Hsiang Hsi Lu

2024

The outdoor sitting space next to Le Dive in Dimes Square.

The project aims to explore the evolution of the trendy locale known as "Dimes Square" in Lower Manhattan, utilizing open data, mapping, and photography. By spatially connecting business ownership, the project reveals the hidden dynamics of taste influence within New York City and beyond. Dimes Square culinary scene offers a unique example in the context of urban regeneration. Inquiring the place making of Dimes Square, we must trace all business development footprints in the area.

Introduction: A Geographic Guide to Cultural Influence

Click for the interactive map.

Cool people frequent Dimes Square; influencers and models call Dimes Square home; French tourists seek their New York experience in Dimes Square. It's the new trendsetting hub, replacing 90s SoHo, a fresh formulation of excitement and creativity. While not an official neighborhood name, Dimes Square is situated at the intersection of Canal Street and Ludlow Street, roughly overlapping a small section on the edge of Chinatown, Lower East Side, and Two Bridges. With its concentration of trendy bars, restaurants, and sidewalk cafés, it has become a popular leisure spot post-pandemic.

There was no such place called “Dimes Square” ten years ago when it was hidden in the depths of Chinatown. Born as a block named after the Californian-style restaurant “Dimes” and its adjacent plaza-like area between Canal Street and East Broadway, it gained exposure and inspired numerous other eateries. These new establishments have a distinct style; reporters have dubbed this trend “Nolitafication” for its upscale taste influenced by NoHo and Little Italy.^[1] The project discovered who wove this neighborhood into a bohemian haven and the development journey behind the scenes. Many shared owners or teams, while others replicated successful business models from elsewhere in the hope of thriving in this burgeoning locale. Some brought out their unique Dimes Square model and opened their next ventures in other neighborhoods.

Analyzing yearly bar and restaurant openings from New York Open Data allows us to grasp the cultural influence in Dimes Square. Who made today’s Dimes Square? While figuring out the question may intrigue us, examining the spatial influence of transforming an area from a business perspective provides valuable insights into the geographic economy in New York City’s luxurious lifestyle.

When was Dime Square a Thing? Looking into Business Opening Timeline

The line chart depicts the yearly distribution of Dimes Square culinary business openings.

The data includes businesses that have or had obtained on-premises liquor licenses, regardless of whether they are active or not.

From the yearly distribution, two surges in openings are evident. The first wave consisted of trendy restaurants that opened from 2013 to 2017. The name gained initial recognition around 2017 owing to the restaurant Dimes and their friend group starting to refer to this section as "Dimes Square.” ^[2] The second wave occurred from 2022 to 2023, influenced by post-pandemic outdoor dining habits and the boost from the New York City Open Restaurants Program.^[3]

Is It Local? The Inflow and Outflow of Restauranteur Migration

The map depicts the first and the last business ventures for the same owners.

As of the end of 2023, there were 60 owners who own or have partnerships in 31 operating establishments with on-premises liquor licenses in Dimes Square. I will break down the business opening patterns in the following section.

a. Inflow (opened any business before Dimes Square):

Dimes Square businesses (11 owners running 8 DBAs) were significantly influenced by surrounding establishments in Lower Manhattan. Some of them were opened by experienced restaurateurs. Notably, businesses such as Jon Neidich’s ACME in NoHo to Le Dive; Ignacio Mattos’s Estela in NoHo to Corner Bar; Aisa Shelly’s Mr. Fong’s in Two Bridges to Casino and Casetta; Koorosh Bakhtiar and Nima Garos’ Gelso & Grand in Little Italy to Jajaja Mexicana on East Broadway.

b. Outflow (opened any business in Dimes Square first):

Some successful Dimes Square businesses (7 owners running 5 DBAs) became the foundation for other businesses elsewhere. For example, Regina's Grocery on Orchard Street expanded its locations to SoHo and the Upper East Side; Benjamin Towill’s Bar Belly to Basic Kitchen in South Carolina and Ferry Boat in Falmouth, England.

c. Within Flow (opened businesses only in Dimes Square):

Many owners (9 owners running 8 DBAs) decided to open their second and third establishments within Dimes Square. Those include the renowned Dimes and Dimes Deli, the team Forgetmenot run by Pavlos Sierros, and his former employee Kiki Karamintzas’ Kiki’s, team Parcelle’s Tolo, and team Bar Belly’s next-door location Carlota.

d. No Flow (opened only one business in Dimes Square):

Over half of the owners (33 owners running 9 DBAs) only have one business in Dimes Square, which include 169 Bar, Bacaro, LES Crepes & Taqueria, Little Canal, Metrograph, Scarr's Pizza, Two Bridges Luncheonette, Up Stairs, and Wu's Wonton King.

