by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
CHINATOWN, Aug 7 – Many residents of NYC's Chinatown have long opposed the "jail-scraper" planned for Baxter Street.
On August 7, the jail's proponents tried to get buy-in at an event in the ornate Surrogates Courthouse on the corner of Centre and Chambers Street, handing out pork buns from Mei Lai Wah bakery (Golden Unicorn was on the program but nowhere to be seen) and displaying drawings of prisoners' meeting rooms looking like airports.
Many attendees weren't buying it. One man asked the architects how they could live with their conscience (the question was deemed too personal). Another woman noted that in current NYC jails, there are blindspots where inmates are beaten up and worse off-camera.
A mere two blocks away is the empty MCC, with its Jeffrey Epstein echo.
Previously, Inner City Press asked: How will the empty Federal jail in Lower Manhattan be used? NYC Mayor Eric Adams in 2023 floated the idea of using it to house migrants. Inner City Press asked Legal Aid about the idea, which they roundly criticized.
On June 12, then-NYC Comptroller candidate Justin Brannan campaigned in Chinatown's Confucius Plaza, two blocks from the still empty Metropolitan Correctional Center. He was asked about closing the Rikers Island jail and said he continues to favor the closure.
But, he said, the idea of reopening the MCC for state prisoners "makes a lot of sense," rather than devoting the now empty lot on Baxter Street to the so-called Chinatown Jailscraper.
Brannon lost the primary to Mark Levine, despite Brannan's endorsements from Bernie Sanders. Inner City Press has asked Zohran Mamdani about the jailscraper (YouTube here), as well as Eric Adams before him. Now, the pork buns.
Brannan in Chinatown 6/12/25by Russell Werner Lee
The event moved on to other questions, and heckling by a Brooklyn constituent who seems to follow Brannan around (to his credit, Brannan seemed to largely accept this exercise of the First Amendment). Inner City Press was there until, afterward, Brannan began a foot-tour of Chinatown.... Now to where?
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