New York Songlines: Mott Street

West:

Corner (56 Houston): Soho Billiards. Clearly this is in no way South of Houston. It's not even across the street from Soho--that's Nolita down there.

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East:

Corner (26 Bleecker): Since 1991, Planned Parenthood of New York City's administrative center.

West:

281: Poppy, lingerie/accessories; was Hedra Prue, showcase for young designers

Old St Patrick's Churchyard

Robert deNiro and Harvey Keitel have a heart-to-heart here in Mean Streets.

Old St. Patrick's Cathedral

Corner (260-264 Mulberry): New York's first Roman Catholic cathedral, with construction starting in 1809 to a design by Joseph Mangin (the architect of City Hall). It was built behind high walls to protect it from anti-Catholic rioters. A fire in 1868 gutted the building; it was restored by Henry Engelbert, but not before the diocese's seat had moved to Midtown. John McCloskey became the first American cardinal here April 27, 1865. It's now a beautiful but underutilized parish church.

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East:

280: Calypso, island-themed fashion

262: A Detacher, like a small apartment where everything is for sale; Christopher Totman, crunchy fashion. Downstairs is I Heart, a subterranean of cutting-edge labels.

252: Jamin Peuch, Parisian hanbags and slippers; Calypso Beaute

250: Helen Marien, expensive handbags

248: Blue/Green, vegan juice joint. Replaced Shop Noir?

246: Geraldine, funky shoes

242: Sigerson Morrison, shoe store's handbag line; Euro-style Cafe Gitane

West:

Corner (32 Prince): Old St Patrick's Convent and Girls' School; built 1825-26 as the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum.

229: Find Outlet, designer clothing marked down.

225: Zero, minimalist fashion

219: Edmundo Castillo, expensive shoes

217: Resurrection Vintage Clothing, fashionably used

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East:

Corner (30 Prince): The Kitchen Club, modern Japanese; sake bar Chibi's is underneath.

238: Hiponica, cutting-edge handbags; Minette Co., girly, French-y accessories.

West:

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East:

202A: Claire Blaydon

202: Shebeen is Irish for speakeasy-- though the term was adopted in South Africa, and that seems to be the reference here.

West:

173: Underground, Asian-themed Double Happiness is a bar ''made for trysts'' (Time Out).

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East:

176 (corner): Funky Broome, non-Westernized Chinese with mod decor.

West:

157: Pho Bang, Vietnamese fast food (pho = beef broth).

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West:

141: The People's Bathing and Washing Establishment, the city's first public bath, was started here in 1849 by the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. Few of the poor, however, could afford to pay 5 cents for a bath, and the project was closed in 1861.

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East:

128: The Mietz Building was Genco Olive Oil, the Corleone family front, in the movie The Godfather. Now a Chinese market.

West:

119: Original Vincent's of Little Italy started out as a pushcart on this corner in 1894, and moved indoors in 1904. There's a photo of Frank Sinatra cooking his own pasta in the kitchen; other famous customers claimed by the restaurant include Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and Robert DeNiro.

115: In the 1930s and '40s, Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker was based here.

113: Joe's Ginger Restaurant

103-105: New Oriental Pearl Restaurant

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East:

102: Wing Wong Restaurant

100: 100 Seafood Restaurant

98: Harmony Palace, a big place for wedding banquets

West:

Chinese Merchants Association

83-85 (corner): This pagoda-like structure is the headquarters of the On Leong Tong, once one of Chinatown's most feared gangs, with Mott Street as its territory. As late as the 1990s, On Leong leaders were running protection rackets with the Ghost Shadows street gang. Today it seems to be more what it always pretended to be--an association of Chinatown businessmen. Fay Da Bakery on the ground floor.

75: Ten Ren Tea & Ginseng Co.

69: 69 Mott Street specializes in pork.

67: Big Wong has good, cheap food. The AIA Guide notes the ''regal cornice'' of this former tenement.

65: This seven-story building, built c. 1824, was New York's first planned tenement. By the 1880s, the New York Times was complaining that it ''stands out like a wart growing on top of a festering sore,'' with ''filth... hanging out of the windows like icicles.'' Now Chung Wah Pharmacy.

63A: Bok Lei Po Trading, martial arts supplies

63: Shanghai Garden (was Evergreen Shanghai), restaurant. In 1850, the synagogue Beth Abraham was founded in the tenement here.

61: Mandarin Court, longstanding dim sum house. Eight children under the age of five died here in 1882, victims of rampant diseases.

59 1/2: Eleven kids died here in 1882, while five of nine living here in 1888 were killed.

59: Health Town, Chinese herbs; Golden Lake gifts

57: In early 1851, this was the address of Bridget McCarty, a madam who ''specialized in procuring young virgins for her clients.''

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East:

76: Was Sweet-N-Tart, tasty Chinese snack bar; closed during Chinatown's long post-September 11 slump.

74: Bowery Boy James E. Kerrigan was living here when he tried to form a pro-Confederate militia on the eve of the Civil War. He was subsequently elected to Congress, got an officer's commission in the Union army and was then court martialed. He later led an abortive invasion of Ireland.

