The room has a vintage air and a gleam of drama, which is appropriate enough because it was once a Chinese theater, the first on the East Coast. During the Tong Wars of the early 20th century, the theater was neutral territory, where Hip Sings and Un Leongs sat separately but peaceably, until the day in 1905 when Hip Sing gunmen set off firecrackers during a performance and then opened fire on their rivals.
The Chinese Theater Massacre isn’t necessarily the piece of local history that Chinese Tuxedo wants to evoke. It takes its name from another turn-of-the-century establishment on Doyers Street, an ornate restaurant where a traditional carved second-story balcony crested with a larger-than-life-size eagle was built as a kind of…