In summary, over half of the current businesses were born locally or are local sister businesses without direct outside influence. Over a quarter of the businesses were part of the experienced restaurateurs' culinary empire. Despite the vibrancy in the area, however, only five establishments brought the Dimes Square experience outside its boundary so far.

Linking Dimes Square Restaurant Ownership

Click for the interactive ownership diagram.

Aisa Shelley has three establishments in Dimes Square, making him the most dedicated owner in the area. He has partnered with Regina's Grocery’s Roman Grandinetti and Mr. Fong’s Adam Mooves on several projects. Jon Neidich built his restaurant empire in collaboration with other major restaurateurs like Nicholas Mathers. Additionally, Nicholas Mathers’ Wish You Were Here Group has many successful ventures statewide and in Manhattan, such as Dudley's and Ruby's; however, since the diagram only includes the first-degree owner and their immediate businesses, his other ventures are out of scope. Bar Belly’s owners delivered a diverse expansion, from Phillip Winser’s The Orchard Townhouse and the Towill family’s hospitality journey to England, to its newly sister restaurant, Carlota, next door. Michelin chef Ignacio Mattos left his footprints across Manhattan, from Rockefeller Center’s Lodi and NoHo’s Estela to the historical landmark Jarmulowsky Bank Building’s Corner Bar.

Overall, besides the celebrated restauranteurs I mentioned, the ownership structure for Dimes Square restaurants is diverse; there is no predominant restaurateur that owns a significantly large number of businesses in the area.

Now and Then: The Cycle of Area’s Vibrancy

There is always a line in front of Scarr’s, a popular pizzaria on Orchard Street.

My first impression of Dimes Square was in 2018 when I visited a photography exhibition on Ludlow Street. I did not know this place was called Dimes Square; we all called it Chinatown. There was a fish slaughterhouse next door. Skaters hung out at the nearby Seward Park. Trash exploded from the overflowing trash bin. There were some interesting shops and restaurants catering to the younger and affluent crowd, but mostly they were traditional Chinese mom-and-pop stores. I got a sense that this shabby area was low key a “cool” place, and I thought maybe I wasn’t cool enough to step into some boutiques with designer items, not even to dine in those new Mediterranean restaurants where the only menu vocabulary in my head was tacos and margaritas. In 2020, I became more engaged with Lower Manhattan after briefly working in fashion. I once assisted a show for Café Forgot on the sidewalk and dressed almost naked models next to the fish slaughterhouse. Then I moved to Broome Street in 2021; I noticed an unimaginable volume of crowd difference after the COVID-19 lockdown. It has become a counter-culture version of Times Square. People from other neighborhoods come here to have a good time.

Casino, an Italian-inspired restaurant, was once a Chinese restaurant “Mission.”

My friend Zoe Lin told me her discovery regarding Kiki’s Chinese sign, which was was intentionally added as part of her “Chinatown Produce Network” project.

A tour guide showing visitors Dimes Square in front of Ming Tower, the building adjacent to Dimes Deli.”

It has a theme. The fusion of Chinese and European tastes geographically makes Dimes Square special. However, upon closer inspection, it is not a total cultural integration; rather, it has a unique model. The formation of Dimes Square resembles a Chinese mall owned by majority Chinese landlords, filled with French and Italian-inspired businesses, but with less attraction for local Chinese residents. Although the old Chinatown identity has become somewhat distant in this area, the property is still predominantly owned by Chinese landlords, as indicated by data from “Who Owns What in NYC?” Many neighborhoods have undergone similar shifting processes throughout history, with transitions in their characteristics and demographics.^[4] It is normal for a place to undergo cycles of upgrade or decline over time. Some argue that the upgrading process is gentrification. Indeed, from this perspective, it has affected many small, old businesses; however, it has also attracted a larger, affluent crowd to shop in this neighborhood, making it even more vibrant and influential. From an economic standpoint, perhaps the development of Dimes Square is not a bad thing.

A Tasteful Cartography: An Aerial View of Epicurean Economy

People were capturing the sunset at Dimes Square in the Summer, 2023.

Imagine reliving the bustling Five Points at their peak with a bourgeois taste. That's how I envision today's Dimes Square, although personal imagination is obscured and subjective. The project aims to guide us through the culinary business development journey of Dimes Square over the past twenty years. From open data, we can observe the unique attributes, trends and outreach. Dimes Square has evolved from a culinary-cultural import hub to a more balanced status with a distinct style and influence today.

