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Bankruptcy Solutions 

The purpose of federal bankruptcy legislation, sometimes known as Title 11 of the United States Code or the “Bankruptcy Code,” is to provide an opportunity for financial reorganization or a fresh start for legitimate debtors who are unable to fulfill their obligations.

Foreclosure Solutions 

As you are undoubtedly aware, many homeowners are in arrears on their mortgages as a result of the 2020 recession brought on by the coronavirus. At first, most lenders had been understanding and would have granted a brief suspension of the late payments.

Debt Negotiations & Settlements 

Clients regularly hire the Law Office of Ronald D. Weiss, P.C. to represent them in negotiations with banks, mortgage holders, credit card issuers, auto financing providers, landlords, tax authorities, and other creditors.

Mortgage Loan Modifications 

The most common strategy used by our firm to prevent a house in severe mortgage arrears from going into foreclosure is a mortgage modification. Mortgage modification and other potential Retention Options are the potential goals of most homeowners in foreclosure because most people experiencing serious hardships with their mortgages are looking for “Retention Options

Credit Card Solutions 

For consumers, credit card debt and other unsecured personal loans are the most common types of debt. There are a few legal options for handling credit card debt, including the following: Litigation, bankruptcy, and/or negotiated settlements are the three options.

Debtor Litigation Defense 

Many of The Law Office of Ronald D. Weiss, P.C.’s clients face the possibility of litigation or collection activities from their creditors because they are accused of having debt that they are unable to pay or because they contest the existence, amount, or obligation of the debt.

Landlord Tenant Solutions

Landlord-Tenant Law is one of our firm’s areas of expertise; we defend landlords and tenants in a variety of legal proceedings before the Landlord-Tenant Court and the New York Supreme Court. When it comes to eviction and/or collecting large amounts of past due rent.

Distressed Real Estate 

A. Pre-Contract When a seller (the “Seller”) sells real estate to a buyer (the “Buyer”), there are usually a number of important steps involved. A seller will first list their property on the market for sale. A real estate broker is frequently hired by the seller to help locate possible buyers for their property.

Student Loan Solutions

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” as Benjamin Franklin famously said. This phrase has recently been amended by popular opinion to include student loans. Since most jobs these days require a bachelor’s degree, the amount of debt that Americans owe on their student loans

Tax Debt Solutions 

Many people have trouble keeping up with their tax payments to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (“NYS”), which includes sales taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, and other state taxes, as well as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”), which includes individual income taxes.

Table of Contents

  • WELCOME:Chinatowns in Brooklyn, Brooklyn

The first Brooklyn Chinatown was originally established in the Sunset Park area of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It has grown into one of the largest and fastest-growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia and within New York City itself. Due to the increasing dominance of Fuzhou immigrants from Fujian Province in China, it is now commonly referred to as Little Fuzhou or Fuzhou Town of the Western Hemisphere, as well as the largest Fuzhou enclave in New York City.

Brooklyn’s Chinese population has expanded beyond the original Chinatown area, giving rise to three larger Chinatowns spanning Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, and Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay. While the foreign-born Chinese population in New York City surged by 35% between 2000 and 2013, reaching 353,000 from about 262,000, the foreign-born Chinese population in Brooklyn grew from 86,000 to 128,000. The newer Brooklyn Chinatowns that emerged are predominantly Cantonese-speaking, leading them to be sometimes referred to as Little Hong Kong/Guangdong or Cantonese Town.

According to the 2020 census data from the New York City Department of City Planning, Bensonhurst had the largest number of Asian residents in Brooklyn, with 46,000, while Central Sunset Park contained 31,400 Asian residents. The Asian population in southern Brooklyn is primarily Chinese-speaking.

  • Context

The New York metropolitan area boasts the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017. This includes a diverse array of Chinatowns, numbering at least 12, with six (or nine, including emerging Chinatowns in Corona and Whitestone, Queens, and East Harlem, Manhattan) within New York City proper, along with others in Nassau County, Long Island; Cherry Hill, Edison, New Jersey; and Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey. Additionally, fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves are emerging throughout the New York City metropolitan area.

Chinese Americans have a longstanding presence in New York City, with the first immigrants arriving in Lower Manhattan around 1870, drawn by the promise of opportunities in America. By 1880, the enclave around Five Points was estimated to have between 200 and 1,100 members. However, the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 led to a sharp decline in Chinese immigration to New York and the rest of the United States.

