Sunset Park

In Sunset Park, most Chinese bakeries also offer the famed “mo xi ge bao" or “Mexican bun,” a loving imitation of the concha or pan dulce. Hot coffee and sharp black tea await customers in giant vats, to be topped off with half-and-half and spoonfuls of sugar. 

Sunset Park wakes up early. 

Long before the earliest streaks of pink and grey hint at the sky, the dollar vans are warming the curbs of 8th Avenue, Chunghwa cigarettes dangling from the drivers mouths, the street vendors are setting up their tables and carts, people clad in work uniforms are walking briskly to the closest train, scooters are piling up at each stoplight, children of all ages are pouring out of their buildings carrying oversized backpacks and holding the hands of their grandparents. Weaving through it all is the sweet smell of fresh milk bread and sugary craquelin. It pours out of the vents and windows of the Guangdong-style bakeries lining each block of 8th Avenue from 65th St to 39th. Some blocks have bakeries side by side, and facing each other on both sides of the street. The invitation to stop in for a hot drink and fresh bread hovers on our clothes and reminds us of morning, telling the possibilities of another dollar, another day. 

Like any Chinese community, our bakeries are filled with variations of sweet milk breads that we lovingly call “buns” - Coconut Bun, Pineapple Bun, Custard Bun, Red Bean Bun, Taro Bun, Salted Egg Yolk Bun, even the beloved savory Char Siu and Pork Floss Buns. The Scallion Hot Dog Buns and boba for the Americanized kids and nostalgic ABC millennials. There are the golden, baked buns in the display windows, and the steaming white buns, chang fen, and lotus-leaf-wrapped sticky rice kept tucked behind the counter in their own separate sauna. In Sunset Park, most Chinese bakeries also offer the famed “mo xi ge bao" or “Mexican bun,” a loving imitation of the concha or pan dulce. Hot coffee and sharp black tea await customers in giant vats, to be topped off with half-and-half and spoonfuls of sugar. 

To accommodate the hours of our hard-working neighborhood, most of Sunset Park's bakeries are open for up to 14 hours a day, from as early as 6am to as late as 8pm, 7 days a week. A hot milk tea and fresh bun will run you no more than $3, maybe $4 or $5 these days with how prices are going. The bell on the glass door rings non-stop for hours on end as customers come in for their daily breakfast, lunch, or snack. The bakery workers greet you in Fujianese, Taishanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, and English (in that order of frequency), usually because they have known you for years and already know what language to address you in. If you're a new customer, they'll take a wild guess at what language you might speak, and adjust accordingly. Some bakeries have a linoleum table or two for customers to sit and eat, but these are not your typical cafe. Most customers are in and out, on their way to work or school. 

Who are the families that run these bakeries? How do they stay afloat with so many bakeries on each block, and with such affordable prices? Where do they get their recipes from? And how do all their buns carry that same nostalgic taste, almost as if a touch of condensed milk and brown sugar were weaved into the pores of each airy mound? What stories have these bakeries seen of our changing neighborhood over the years? What relationships have they built with their customers? What futures do they envision, or dream of, for their business, and their families?

Fei Teng Bakery is located on 9th Ave and 40th St, diagonal from Tung Sum Bakery and just up the block from Savoy Bakery, two other Chinese bakeries that offer Guangdong-style staples as well as neighborhood specials like a bacon egg and cheese or tortas de chorizo or al pastor. On this side of the neighborhood, the bakeries catch the thoroughfare of Chinese, Arab, Central and South American immigrants and the third culture kids of Sunset Park as they stream into and out of the 9th Ave D express train station. Fei Teng Bakery feels extra homey because of the kindness of the Wu family. Mrs. Wu runs the front of the bakery along with her son and daughter, while her husband Mr. Wu keeps the fresh buns baking in the back. She remembers everyone's order, down to the amount of milk and sugar in each cup of coffee or black tea, how hot or how cold you prefer your drinks, your favorite bun and sometimes when you like to switch it up from the scallion pork floss bun to the fried chicken bun. When the line grows out the door in the morning rush, she'll have your order ready in a brown paper bag before you even show up. And when you don't have enough to pay one day, she hands you your order anyway and says, “pay me next time”, even if neither of you has any idea when the next time will be. 

