Ah Ken (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1858–1896), also known as Ah Kam, was a well-known

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

businessman in Chinatown, Manhattan (曼哈頓華埠) during the mid-to late 19th century. The first Asian man to permanently immigrate to Chinatown, although Quimbo Appo is claimed to have arrived in the area during the 1840s, Ah Ken resided on

Mott Street Mott Street () is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north–south direction in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It is regarded as Chinatown, Manhattan, Chinatown's unofficial "Main Street". Mott Stre ...

and eventually founded a successful

cigar A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and Fermentation, fermented tobacco leaves made to be Tobacco smoking, smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct comp ...

store on Park Row.Moss, Frank. ''The American Metropolis from Knickerbocker Days to the Present Time''. London: The Authors' Syndicate, 1897. (pg. 403)Harlow, Alvin F. ''Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street''. New York and London: D. Appleton & Company, 1931. (pg. 392)Hemp, William H. ''New York Enclaves''. New York: Clarkson M. Potter, 1975. (pg. 6)

Cigar business mogul

He first arrived in New York around 1858 where he was ''"probably one of those Chinese mentioned in gossip of the sixties as peddling 'awful' cigars at three cents apiece from little stands along the City Hall park fence - offering a paper spill and a tiny oil lamp as a lighter"'' according to author Alvin Harlow in ''Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street'' (1931). Later immigrants would similarly find work as "cigar men" or carrying billboards and Ah Ken's particular success encouraged cigar makers William Longford, John Occoo and John Ava to also ply their trade in Chinatown eventually forming a monopoly on the cigar trade. It has been speculated that it may have been Ah Ken who kept a small

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

on lower Mott Street and rented out bunks to the first Chinese immigrants to arrive in Chinatown. It was with the profits he earned as a landlord, earning an average of $100 a month, that he was able to open his Park Row smoke shop around which modern-day Chinatown would grow.Federal Writers' Project. ''New York City: Vol 1, New York City Guide''. Vol. I. American Guide Series. New York: Random House, 1939. (pg. 104)Hall, Bruce Edward. ''Tea That Burns: A Family Memoir of Chinatown''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002. (pg. 37)

Cigar business mogul

References

Further reading