Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ah Ken arrived in New York City around 1858 and became the first Chinese person credited with permanently settling what would become Manhattan's Chinatown. He initially peddled cigars from small stands along the City Hall park fence for three cents apiece before expanding his business.
The United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, creating a bachelor society where only 142 Chinese women lived among 7,028 men by 1900. This gender imbalance persisted until the act was repealed on the 1st of January 1943.
Large numbers of Fuzhounese-speaking immigrants settled on the eastern borderline east of The Bowery where they developed Little Fuzhou. This new enclave became known as Fuzhou Street No. 1 along East Broadway and Fuzhou Street No. 2 along Eldridge Street.
A 2021 N.Y.U Furman poll found that Asian identifying individuals within the community dropped from 34.8% in 2000 to 28.1% in 2021 representing a 6.7% decrease. The neighborhood had 47,844 residents according to the 2010 census showing a change of minus 9.5 percent from the 52,375 counted in 2000.
The oldest continuously run business Wing on Wo and Co established in 1890 went up for sale in 2016 when the building was worth around $10 million including six stories and storefront. Mei Lum stepped in before the sale took over the business to preserve its history through the W.O.W. Project which exhibits ethnographic research highlighting migration displacement and resilience stories.