.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅ Lai Yi Ohlsen

orchard st

everyday twice a day I walk my dog molly through a specific set of streets and spaces in what some would call the lower east side, some would call chinatown and some would call dimes square. depending on the day and time, we’ll navigate around a certain set of queues, activities and crowds. on early weekday mornings there’s workers moving boxes and palettes in and out of chinese food distribution centers and wholesale kitchen supply stores to take them to other parts of the neighborhood or city. on the weekends there’s always at least three pop-ups selling out of the brick and mortar stores their online shopping era eroded. ‘Nyc, come spend the day with us’ they write on their instagram posts. ‘This weekend only, $250 down from $300’ and so on. There’s always a line at scarr’s pizza.

also on the weekend is a line that wraps around the corner and down the block for free food from the tzu chi family service center. Mostly asian, mostly older, those in line wait with their baskets and carts, masked and well protected from the sun with their visors and umbrellas. just behind them, down the street are chop suey club (‘an asian lifestyle boutique’) and reception (‘a new Korean soju bar’), which over the course of the weekend get an equal amt of attendance, mostly asian, mostly young. its kind of wild to think that we talk abt the 1 in 4 asian adults living under the poverty line and the ones buying an $18 matcha cocktail as being part of the same identity. though very close together on the same block, the two worlds almost never intersect, the bar gets going at night and the service center closes by the afternoon.

sometimes I found it very hard to tell if I’m living in New York City or an image of New York city that I, with the help of others, have made up in my mind. But if I were to intentionally construct an image of it I think it would be all of these groups of people on orchard street at once, intersecting with, wrapping around and accidentally but inherently impacting one another, making very different shapes at the same place and same time