Welcome to Chinatown and volunteers outside of the new Small Business Innovation Hub in Chinatown.
Welcome to Chinatown
Chinatown is establishing its first-ever business hub to support and empower local small businesses.
The Small Business Innovation Hub will be officially opening next week and managed by Welcome to Chinatown, a nonprofit founded in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to support Chinatown entrepreneurs. The community and event space is catered for entrepreneurs to gather, learn, and grow alongside each other while accelerating existing Chinatown businesses and incubating new ones.
Located on 115 Bowery, the hub will be operating on pilot mode starting next Tuesday, Aug. 22 and open Tuesdays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The hub is tentatively closing later this year in November to continue its construction and furniture, audio, and visual design. The hub would potentially reopen next summer, depending on whether Welcome to Chinatown is able to secure its fundraising goal of roughly $785,000.
Victoria Lee, co-founder of Welcome to Chinatown, told amNewYork Metro that this is the organization’s first attempt at building a business hub in Chinatown since its formation three years ago.
“We were realizing there was really a need to collaborate and have a space where business owners could look at their business models and strategy,” Lee said. “Our mission is to be able to have this physical place to tackle systemic problems.”
Lee, a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in Brooklyn, pointed to historical events and disasters that have greatly impacted Chinatown, including the COVID-19 pandemic, underfunding and disenfranchisement, 9/11, and Hurricane Sandy. The current Chinatown community, flush with Vietnamese and Malaysian businesses as well as non-Asian businesses,
“Having these ethnic enclaves are truly important because they’re built on the backbone of immigrants that have come here and have…
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