Chin was by his side, trying to contain an odd, nervous excitement that seemed bizarrely out of place. Lin had broken bones in his face and needed surgery. Chin went with him to the hospital while the police arrested his assailant. Lin’s left eye was swollen shut, his mouth an open wound, blood trailing from his nose. Lin slept on his cot, a shelter resident with a history of arrests jumped Mr. 1, 2014, while he was talking to a shelter administrator and Mr.
Chin managed to deflect attention with a tough-guy mien. Chin’s hot spot connection to get online and watch his old movies.įights and robberies in the shelter were not uncommon, but Mr. Lin had picked up an old smartphone someone had left behind on a park bench. As residents cycled in and out, they moved their cots closer together.īy then, Mr. Over the next two years, the men settled into life at the homeless shelter. He smiles slightly, unsure quite what to do. Lin sits more stiffly, his hands clasped in his lap, his puffy coat zipped to his collar. They finally made it to the front for a photo with Santa. If any parents looked at them sideways, Mr. They stood in line, two middle-aged homeless men towering above a sea of children. One December, they even went to Macy’s in Midtown to see Santa Claus. Extensive details of their years together were also left behind in grainy snapshots, police reports, immigration forms, nonprofit records, court transcripts and old emails. Lawyers, aid workers and friends who met them marveled at their devotion to each other. New York adventures became part of their friendship, which deepened over time. Everything was the first thing he ever saw.” “The tiger really came out, it was the first tiger he ever saw.
Lin grew bored after a couple of floors and they quickly decamped for Central Park. They tried the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but Mr. They took the Staten Island Ferry, where the view from the deck reduces the skyline to a Tinkertoy city you can scoop into your hands. They kept exploring New York, two homeless men in a postcard-perfect montage. They were New Yorkers, this was their city and maybe they would have another hot dog, why not.
For that afternoon, it felt like their lives extended beyond shelter curfews and park benches. They walked along the boardwalk and bought hot dogs for lunch. “We called them brothers,” said Mireille Massac, a Brooklyn food bank organizer who spent time with them.
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He spent his days shuffling along the streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown, smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk, watching staticky TV in threadbare Fujianese community centers.īut the men soon began spending so much time together - always chatting in the shelter, strolling downtown streets, sharing plates of noodles - that acquaintances assumed they were family. He was indeed undocumented, and although he had worked in innumerable Chinatown kitchens, his poor health had long ago made steady work impossible, and he looked far older than his 46 years. It would be a while before he described his years scraping by in New York. They ran through his mind on a loop, but he divulged them to no one, certainly not this new acquaintance, and instead shared his story in broad strokes - he was born in Hong Kong and had grown up in New York and was new to being homeless. Chin possessed little more than his closely guarded secrets, including a criminal record that haunted him. Chin sized him up with an expert eye: an immigrant, most likely from Fujian Province no family, no English, no documents. The man was skinny, his ill-fitting clothes hanging loosely on his frame. On that evening in 2012 in the Barbara Kleiman Residence in East Williamsburg, he saw only one other Chinese person in the room. Chin had to learn his city anew, and now - he could still hardly believe it - as a homeless person. A college graduate and former civil servant, Mr. The Chinatown restaurants he frequented with his wife and daughter, the elementary school drop-off routine, the friendly neighbors in Queens - these had been the trappings of a middle-class life that once seemed secure. Chin was alone, stewing in anger and shame over all he had lost and how low he had fallen. On his first night at the Brooklyn homeless shelter, Tin Chin met his best friend.Įstranged from his family, Mr.
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