If you want a full cultural immersion experience, head to Columbus Park on a Sunday in Chinatown. This tiny park is Chinatown’s playground, home to a wide gamut of traditional Chinese recreational activities. Here, you will find people doing Tai Chi or practicing martial arts in the pavilion, playing folk music, displaying caged birds, singing Peking Opera, women playing mahjong, and hundreds of men engaged in numerous games of Xiangqi (Chinese or elephant chess). You may find cobblers, watch repairers, and fortune tellers. There is also a children’s playground and basketball courts. See more photos here.

Columbus Park is one of the city’s first major urban parks (the park has alternatively been named Mulberry Bend Park, Five Points Park, and Paradise Park). The 3.23 acre park was planned in the 1880’s by Calvert Vaux, co-designer of Central Park, and opened in 1897. It was named Columbus Park in 1911. Read more about Columbus Park at the New York City Parks Department website here. From their website:

It is situated in the heart of one of the oldest residential areas in Manhattan. The southern end is adjacent to the infamous “Five Points.” Until 1808, the site for the park was a swampy area near the Collect Pond (now Foley Square) and hosted a set of tanneries. In 1808 the pond was filled and became Pearl Street. When the filling began to sink, a foul odor emerged which depressed the living conditions of that neighborhood. As a consequence, the area became host to one of the world’s most notorious tenements, known for its wretched living conditions and rampant crime, earning such names as “murderer’s alley” and “den of thieves.”

This notorious slum, Five Points, was dominated by rival gangs such as the Roach Guards, Dead Rabbits, and Bowery Boys, a central subject of the book The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury, published in 1928. This, in turn, inspired the 2002 Martin Scorsese film, Gangs of New York.

To survive in New York City, unless you have enormous wealth to buffer the harsh environment, you must learn to be resourceful. Ethnic immigrant groups find ways to import their cultures. Regardless of how inhospitable the city might be or incongruous the activity, New Yorkers improvise, adopt, and adapt. The Chinese have done that remarkably well…

Location: Columbus Park is located one block south of Canal Street and one block west of Mott Street in Chinatown. It is bounded by Baxter, Mulberry, Bayard, and Worth Streets.

Related Postings: No MSG, T?t, Big Buddha, Hallmarks and Earmarks, Durian, At Arm’s Length, Year of the Rat, Pearl River Mart, Buried Treasure, Tea Time

The last great chess player I saw in Washington Square Park was Yaacov Norowitz; this was to be his story, as well as that of the other great players who have graced the southwest corner of the park. But I have not seen Yaacov playing in some time.

On and off, for a few decades, I have spent many a Sunday afternoon watching the games of many masters, international masters, grandmasters, and blitz players. I never got to see Hikaru Nakamura, reputed to be one of the undisputed monsters of blitz chess. I did often see Israel Zilber, a former Latvian chess champion who was homeless during most of the 1980s and was one of the best players in the park.

One of the wildest incidents I have witnessed in this area was a shooting. As all the players scurried for cover behind the low concrete wall which encircled the tables, one chess fan who had been watching the games actually made the rounds pausing everyone’s clocks. Once the smoke had cleared and the police had reestablished law and order, the players jumped backed and resumed playing as if nothing had happened. We were told that that the incident was motivated by a previous drug deal gone awry. On this day, one party encountered the other, pulled out a gun in broad daylight, and fired.

One of the highlights for me was the regular appearance in the 1980s of Grandmaster Roman Dzindzichashvili, a two-time U.S. chess champion. He played blitz chess for money, as is common there. Blitz is speed chess, where each opponent is limited to 5 minutes total per game. Accumulated time for each player is tracked using a chess clock. A player whose time runs out loses (unless his opponent does not have enough material to win).

There is a spectrum of playing styles here. Much of street or park chess played for money involves hustling, which can take the form of anything from the classic hustle (i.e. disguising one’s skill level) to outright cheating, which I have witnessed. Skills are honed specifically for speed chess, an aggressive style of playing and a mastery of all the tricks and traps of the game, along with distractions such as chess trash talk. Time odds are frequently offered to players of lesser strength. When played for money, games range from a few dollars and up – I have seen sessions played for as much as $100 per game. Side bets are also frequently made. Some regulars (such as Bobby Plummer, aka Sweet P) essentially set up office, staking out a good table early and barking the offer of a game to passersby. Some are able to eke out a subsistence living. This area is known worldwide to chess players, and many come here for a challenging encounter, prepared to lose some cash. Read article here.

This corner of the park was the setting for the 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer, a story based on the life of chess prodigy and Village resident Joshua Waitzkin. Bobby Fischer was a player here in the 1960s – unfortunately, this was before my time in New York City, and I never got a chance to see this legendary chess icon play.

The quality of player has gone down decidedly in the park, as has the physical environment in this area, which badly needs an update (scheduled as part of a future phase of the park renovation). I hope for a return of the chess monsters 🙂

Notable chess players who have played in Washington Square Park:
Joel Benjamin, Roman Dzindzichashvili, Kamran Shirazi, Joshua Waitzkin, Bruce Pandolfini, Vincent Livermore, Russian Paul, Hikaru Nakamura, Yaacov Norowitz, Luis Busquets, Bobby Fischer (early 1950s), Maurice Ashley, Asa Hoffman, and Israel Zilber. There are also regular games played in Union Square, Times Square, and Central Park.

Related Postings: Good Fortune, Marshall Chess Club