensures no one is left behind, and affirms the importance of mutual support as the path forward for a thriving Chinatown.
As the Year of the Double Fire Horse arrives with great upheaval, 2026 brings a sharpened focus on the shadow of state neglect in Chinatown, engineered by the joint force of policy and capital, and disguised as “public safety.” From the megajail breaking ground to the NYPD’s occupation of Park Row and federal agents' surveillance of Canal Street, together, these armed forces work to normalize carceral control and criminalization as solutions for a “safe” and “thriving” neighborhood. These projects have been imposed on Chinatown, diverting public resources toward punishment and surveillance, instead of housing, healthcare, and other care infrastructure that make a dignified life possible for Chinatown residents and beyond.
This moment demands that we resist and fight back. It asks us to return to our roots, anchored in Chinatown’s generations of people-powered resistance. From neighbors flooding the streets demanding justice against police brutality, to garment workers organizing for labor rights; from small business owners coordinating efforts to provide relief for food insecurity, to tenants organizing to maintain dignified and affordable housing; from mass mobilizations to quiet daily acts of care — it is the collective labor of Chinatown’s working-class people that holds our community together.
Bearing eight guiding symbols — passage, interdependence, resilience, endurance, abundance, refuge, lineage, and love — these eight horses embody our collective strength and resilience passed down through generations. Following their unbridled, thundering gallop, we step forward with determination, our will to fight for our liberation unstoppable.
From Chinatown, With Love Calendar Distribution
From Chinatown, With Love Procession
From Chinatown, With Love W.O.W. the Crowd Performance
Our annual Lunar New Year street performance! We’ll be closing out the launch of our annual From Chinatown, With Love procession with an afternoon of multigenerational performances that celebrate community care and a shared commitment to growth in the Year of the Fire Horse.
From Chinatown, With Love Horse Puppet Parade
With bells sounding her arrival, Nar 星火 marched through the annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade, held by those who helped paper-mache and don her with her pink and turquoise fringe and mane. Rising high with her unyielding presence, Nar brought her gentle fierceness With her saddle quilt displaying motifs of resilience and interdependence, she stood at the intersection of Chatham Square to deliver a message — a refusal to surrender public space to fascism, erasure, and injustice.
PAST FCWL 2026 EVENTSJanuary 29th, 2026
February 7th, 2026
February 14th, 2026
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