In 1943, a small quota for Chinese immigrants was established, gradually increasing the community’s population until 1968, when the quota was lifted and the Chinese American population surged. In recent years, Mandarin Chinese has been increasingly replacing Cantonese, which had long dominated the Chinatowns, reflecting the linguistic shifts among the latest waves of Chinese immigrants.

  • Transportation

By 1988, 90% of the original storefronts on Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park were abandoned. However, Winley Supermarket persisted and continued to attract more Asian visitors. Chinese immigrants began to move into this area, including not only new arrivals from China but also residents escaping the higher rents of Manhattan’s Chinatown. They sought out the lower property costs and rents of Sunset Park, thus contributing to the formation of the Brooklyn Chinatown.

Emergence

The relatively new but rapidly growing Chinatown located in Sunset Park was initially settled by Cantonese immigrants, similar to Manhattan’s Chinatown. Sunset Park once had the highest Cantonese population in Brooklyn, resembling Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown, the core of the entrenched Cantonese community.

However, the influx of non-Cantonese Chinese immigrants, primarily Mandarin speakers, created a divide as they couldn’t connect with the Cantonese population. This led to the establishment of Mandarin-speaking Chinatowns in Queens, notably Flushing, and a smaller one in Elmhurst. Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s Chinatowns retained their predominantly Cantonese-speaking society, successfully maintaining Cantonese dominance.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a wave of Fuzhou immigrants, mainly speaking Fuzhounese, settled in Lower Manhattan. However, in the 2000s, driven by gentrification and housing shortages, the Fuzhou influx shifted to Brooklyn’s Chinatown in larger numbers, displacing Cantonese residents at a faster rate than in Manhattan. Sunset Park’s Chinatown, now predominantly populated by Fuzhou immigrants, has become NYC’s primary Fuzhou cultural center, surpassing the eastern portion of Manhattan’s Chinatown. Consequently, Brooklyn’s Sunset Park Chinatown is increasingly attracting newly arrived Fuzhou immigrants to New York City.

  • Trends

Cantonese population

Initially, Sunset Park’s Chinatown was a small Cantonese enclave during the 1980s and 1990s. However, in the 2000s, its demographics rapidly changed as a large population of Fuzhouese immigrants moved in. Consequently, Sunset Park’s Chinatown began to resemble parts of Little Fuzhou in Manhattan, particularly East Broadway, which served as the main gathering center for Fuzhou residents in Manhattan.

The Fuzhou population expanded into 7th and 9th Avenues and north onto 50th through 42nd Streets, with many Fuzhou businesses concentrated along 8th Avenue and 7th Avenue. Moreover, in recent years, there has been a significant influx of Fuzhou businesses and residents into the segment of 50th to 65th Streets on 8th Avenue, which forms the original core of Brooklyn’s Chinatown.

By 2009, a substantial number of Mandarin-speaking people had moved to Sunset Park. Additionally, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the growing Cantonese population in Brooklyn began to shift dramatically into Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay instead of settling in Sunset Park. Even many Cantonese residents already living in Sunset Park migrated to Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay during this period. Consequently, only a handful of Cantonese residents, often older generation and long-time residents, remain in the heavily Fuzhou-dominated Chinatown of Sunset Park.

  • Satellite Chinatowns

Since the emergence of Brooklyn’s Chinatown on 8th Avenue in Sunset Park, the Chinese population has continued to expand into other neighborhoods of Brooklyn, including Sheepshead Bay, Homecrest, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, and Gravesend. Homecrest Community Services, which serves Brooklyn’s Chinese population, opened offices in Sheepshead Bay, the location of Brooklyn’s second Chinatown in Homecrest, as well as a smaller office in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn’s third Chinatown.

This significant growth of the Chinese population in Brooklyn has been especially pronounced in Sheepshead Bay, Homecrest, and Bensonhurst due to overcrowding and rising property values in the original Brooklyn Chinatown in Sunset Park.

According to 2020 census data from the NYC Department of City Planning, the Asian populations in these southern Brooklyn neighborhoods together outnumber the Asian population in Sunset Park. Bensonhurst alone has surpassed Sunset Park, boasting 46,000 Asian residents, while nearby neighborhoods like western Gravesend have 26,700 Asian residents and Dyker Heights has between 20,000 and 29,999 Asian residents. In comparison, Sunset Park has 31,400 Asian residents. Moreover, the Asian residents in these southern Brooklyn neighborhoods are predominantly Chinese.

Additionally, the Brooklyn satellite Chinatowns also have small but significant numbers of Vietnamese Chinese residents integrated into these communities, with Sheepshead Bay having the largest concentrations.

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