Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Chinatown as $20 Million New York City Region Winner of Fifth-round Downtown Revitalization Initiative

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that Chinatown will receive $20 million in funding as the New York City Region winner of the fifth round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI). As part of DRI Round 5, each of the state's 10 regional economic development regions are being awarded $20 million, to make for a total state commitment of $200 million in funding and investments to help communities boost their post COVID-19 economies by transforming downtowns into vibrant neighborhoods.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:

Thank you. Thank you, Borough President, thank you. You are an extraordinary leader and I so, so enjoyed the evolution of our friendship, a deep friendship that started nearly a decade ago when I first started spending more time here. I want to thank her for her tireless, tireless advocacy for the people she represents. During the height of the pandemic, Gale and I walked into the Garment District many, many times. We walked the streets here. We stopped to just see people and say, are you okay? Can we help you in any way? So, she's amazing. I just want to thank her for being our Borough President, but onward to her next journey in life as our Council Member, Gale Brewer.

I do want to recognize an individual who's not here who wanted me to send her regards and that's Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez. I believe she's represented by staff here. I literally was just talking to her and she is fighting to get more money for small businesses. She's with the administrator of the SBA as we speak, otherwise she certainly would have been here. She has been a friend of mine and an ally since I was in Congress serving with her, so Nydia Velasquez.

Also, I do want to recognize Senator Brian Kavanagh and he's here for so many reasons, but he has been so intense in fighting for people who are the renters, the small businesses, and he worked so hard to get rent relief money out to the people of this community and across the state. I want to thank him for his incredible advocacy. We are blessed to have him as our senator, Senator Kavanagh.

And Margaret Chin and I have gone to a lot of senior centers, we've gone out for bubble tea, she makes sure I'm at all the best restaurants and so we've been doing this for a long time, my friend. Let's give a round of applause to Margaret Chin as well.

You've mentioned Kathy Wilde, an extraordinary leader who no matter the size of the business or what part of the city they're in, she is out there fighting and she did an extraordinary, extraordinary job during this pandemic to make sure that state government was responsive to the needs of the business community. Let's give her a round of applause as well.

I'm also proud of some new members of my administration. I promised diversity. I promised I'd bring the most qualified individuals and open up the doors so state government looks more like the people of the State of New York. We've accomplished that literally in a matter of two months and I want to thank someone who's starting her job and a very important job, overseeing all the government spaces throughout the entire State of New York - Jeanette Moy will be our Commissioner of General Services starting Monday, big responsibility, as well as others on my team who are represented here. Linda Sun is here. Linda Sun, where are you, Linda Sun?

Wellington, happy birthday. I want to thank you for your advocacy. You have been on the Regional Economic Development Council that Gale is discovering is a source of good money and you have been very, very strong in your voice for the Asian community in that capacity, as well as all businesses. So I thank you for that. And certainly Chung Seto, we've done a lot together as well. And to anyone else who's in the audience, I thank you.

I have a very simple message. It's simple but it's strong. Chinatown is back. We have been through too much for too long and we are rising up, my friends. We are rising back and there are so many factors at play right now.

Just this week we've opened back the doors to international tourism. The people who love coming here, when you go to New York City as a tourist, you're going to see the Statue of Liberty, you're going to see the Empire State Building, and you're going to go to Chinatown and we have missed this for too long. We want to welcome them back, give everybody a hug as long as they have masks on and say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

And I'm so grateful that all of the businesses and the individuals in this fabulously diverse, so interesting, this community of great culture and arts and entertainment and food that we have hung on through the darkest days.

I came here literally in February of 2020. A lot of people were anxious as the news was coming out of China and what was happening with this pandemic. I marched with my two Chinese nieces because it's our tradition to always go to the Lunar New Year parade. I stopped for bubble tea and it was sad to see that the businesses were already, in February before the rest of the country was figuring all this out, the businesses in Chinatown were already suffering.

So, this has been a long period of anxiety and frustration. And will I be able to hang on? You may be a proprietor of a family business that's been there for generations, part of the fabric of what makes this community so incredibly, incredibly interesting and fascinating, a place you would want to come to, and you're just thinking, can I just hang on a little bit longer? Well, you did.

