Street view of Doyers Street, Chinatown

Doyers Street is one of the streets in New York City’s Chinatown with a rich history. Doyers Street was named after an 18th-century Dutch immigrant named Hendrik Doyer. He owned a distillery and tavern in 1791 where the street intersects the Bowery. It later became part of the very core of Chinatown, and was the first site for a Chinese language theater in New York City from 1893 to 1911. In the early 1900s, the street earned the nickname “the Bloody Angle,” due to the warring tongs who would hide behind the sharp bend of the street to attack their opponents as they turned the corner. In 1905, a particularly infamous and bloody attack occurred when the Hip Sing Tong targeted On Leong Tong members who were watching an opera at the street’s theater. In the middle of the show, a Hip Sing Tong member threw a string of lit firecrackers onto the stage and four gunmen opened fire into the audience of 400 people. Four On Leong Tong members died, as well as two civilians. However, over the years, such violence waned. Today, Doyers is a peaceful pedestrian only street, which is famously known as the home of Nom Wah Tea Parlor, which has been serving baked goods since 1920 and more recently dim sum. It also served as a filming location for both Justin Timberlake’s “Take Back the Night” music video and the film John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum.