Ah Ken

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).^[3]

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.^[10] It has been speculated that it may have been Ah Ken who kept a small boarding house 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.^{[1][5][11][12][13][14]}

• "New York's First Chinaman". Atlanta Constitution. 22 Sep 1896
• Crouse, Russel. Murder Won't Out. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1932.
• Dunshee, Kenneth Holcomb. As You Pass By. New York: Hastings House, 1952.
• Ramati, Raquel. How to Save Your Own Street. Garden City, Doubleday and Co., 1981. ISBN 0-385-14814-3