Mr. Wu is from Taishan, Guangdong, and immigrated to New York City in 1993. When he arrived, he learned to bake different styles of buns while working in Chinese bakeries in Manhattan's Chinatown. Here, he met Mrs. Wu, who was from a nearby small city in rural Guangdong. In one of these bakeries, he baked bread in the back while Mrs. Wu worked the front of the store. They knew they wanted to open a bakery of their own one day. 

After looking and looking for the right place, they finally found a storefront to rent on 9th Ave in Brooklyn's growing Chinese and Central American community. It even had an apartment to live in right above. The Wu's named it Fei Teng Bakery, “Fly & Soar Bakery“, and had their grand opening in December of 2000 when Mrs. Wu was still pregnant with her youngest daughter. Mr. Wu adjusted his recipes to meet the tastes of the different cultures in the neighborhood, while Mrs. Wu and their kids built lifelong relationships with their customers as hundreds of neighbors streamed in and out of the bakery each day. 

“Chinese, Mexican, American, we get everyone from the neighborhood here in equal numbers,” says Mr. Wu. 

The Wu family have continued to run their business over the past 25 years, despite a short stint in the start of the COVID pandemic when the Wu's thought they'd try out retirement, which they quickly got bored of and returned to their business a year later, renaming their bakery “Ho Ho Bakery Inc.” in its revival, meaning “Good Good Bakery” in Cantonese. Still, they kept the original Chinese characters on their awning, honoring the original meaning of rising above, bright and bold in auspicious red font.

Over a generation, their daily customers have watched their three kids grow up, go to college, and continue working at the bakery on the weekends while juggling jobs during the week. Customers come to the bakeries to celebrate birthdays or just to spend the day chatting and looking out the window. 

“This bakery is our second home,” says Michelle, the Wu's youngest daughter. “Our parents would bring us here so we wouldn't be alone at home.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Wu's dreams for their kids isn't to take over the business, though. “They have their own dreams,” says Mr. Wu. “I want them to pursue whatever it is they want for their lives.” 

“This work is tiring, 14-hour days, 7 days a week, always on your feet,” adds Simon, the middle son. Michelle, who just graduated from CUNY last year, is transitioning from working at the bakery all week while juggling her college courseload to considering a career in nursing. “Right now, the job market is rough and I am grateful for the work, but one day my parents will sell the place and live out their retirement dreams.”

When asked what makes his bread so fresh and delicious, Mr. Wu shrugs and insists simply, “Many years of experience.”

Bakeries like the Wu family’s make Sunset Park feel like home for the approximately 130,000 people living in our neighborhood. Without these bakeries, many of us wouldn't be able to afford the freshly baked breakfast that gets us through each day. With rising rent prices and the constant threat of ICE on our streets, many businesses are struggling to make ends meet. More hip cafes featuring $8 lattes and long wooden tables meant for remote work and conference calls have taken over storefronts that were once immigrant-owned delis, salons, grocery stores, or bakeries like Mr. and Ms. Wu's. 

What does Sunset Park look like for the generations to come? Will our neighborhood still be ours to share? What happens when one day there is no “next time” to pay each other back? I can't count the ways I would fight to keep this place our home, each character in their role, every sound, color, and smell in its place. Although I know this city is always changing and we are stronger for our instinct to survive through it all, I can't help but grieve all that is slipping through our fingers each time a family or business disappears as rent goes up each year. So every morning, right before the hues of pink and grey start to paint the sky, no matter where I might be along 8th Ave, I take in a deep breath of that fresh, sweet, golden bakery smell, mingling with the sharp steam of black tea, bitter coffee, the quick bells of delivery workers, shouts of grandchildren to their grandparents, and count the promises of another day in Sunset Park.