Chinatown Fair Family Fun Center is a

video arcade An amusement arcade (often referred to as a video arcade, amusements or simply arcade) is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers (such as c ...

center located on

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

Chinatown, Manhattan Manhattan's Chinatown () is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. With an estimated population of 90,000 to 1 ...

. Historically, the arcade catered toward competitive

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as blocking, grappling, counter-attacking, and chaining atta ...

s. The original arcade opened in 1944 and closed in February 2011, but reopened in May 2012 under different management. Chinatown Fair has been widely regarded as

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

's "last great arcade".

History

Chinatown Fair opened in 1944, taking over the first floor of the popular Port Arthur Chinese Restaurant building located at 7-9 Mott Street in New York City; previously, the first floor had been occupied by Soy Kee & Co., exporters, as well as the Eastern Trading Company. Chinatown Fair operated as a penny arcade and small museum for many years, before becoming a video game arcade in the 1970s.

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

immigrant Sam Palmer purchased the business in 1982 after having a "religious vision". One of its first attractions was a dancing chicken. The dancing chicken was later replaced with a

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...

playing chicken, which was retired in the early 2000s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the arcade hosted many retro generation games including ''

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game, maze action game, action video game developed and released by Namco for Arcade game, arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its l ...

'' and ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and ...

''. In 1991, after the release of '' Street Fighter II: The World Warrior'', Chinatown Fair switched focus to competitive fighting games. By the late 1990s ''Street Fighter'', ''

Marvel vs. Capcom is a series of crossover fighting games developed and published by Capcom, featuring characters from their own video game franchises and comic book series published by Marvel Comics. The series originated as coin-operated arcade games, thoug ...

'', ''

The King of Fighters ''The King of Fighters'' (''KOF'') is a series of fighting games by SNK that began with the release of '' The King of Fighters '94'' in 1994. The series was developed originally for SNK's Neo Geo MVS arcade hardware. This served as the main ...

'', ''

Soulcalibur is a weapon-based fighting video game franchise by Bandai Namco Entertainment. There are seven main installments of video games and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books. The first game in the series, '' ...

'', ''

Tekken is a Japanese Media mix, media franchise centered on a series of fighting game, fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (formerly Namco). The franchise also includes film and print adaptations. The ...

'' and other fighting games were commonly played. Top players such as

Justin Wong Justin Wong, occasionally shortened to just Jwong, is a formerly American and now Canadian professional fighting game player. Wong has won more EVO titles than anyone else with nine tournaments won: seven for '' Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of H ...

NYChrisG Christopher Gonzalez, also known as NYChrisG, is an American competitive gamer, specializing in fighting games. He is considered one of the top ''Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3'' players. He is also the EVO 2016 champion for Ultimate Marvel vs. ...

, Michael "Yipes" Mendoza, and Sanford Kelly frequented the establishment. As of 2010, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that Chinatown Fair was among the last video arcades in the city. Video arcades have been in decline with the rise of home video games. The newspaper reported that it became "a center for all the outcasts in the city to bond over their shared love" of classic arcade and fighting video games no longer popular in modern arcades, with titles including the original ''

Street Fighter II is a fighting game developed by Capcom and originally released for arcades in 1991. It is the second installment in the '' Street Fighter'' series and the sequel to 1987's '' Street Fighter''. It is Capcom's fourteenth game to use the CP Sys ...

'' (1991), ''

'' (1994), and ''

Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze arcade game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is the first sequel to ''Pac-Man'' (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wi ...

''. Other groups congregated around ''

Dance Dance Revolution (''DDR'') is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, ''Dance Dance Revolution'' is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance g ...

'' machines and racing games. Unlike the norm at other arcades, where winning players continue until deposed, Chinatown Fair players play a maximum of three or four continuous games. In February 2011, Chinatown Fair closed down. On May 5, 2012 over a year later it reopened under a new name "Chinatown Fair Family Fun Center" with new manager and part owner, Lonnie Sobel. Former competitive players criticized the new arcade for catering toward casual players, with the new ownership explaining that they were targeting a new clientele. Competitive fighting game players relocated to

Next Level Next Level may refer to: *Next Level (arcade), a video arcade in Brooklyn, New York, US * ''Next Level'' (film), a 2019 American dance film *Next Level Church Next Level Church is a church in Matthews, North Carolina, a Charlotte suburb. It was fo ...

, a

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

arcade owned by Chinatown Fair's former manager, which opened in 2011.

Media

In 2011, filmmaker Mark Hayes released ''Chinatown Fair'', a short documentary capturing the period between the arcade's closing and re-opening. In 2015, Chinatown Fair was the focus ''

The Lost Arcade ''The Lost Arcade'' is a 2015 American documentary film about the influence of the Chinatown Fair arcade on the fighting game community and New York City as a whole. The film was directed by Kurt Vincent and produced by Irene Chin, with executive ...

'', a feature-length documentary. ''

'' was released in

on August 12, 2016.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, New York City, Video games Video arcades Commercial buildings in Manhattan Tourist attractions in Manhattan 1944 establishments in New York City 2011 disestablishments in New York (state) Chinatown, Manhattan