Salvaged Stories:
Lives Revealed from the MoCA Collections

Chinatown, NYC – Was Joy Luck your favorite restaurant? Did you ever spend an evening at the Tung On Social Club in Chatham Square? Do you know Mr. Pui Leung? MoCA asks its visitors to take a trip down memory lane in Salvaged Stories: Lives Revealed from the MoCA Collections, a new exhibition based on the Museum’s collection of Chinatown artifacts salvaged from closing businesses, bachelor apartments, and even neighborhood dumpsters. Featuring some of our favorite discoveries from the our archives, Salvaged Stories recovers an early 20th century American story through the personal letters (1936-1946) of Shuck Wing Chin, a Chinese New Yorker, who arrived in America at the age of 25 as a “paper son.”

The majority of the objects and letters on view were recovered in the 1980s by the staff of the Museum of Chinese in the Americas (then known as the New York Chinatown History Project). Left behind in vacant apartments, sidewalk dumpsters, and transitioning businesses, the artifacts featured in Salvaged Stories represent but a handful of the total collection salvaged by the Project’s team of historians, writers and artists. The mission of the Chinatown History Project was to rescue the Chinatown community’s own under-documented history, which was threatened by the simple passage of time.
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Salvaged Stories comes out of the Museum’s efforts to preserve as well as interpret its unique collection of salvaged artifacts. At MoCA, exhibits are intended to spark visitors’ thoughts and memories about our collective history, in New York’s Chinatown and beyond. Everyone who walks through the Museum's doors has the opportunity to help inform our exhibitions by sharing knowledge about any of the artifacts on display. Although abandoned, these artifacts mark lived experiences and speak to the building of the Chinese American community in New York.
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Museum of Chinese in the Americas (MoCA) is the first full-time, professionally staffed museum dedicated to reclaiming, preserving, and interpreting the history and culture of Chinese and their descendants in the Western Hemisphere. The Museum provides historical and visual arts exhibitions, walking tours, school and public programs, a museum shop and extensive archives in the fields of Chinese American and Asian American studies.
This exhibit is supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
MoCA is chartered by the New York State Department of Education and is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

HOURS: Tuesday-Sunday, 12 noon-5pm.
REGULAR ADMISSION: $3 adults, $1 seniors/students, free for children under 12 and MoCA members.
DIRECTIONS: Unless otherwise noted, programs take place at 70 Mulberry St., 2nd Floor (corner of Mulberry and Bayard Streets). Public transportation routes include the N, R, Q, W, J, M, Z, or #6 train to Canal Street station or M103 and M15 buses to Chinatown.