New Kam Man

New Kam Man is located at 200 Canal Street in the heart of Manhattan’s Chinatown. It has been in Winnie Wu’s family for over five decades and is a family-run business dating back to the 1970s. Considered the first Chinese supermarket in New York City, New Kam Man was opened by a group of immigrants from Hong Kong as a gateway for locals to access items imported from Asia.

They were the first supermarket in the city to offer live seafood and later expanded their offerings to include Chinese ceramics and specialty teas. When Winnie commissioned me to create this piece, she wanted to capture elements from both her childhood and the present day.

As a child, Ms. Wu remembers being greeted by the ceramics displayed in the window as she ran to the grocery store after school. She also recalls how her father would make deliveries to the store using a hand truck. Today, she loves seeing the diverse crowd coming in and out of the store, many with wheeled grocery carts and boba teas in hand.