Manhattan’s Chinese Street Signs Are Disappearing

March 12, 2022 10:42 AM

The arrival, expansion and disappearance of the bilingual street signs have traced the ebb and flow of Chinese immigration in New York City’s oldest Chinatown. A dive into history, both NYC and Chinese, linguistics, and city administration.
posted by praemunire (9 comments total)

Thanks for posting this. It's a shame to lose a little history.
posted by etaoin at 3:37 PM on March 12, 2022

Wait… has NYC had / does NYC have more than one Chinatown?
posted by eviemath at 4:30 PM on March 12, 2022

It depends on how you count, but I would say NYC has at least three Chinatowns (Manhattan’s Chinatown, Flushing, and Sunset Park) and maybe up to five (adding Bensonhurst and Elmhurst). This Eater article counts nine (!) but I feel like it’s playing a little fast and loose with the term.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 5:46 PM on March 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

According to Alana Morales, former deputy press secretary at the Transportation Department, “The Chinese-bilingual signs are not part of the U.S. DOT’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways.” This means that if bilingual street signs are knocked down or damaged, she said, “they are replaced with signs in English.”

What a real failure of vision if these are allowed to disappear because they're not covered in the rule book.

I live in Seattle, and I know we have billingual signs in the international district here as well. I wonder what their status is.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:09 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Looks like the signs here in Seattle were installed in 2012, and comply with the modern MUCTD by placing the non-english part on a different color. Here's a nice post about them.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:14 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

Some of the signs that i did manage to hear the pronunciation of, really underscored the pattern of migration from china because the transliteration was immediately apparent in the southern languages, and not so when we get to the mandarin pronunciation.
posted by cendawanita at 8:36 AM on March 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

According to Alana Morales, former deputy press secretary at the Transportation Department, “The Chinese-bilingual signs are not part of the U.S. DOT’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways.” This means that if bilingual street signs are knocked down or damaged, she said, “they are replaced with signs in English.”

I feel like it's entirely up to cities if they want to only work within these parameters- Oakland's Chinatown has bilingual signs that look the same as the ones in English.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:20 PM on March 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm not an expert, but I don't think so. Use appears to be mandatory, although states may adopt a version in "substantial conformance."
posted by praemunire at 7:40 PM on March 13, 2022

So that might mean that it can be legalized at the state level? Even so, getting a state law passed allowing your non-compliant bilingual signs is probably harder for most city DOTs than finding a work-around.

Do we know how old the signs in Oakland are? Seems like they pre-date google streetview, at least.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:19 AM on March 15, 2022