DEVASTATING

85,000 Pieces From Museum of Chinese in America Destroyed in New York City Fire

A devastating fire that swept through the repository for the museum in Chinatown destroyed “100 percent of the museum’s collection” just days before Lunar New Year celebrations.

Officials from the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City’s Chinatown announced late Friday that as many as 85,000 items have been destroyed in the devastating three-alarm fire that swept through the museum’s repository Thursday evening as the museum prepared to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of the museum, said she was “just distraught” at the loss of “one hundred percent of the museum’s collection,” that were not on display at an adjacent museum space. The archival collection included textiles, restaurant menus, handwritten letters and ocean voyage tickets that trace the history if Chinese immigration to the U.S.