FROM EAST TO WEST AND CHINA ON THE WAY: Chinatown & Lower East Side

Manhattan's Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in the United States and the site of the largest concentration of Chinese in the western hemisphere, is located on the lower east side of Manhattan. With a population estimated between 70,000 and 150,000, Chinatown is the favored destination point for Chinese immigrants, though in recents years the neighborhood has also become home to Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Filipinos among others.

Lower East Side was once home to thousands of European immigrants crammed into tiny tenement dwellings. While many nationalities made their homes here, it was and is especially important in the history of Jewish immigrants, many of whom ran businesses for years and whose spans of generations lived in the neighborhood. Today the LES, as it's called, is full of cool clubs, bars and shops, and has changed quite a lot since it's early immigrants days.