You persevered, you showed the toughness of all New Yorkers and how we come through these together, and this is a unique opportunity for us to define the future going forward and to stand up in the face of so many challenges, not just a pandemic, but the rise in Asian hate, which I have come to this community so many times to say, I will stand with you, I am there with you, and I will fight back with you because if you touch a single person in this community you're picking a fight with 20 million New Yorkers.

And I say we are together in this. We've allocated $3 million to help fight hate crimes, to help protect people, and what I saw when I came here to open up a vaccine site - elderly Chinese Americans afraid to go out into the street to get a life-saving vaccine because they're afraid of being knocked down or castigated or harmed. And that was heartbreaking that that was going on in this city. So we stand together, we push back and we celebrate everyone who is a member of this family and that you have my commitment to continue doing so.

So I'm excited to be back here at the CCBA. I know you're going to charge me rent because I'm here all the time. That's all right. That's all right. We brought pop-ups here, we are here with members of the SOMOS community, make sure you have the resources.

I want to make sure we get the kids vaccinated now. All the parents out there and grandparents, everybody is asking me when we're going to get rid of the mask. And I really liked this "Chinatown Strong" mask personally. This is a new favorite of mine.

The masks come off when the kids are vaccinated. Let's just make that happen. We're in the throes of the end of this pandemic if we keep the numbers down, but I want to let people know that I'm very conscious of the fact that we are just craving that sense of normalcy. I do believe that the tourists coming back, the workers coming back downtown, more people getting vaccinated, that we are really at the beginning of the end of this and I cannot wait to celebrate this as well.

I forgot to mention Elaine Fan is now my Director of Asian Affairs. Elaine, are you out there? Where are you? Make sure you get to know Elaine Fan as well.

So you're all waiting for the big news. Drum roll, suspense. And yes, it is a competition that anyone who applies for the money from the Downtown Revitalization Initiative is scaled in comparison to people of all supplies throughout the boroughs.

And I agree with Gale and I asked the questions in the past administration, what about Manhattan? I know they've been applying. Where's the money? So now we're finally making up for lost time, but better than before.

In the past it had been a $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative, and your timing is such that we didn't put that money aside or throw it back in the budget.

We said the communities that had to endure 2020, 2021, they have been hit the hardest. So let's double that amount of money. Let's let the best application, and you won based on your merits, to receive $20 million so you can supercharge the community right off the bat.

And what we're going to do is make sure that you can build on your history, your legacy as a cultural destination, and we're going to also make sure that we are creating catalysts to ensure that the businesses that are here, but the new businesses who have the opportunity to go anywhere they want, will realize that this is one of the best places to do business.

So I'm not going to tell you what's in this now and the reason is we are reimagining, rethinking and redoing state government. And what does that mean? And Senator Kavanagh will know the history - for too long, state government has been telling everybody at the local level what to do. I know this because I spent 15 years in local government. I was always fighting back against the state. This is my community. I know what's best. I am empowering the locals to make decisions about their destiny and what they want for their people. That is how we're doing it here in the State of New York.

And Chinatown, I'm calling on all the great partners represented here, you came together and you formed a coalition that was powerful, one that's going to continue to endure way beyond this because there's going to be a long process. I need all of you engaging the local community boards, engaging the community. You come up with your vision, how you want this money spent, and then we'll start coming back about a year from now, we'll announce the ideas that have been selected. Most of them will be, but you'll probably ask for about $40 million worth of projects and you're going to get 20. So I'm just telling you, because I've seen this before. And then we start the fun - the groundbreakings, the ribbon cuttings and then we see there's no stopping us.

We have had this opportunity, once in a generation opportunity, to jumpstart the economy, to bring us back, and I tell you as sure as I'm standing here, my friends, there will be a time when we look back and they'll say, how did they get out of that pandemic? How did Chinatown rise again? And I will give one simple answer - they rose again together. They had a shared vision. They believed in this community to their core and they never, ever gave up.

I will never give up on you because you never gave up on yourselves and I look forward to coming back many times. I'm really good at ribbon cuttings, pretty good with a shovel as well as lieutenant governor. So I look forward to spending many more occasions with all of you and thank you all for believing. Thank you.