REAL ESTATE > Luxury Condos Arrive in Chinatown

NYTIMES.COM: AT one corner of Mott and Hester Streets, sidewalk bins at a Chinese grocery overflow with dried shrimp, and a bakery sells sweets filled with red bean paste, while across the street, lunch menus at the Original Vincent’s Restaurant promote the day’s linguine specials.

But there is a new sign at this intersection, which many people now consider to be the heart of Chinatown. It reads: “Hester Gardens, Luxury Condominiums.”

In an area that has been defined for more than a century by densely packed tenements that have been home to working-class immigrants, Hester Gardens is proof that Chinatown is finally sharing in Manhattan’s housing boom, and as a consequence, the neighborhood is opening to a much broader slice of New York City.