Doyers Street

Doyers Street is 200 feet long and bends nearly ninety degrees in the middle — a kink inherited from a colonial-era cart path that modern Manhattan never straightened. The elbow earned it the name 'the Bloody Angle' in the tong-war years of the early 1900s, when the blind corner made it infamous; the same geometry now just makes it the most dramatic short walk in Chinatown.

The street packs a century of institutions into its bend: Nom Wah Tea Parlor, pouring tea and dim sum at No. 13 since 1920; the lineage of barbershops; Ting's gift shop at the corner. In recent years the roadbed has often been closed to cars and painted curb to curb as a public plaza, so you can stand in the middle of the angle and take it in.

Come in the evening when the lanterns and neon pick up, walk the bend both ways, and duck through to Chatham Square. No street in the city gives you more story per foot.