In his State of the City address, Mayor Eric Adams announced more than $55 million will go toward upgrading Kimlau Square in Chinatown.

Wellington Chen, director of the Chinatown Business Improvement District, said the money will go toward reconfiguring the public space in hopes of easing dangerous traffic conditions.

“This is what I call the pivot point. This is the central location of Chinatown Because this connects eight streets together. I [took] a photograph of a senior lady who always got crushed by a truck underneath. This Is badly misaligned. Second Avenue, Bowery coming back, just to be properly configured, and it was never meant to be this shape,” said Chen.

The square pays tribute to Lt. Benjamin Kimlau, a Chinese-American pilot who died in World War II.

Chen said besides the traffic problem, the site has fallen into disrepair.

“As you can see, those metal braces are preventing future cracking because there are cracks right now horizontally on the two columns, so one way or the other something needs to be done. This is not a way to honor the dead,” said Chen.

The funding comes as many businesses in Chinatown try to rebuild after the pandemic.

“The community needs this stimulation,” said Jackson Lau, manager of Dim Sum Go Go. “I hope it attracts more than just tourism, like local people coming to Chinatown. It’s Chinatown. It’s Manhattan. It invites every single New Yorker to come.”

Bringing more people to Chinatown is exactly what Chen hopes a new and improved Kimlau Square will do.

“In the future, mark my words, this square will be celebrated for many years to come. This is really for the future. This is what we call the legacy project,” said Chen.

According to the city, part of revitalizing the area in Chinatown will include more public space and a plan to allow for direct access to the Brooklyn Bridge from the square.