The On Leong Chinese Merchants Association or simply Chinese Merchants Association, formerly known as the On Leong Tong , was a tong

Tong (organization)

The word tong means "hall" or "gathering place". In North America a tong is a type of organization found among Chinese living in the United States and Canada. These organizations are described as secret societies or sworn brotherhoods and are often tied to criminal activity...

 society operating out of its territory in Mott Street

Mott Street

Mott Street is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north-south direction in the borough of Manhattan in New York City in the United States. It is best known as Chinatown's unofficial "Main Street". Mott Street runs from Chatham Square in the south to Bleecker Street in the north...

 in New York's Chinatown

Chinatown, Manhattan

Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...

. Established in November, 1893, the tong fought a violent war

Gang War

Gang War is a 1928 gangster film, best known for being the main feature attached to Steamboat Willie, the debut of Mickey Mouse in sound. The film starred Jack Pickford in his last major role, as "Clyde", a saxophone player whose love for a dancer named Flowers traps him in the middle of a gang war...

 for control of Chinatown's rackets and businesses with the Hip Sing Tong. In recent years the Tong has been linked to the Ghost Shadows

Ghost Shadows

The Ghost Shadows are a Chinese American gang that was prominent in New York City's Chinatown from the 1980s through the early 1990s.Formed in 1971 by immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia, the gang is believed to be under control of the On Leong Tong...

 street gang led by Wing Yeung Chan. Currently, there are over 30,000 registered On Leong members, the majority of them with a commercial or industrial background.

Branches

The On Leong Chinese Merchants Association has 23 branches in the United States including in:

• Baltimore, Maryland - 325 Park Avenue
• Boston, Massachusetts - 20 Hudson Street
• Chicago, Illinois - 218 W 22nd Place
• Cleveland, Ohio
  Cleveland, Ohio
  Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
  
   - 2150 Rockwell Avenue
• Detroit, Michigan
  Detroit, Michigan
  Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
  
   - 415 Peterboro Street
• Houston, Texas
  Houston, Texas
  Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
  
   - 6360 Corporate Drive
• Kenner, Louisiana
  Kenner, Louisiana
  Kenner is a city in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States, and a suburb of New Orleans. The population was 66,702 at the 2010 census....
  
   - 3201 Georgia Avenue
• Miami, Florida
  Miami, Florida
  Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
  
   - 1750 W Flagler Street
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
  Minneapolis, Minnesota
  Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
  
   - 318 S 3rd Street (defunct)
• New Orleans, Louisiana
  New Orleans, Louisiana
  New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
  
   - 530 Bourbon Street (relocated to Kenner)
• New York City, New York - 83 Mott Street
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
  
   - 911 Race Street
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
  
   - 522 3rd Avenue (defunct)
• Providence, Rhode Island
  Providence, Rhode Island
  Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
  
   - 34 Pontiac Avenue
• Richmond, Virginia
  Richmond, Virginia
  Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
  
   - 506 W Broad Street (defunct)
• St. Louis, Missouri
  St. Louis, Missouri
  St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
  
   - 3608 S Grand Boulevard (defunct)
• Washington, D.C.
  Washington, D.C.
  Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
  
  - 606 H Street NW

Further reading

• Denny Lee, Years of the Dragons Information on the history of Ghost Shadows, New York Times, May 11, 2003.
• MacIllwain, Jeffrey Scott. Organizing Crime in Chinatown: race and racketeering in New York City, 1890-1910. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2004. ISBN 0-7864-1626-2

External links

• On Leong Chinese Merchants Association website