Mapping the transformation of the food and drink landscape in an urban scene provides us with a way to examine urban regeneration. What makes these businesses collectively successful over time and geography reflects the ideology of a place. What people think of that place is abstract; a photo of a place is as evident as it could be, yet with a variation of interpretations. Mapping the data gives us a thematic fact of a pattern in a broad picture. The project portrays the epicurean lifestyle in this very condensed area in a transitory moment. It serves as a scientific glance of delirious New York, other than Wall Street skyscrapers. There is a logic behind the existence of a nice corner bar you just pass by.

Methodology

1. Data Collection

The project covers culinary businesses, including restaurants, bars, cafés, and hotels that had obtained an active on-premises liquor license as of March 1, 2024. The following section explains why restaurants and cafés without a liquor license are not included in the project. First, they tend to be more conventional businesses, such as North Dumpling on East Broadway, that have a smaller impact on the current Dimes Square leisure scene. Secondly, detailed ownership information for those businesses is less transparent. While there might be some data for those who applied for open restaurants without selling liquor, almost all businesses that applied for the open restaurants program had acquired liquor licenses from my search. Third, the project goal is to discover the ownership and spatial relationship of new establishments. Therefore, traditional small businesses without proper documentation were not included in the data collection.

a. Finding Studied Business and Owner

To find out Dimes Square business owners and their other businesses, I compiled data from four main sources. First, the Liquor Authority Current List of Active Licenses from the New York State Liquor Authority has a detailed dataset about the active liquor license’s company name, address, and geo-reference. Second, the NYS Liquor Authority Mapping Project provides an easy way to look for businesses and their principals. Third, I searched for The City of New York Community Board 3 Liquor License Questionnaire to find out the owner’s related business history. Finally, I used Google, specifically Eater NY or New York Times, to double-check if the owner had other businesses that were not mentioned in the applicant history from CB3’s Liquor License Questionnaire or if their business was operating. Since all sources above only included the primary owners at the time, some partners or investors who participated to a lesser degree or had transferred ownership throughout time may be missing from the data collection.

b. Finding Their Initial Open Year

The original license date on the on-premise liquor application may occur after the business's initial opening date. Some businesses applied for liquor licenses years after they commenced operations. I determined the business's initial opening year through three sources. First, the Google Street View historical archive provides a "See more date" feature. Second, some business websites mention their first open date and year. Lastly, I checked the oldest news articles mentioning the restaurant. By combining these methods, I could ascertain the initial opening year for a business at that location.

2. Definition for Mapping and Classification

a. Mapping Area Definition

Dimes Square center was set at the intersection of Canal Street, Ludlow Street, and Division Street. The wide intersection provides a square-like open space for many activities. Its boundary was defined by a 500-foot radius buffer from the center based on the 500-foot law from New York State Alcoholic Beverage Control Law.^[5] The following reasons are why I chose a 500-foot radius buffer as a loose guide to define Dimes Square. First, there is no clear definition so far for Dimes Square's boundary, nor is Dimes Square publicly recognized as a neighborhood. Second, on-premises liquor applicants within this boundary, if having over three on-premises liquor establishments, are required to host community hearings to get approval for serving public interests. The 500-foot hearing serves as a community agreement on a new liquor establishment; the buffer distance indicates, insofar, as a general guide of what geographically matters to a community. Third, based on the NYS Liquor Authority Mapping Project, there is a visual cluster of establishments within the 500-foot boundary. Therefore, my studied area of Dimes Square was set within this buffer boundary.

b. Terminology and Classification

On-premises license: On-premises liquor license (bar liquor, restaurant liquor, hotel liquor), on-premises wine license (tavern wine, restaurant wine). Principal: Business owner, business partner, main investor. CB3: Manhattan Community Board 3, broader Lower East Side. DBA: Doing Business As (restaurant, bar, hotel). Legal Name: Registered company name. Dimes Square Owner: Principal who directly owns or has a partnership in Dimes Square businesses.

3. Data Analysis

After completing the data collection and merging process into a spreadsheet, I cleaned and processed the data before analysis and visualization.

a. Data Processing

First, I added a column labeled “class” to categorize businesses based on their location within the studied Dimes Square boundary before mapping. Dimes Square businesses were assigned to class “A,” businesses within CB3 were assigned to class “B,” businesses within New York City were assigned to class “C,” and businesses outside of New York City were assigned to class “D.” Second, I filtered the dataset to include only businesses in the food and drink industry and ensured that they had opening dates available. Third, I reshaped the data frame into a long format for owners. In other words, I converted each row of the data frame representing a business to multiple rows, each representing an owner associated with that business. For example, a row containing DBA_1 and owners Owner_1, Owner_2, Owner_3 was transformed into three separate rows: (DBA_1, Owner_1), (DBA_1, Owner_2), and (DBA_1, Owner_3). Then, I sorted the data frame by the opening year for each owner to track the yearly footprint of the restaurateurs accurately. Finally, I saved the formatted data frame in JSON format for mapping purposes.

