Chinatown proper consists of three short streets in an irregular triangle: Mott, Pell and Doyer.
Mott Street is in the territory of the On Leong Tong. The Hip Sings, smaller tong, control the other two streets. There are no other tongs in New York, all competitors having been wiped out by the surviving two.
Until 15 years ago, Chinatown was the scene of many gory wars and at times it was dangerous to visit the section. The hatchetmen proved notoriously poor marksmen when they discarded their traditional weapons for automatics. When too many innocents got plugged, the authorities stepped in, and after a threat to deport the whole Chinese colony, a permanent peace was patched up. There have been no wars since, though there is considerable unrest as Communists try to take over the tongs.
The tongs, in their more pugnacious days, might have been compared to the white gangs and mobs that fought each other, with even more ferocious violence, for territorial control of rackets.
Now the tongs are business and social groups, boards of trade or chambers of commerce, as it were. But many members are in dope and gambling.
Today the Chinese are among the most peaceful inhabitants of this polyglot city. Few are arrested for serious crimes, other than narcotic smuggling, in which lawbreakers invariably are sailors from China who speak no English and who are employed by white American criminal syndicates.
New York's Chinese are remarkably well-to-do. The elders of some families are rich even according to American standards, with their money invested in real estate, restaurant and laundry chains.
Chinese on relief are unheard-of, mainly because of a centuries-old custom of family unemployment insurance, whereby those who have jobs help out less fortunate relatives.
Furthermore, Chinese pride and "face" forbid acceptance of gratuities from strangers or public authorities. How backward they are!
Because of respect for family and elders, juvenile delinquency is practically unknown among New York's Chinese.