70: Tai Hong Lau Restaurant

68: House of Vegetarian specializes in faux meat.

66: New Eastern Villa. In 1855, 17 German-speaking artisans boarded here, along with two German servant girls.

Eastern States Buddhist Temple

64: Founded in 1962, this was the first Chinese Buddhist temple in the Eastern United States.

Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Corporation

62: Until recently, this nonprofit group served as an unofficial local government for Chinatown. Includes a Chinese School.

In the pre-Civil War era, a brothel at this address specialized in ''ropes and braces.''

56: New Wonton Garden

West:

53: Was Tai Pei Liquors, which until 1989 was owned by Peter Woo, On Leong Tong member and at one time the largest importer of heroin into the U.S. Now Mark's Wine and Spirits.

43: 43 Mott Street Plaza

41: Golden Fung Wong Bakery (was New Lung Fong Bakery)

39: C. 1900, there was a joss house--a shrine--here, with an opium den in back. Now Chung Chou City, Chinese grocery.

37: Aji Ichiban ("Munchies Paradise"), outlet of a Hong Kong candy chain. It's not every candy store that offers dried squid. Mei Dick Barber Shop is in the basement.

33-35: Vegetarian Paradise 3. Specializes in mock meat. Did this close? This building is still called Sun Lau--''New Building''--even though it went up in 1923.

Transfiguration Church & School

25-29: Built in 1801 as the English Lutheran First Church of Zion, this church has subsequently served successive waves of Catholic immigrants: First Irish, then Italian, now Chinese.

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21: Hop Kee Restaurant

19: Sinotique, Chinese antiques and gifts.

17: On August 15, 1909, 16-year-old Bow Kum was murdered here by a Four Brothers gang assassin. The gang maintained that Bow was their property; her killing touched off a war between the Four Bothers and the On Leong Tong, to which her husband belonged. Earlier, in 1883, the Lung Ye Tong's Tom Lee was indicted for running a gambling establishment here.

Wo Hop

15: A classic Chinatown eatery since 1938.

13: A Chinese boardinghouse here in 1870 may have been the first Chinese presence in the neighborhood. In 1879, the police made their first Chinatown vice raid here, finding some opium smokers and fan tan players. All charges were eventually dropped.

11: New Hong Ying Restaurant.

9: Here was Port Arthur, an early Chinatown restaurant catering to a non-Chinese clientele, helping to establish the neighborhood as a tourist destination.

7: Was Kam Kuo Food Corporation, Chinese groceries and housewares; old enough to have been visited by Sun Yat Sen, it closed after September 11. In 1873, Nos. 5-7 were Mulberry Hall, aka the Old Baptist Church Tenement, a converted church that was dubbed ''the city's worst tenement'' by the Board of Health. Nearly 10 percent of its residents died that year.

5: Buddha Bodai Nature Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant

3: When the Rutgers Fire Company moved out of the building here, they refused to lease it to Chinese immigrants, saying they would ''sooner pull down the building than allow a single Chinaman to live in it.''

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East:

50: Mr Tang

42: Ming Fay Book Store

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38: New Age Designer; custom-made cheung-sum--traditional Chinese dresses

36: Tom ''Fatty'' Walsh, a political rival of Tammany Hall's Boss Tweed, lived at this address. In 1873, his daughter Blanche Walsh was born here, who became a leading actress around the turn of the 20th Century.

34: In 1873, a merchant named Wo Kee opened a store at this address, with a benevolent society and a dormitory also on the premises. It's considered to be the start of the Chinatown business district.

32: Quong Yuen Shing & Co. general store was in business from 1891 until October 2003--a victim of the economic downturn that hit Chinatown after September 11, 2001. Now Good Fortune Gifts, Inc.

28: Peking Duck House; the namesake dish is the best food on Mott Street, according to Zagat.

26: Wing On Wo & Co Oriental Gifts

22: Ping's Seafood, where your meal was swimming around just minutes ago.

20: Sweet-N-Tart, another branch of the Chinese snack-food cafe.

18: This was the original headquarters of the On Leong Tong's New York branch, opened in 1883.

16: What is now the Hop Lee Restaurant was the original headquarters of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which by the late 1880s included Chinatown's main ''joss house,'' or Taoist shrine.

14: Ajisen Noodle, a Japanese-style ramen house. In 1879, the Methodist Five Points Mission opened a short-lived effort to convert Chinese immigrants here.

10 1/2: Address of the Hope Hose Company, a pre-Civil War volunteer fire brigade.

8: Chinatown Fair is a veritable video-game museum. Formerly home to the Tic-Tac-Toe playing chicken, who has been retired to a farm. By 1883, pioneering Chinese merchant Wo Kee had bought this address and moved his store here, one of the first properties in Chinatown to be owned by a Chinese immigrant.

4: Tom Lee, who ran a cigar store here, became a New York deputy sheriff and founded Chinatown's first tong, the Lung Ye.

2 (corner): Wing Ming Building, a mirror-surfaced 11-story office tower, built c. 1979 by a Hong Kong businessman.