b. Mapping

For mapping visualization, I used JavaScript and Mapbox. First, I added markers for each owner’s DBA location and applied different colors based on their class. Then, I grouped the DBAs based on the same owner and arranged them in sequential order yearly. Third, I applied lines to each DBA location to trace the geographical expansion of the business. Lastly, I added “start” and “end” labels for the first and the last DBAs for the same owner.

c. Spring Diagram

To understand the relationship between owners and different businesses, I applied a spring layout diagram to help organize the ownership structure. First, I selected business names “DBA” and owners' names “OwnerName” for plotting. Second, I created nodes for unique DBA and owner names. Third, I created links based on shared "DBA" names. Fourth, I separated links by class name. Finally, I applied styles for clear visualization.

4. Limitations

Utilizing open data and online resources has its limitations and might lead to misguided results. I would like to point out what I considered as a potential threat in terms of incomplete data and the bias that might lead to uncongenial interpretations.

a. Missing or Outdated Data

As mentioned in the previous data collection section, finding out true owners was based on listing principals on liquor licenses or the most recent news articles about the owners. Some shareholders and investors who played major roles might not be listed in the dataset. Owners who transferred their shares or ownership to others in between the business operating years may not be documented or updated in the dataset.

b. Businesses that are No Longer Operating

The project did not include businesses that were closed or temporarily closed during the studied time. Some Dimes Square owners had other businesses in Dimes Square or adjacent areas; for example, Aisa Shelly’s Oliver Coffee in Chinatown was not included in this project because it was temporarily closed in 2023 for renovation (still temporarily closed). It would be greatly beneficial to include all data within the given time to get a more precise look at the trend; however, due to consistency in data quality and concerns about the accuracy of their real ownership, I decided to exclude all businesses that were permanently or temporarily closed before March 1, 2024.

c. Potential Bias

The project focuses on new culinary businesses that obtained an on-premises liquor license. It indicates the business will cover both food and drink categories and can operate long hours at night. Many other businesses, including traditional Chinese eateries and clothing boutiques, are not included in the project. This does not mean those businesses are less prominent in the area; however, they have contributed the most even before Dimes Square became popular. The focus of the project could be seen as the most biased part that makes people think those new restaurants were the main characters in shaping the neighborhood’s identities, and that is what most people will do in this neighborhood. My study is only one layer, probably the most click-bait coating of this particular area that I must clarify.

Acknowledgements

The documentation of the project started in July 2023 and ended in February 2024. I would like to express great appreciation to my friends who kept me company and helped take photos at the bars and restaurants. I would not be confident enough to take 360-degree photos inside a busy restaurant without the support and encouragement of my friends, especially given the suspicious gaze from staff and customers.

I would also like to acknowledge the ethical considerations related to taking photos inside a restaurant, which is a private domain. There exists a grey area between capturing images for documentation purposes and taking self-portraits for personal use. I would be greatly appreciative if anyone finds themselves captured in a photo unsolicited in a private setting that they would not like to be publicly shared. Please notify me, and I will address the issue immediately.

Data Source

1. Current Liquor Authority Active Licenses, accessed on March 1, 2024.

2. NYS Liquor Authority Mapping Project (LAMP), accessed on March 1, 2024.

3. Open Restaurant Applications, Department of Transportation (DOT), accessed on July 13, 2023.

4. NYC Open Data Owner / Building Info, accessed on March 4, 2024

5. Who Owns What in NYC?

References

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1. Sundberg, E. (2022, May 17). The nolitafication of dimes square. Curbed. https://www.curbed.com/article/dimes-square-new-nine-orchard-hotel.html ↩︎

2. Burton, M. (2017, September 25). How a restaurant becomes a lifestyle brand. Eater. https://www.eater.com/2017/9/25/16350086/restaurants-lifestyle-branding-dimes-nyc-merchandise ↩︎

3. Hu, W. (2022, October 25). On Car-Free Streets, Many New York Restaurants Thrived. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/nyregion/ny-open-streets-restaurants.html ↩︎

4. Taylor, E. (2022, August 16). The Next Dimes Square Is Just Around the Corner. Observer. https://observer.com/2022/08/the-next-dimes-square-is-just-around-the-corner/ ↩︎

5. 500 Foot Law, New York State Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, Sections (§§) 64. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CNT/237 ↩︎