Running for Chinatown: A Hopeful Future Firefighter’s Quest to Support the City That Raised Him
“If I were a firefighter right now, I would be out there.”
Leland Yu spent his childhood running around Chinatown. In the wake of the pandemic, the future first responder ran over 60 miles to raise $20,000 to support the Manhattan neighborhood’s recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Photo courtesy of Leland Yu
One hour after sunrise on the first day of May, Leland Yu recorded a short video to post to Instagram. Dressed in a dark, water-resistant jacket, the 29-year-old appeared calm and collected, though his eyes gave way to anticipation of something intimidating ahead, like a kid who is aptly prepared yet still nervous before his first day of pre-K. The voice on the other side of the video warned, Four minutes! to which Yu responded, Gotta go! and jumped from his seat in the kitchen to put on his backpack and head out the door.
Earlier, Yu had woken up, eaten a slice of bread and drank a buttered coffee boosted with coconut oil. The weather that day would start off in the low 50s, the skies grey, with wind gusts reaching 20 mph. It wasn’t an ideal day to be outdoors, but then again, it hadn’t been for months.
It took 72 hours or so from Yu’s epiphany—while on a previous outdoor run—to figure out the logistics of his place in the pandemic as a healthy, able-bodied person and lifelong New Yorker. Yu figured he would volunteer for God’s Love We Deliver while relying on unemployment to pay the bills. Then the fear crept in. Was it really safe to go out right now? He wondered. Deaths from complications of the coronavirus were continuing to rise each day during the month of March—and in April—the city found itself dealing with the stench of bodies decomposing in rental trucks instead of morgues. If I were a firefighter right now, I would be out there, Yu told himself. He knew he had to do something to help.
If Yu were playing a game of Never Have I Ever, he would put down three fingers for the following: Never had he ever tapped his (large) collective network for help, never had he ever used his (small) social media following to champion a social cause, and never had he (certainly) ever run more than 20 miles consistently at once. Nevertheless, at 6:57 last Friday morning, Yu stepped out onto the corner of Fourth Avenue and 15th Street in Brooklyn, where—to his surprise—two of his friends were waiting to send him off on a 12-hour run that would soon result in over $20,000 in donations for New York City Chinatowns.
Depending on how you look at it: Yu either trained his entire life for this moment, or sprinted into it almost entirely unprepared. As a kid, Yu spent most of his time running around Manhattan’s Chinatown. If you ask him, he would sum up his experience from ages five to 17 as: school (he’s especially fond of his time at P.S. 124), park (playing sports like 9-man volleyball and handball), dumplings (a staple of any noble athlete's diet), dancing (learning to mimic the movements of the lion), repeat (until leaving for Binghamton University). Despite his active upbringing, Yu had never been much of a runner, not until he started training to become a firefighter, a program which he was on track to complete in April—until the crisis hit. Around the same time the FDNY initiation came to a temporary halt, Yu was also laid off from his job as a line cook at Insa, a Korean BBQ restaurant and karaoke bar in Gowanus.
With extra time on his hands, Yu crafted what he called a “ridiculous challenge” to get the attention of anyone—fraternity brothers from college, friends from growing up in the city, co-workers from past restaurants—who might’ve needed a nudge to donate to his chosen cause, Welcome to Chinatown. (Which, as of early May, has delivered over 5,000 free meals to frontline workers—and collected almost $50,000 to reinvest in Chinatown businesses.) “These legs were born to run,” he said of a photo of himself as a kid which he posted in part to explain five reasons why he was asking for donations through the @runforchinatown Instagram—an account he created three days before the fundraiser took place. “Let’s bring energy back into a place that means so much to so many,” Yu said, knowing he had a triple-threat compelling cause as a local kid (1) who was raising funds for essential workers (2) since his dream of becoming a first-responder was put on pause (3). “Chinatown is a close-knit community,” Jennifer Tam, one of the co-founders of Welcome to Chinatown, told Canal Street News. “[Yu’s family] has been a part of Chinatown for a long time. It’s people like him who we really admire because it’s another testament to the community coming together to weather this storm.”
Though Tam was referencing the disproportionate effects of coronavirus on Chinatowns around the world, at exactly 7 a.m. on the day of the fundraiser, Yu set off into a bit of an actual storm. The weather was terrible, he said. Plus, his foot hurt. At one point, he thought he might have to walk rather than run. But he didn’t tell anyone. Instead, he pulled up his scarf as a makeshift mask and started the clock on the GPS-fitness app, Strava, so potential donors and onlookers could track him throughout the day. Almost immediately, nearly 200 people signed up to support the run at the requested $1 per mile.
“This is so dope!” Brooklyn Crafted commented. “We owe you a cold ginger beer at the finish line.” Another follower encouraged him with the mantra “add oil!” while others tagged @theellenshow or @newyorknico in hopes of attracting the attention of popular accounts with large followings. But Yu ended up knowing almost everyone who contributed to the Welcome to Chinatown Go Fund Me on his behalf. Some, he said, pledged generously—up to $10 a mile—and everyone gave what they could. He thought this might be the case, that his combined friend group would see his plea and think For him? For this? I’ll dig deep.
Leland Yu ran over 60 miles, crossing back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan, to raise nearly $20,000 for his neighborhood of Chinatown.
Yu started the trek through DUMBO, quickly crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, zipping down around the outermost part of lower Manhattan, and within four hours had reached Hamilton Heights. He was soaked from a mix of scattered showers and early morning mist, which almost hid the George Washington Bridge on his way uptown. “Mitsuwa pitstop?” Yu joked, posting a photo of his New Jersey view during one of his every-two-hour on-the-hour updates.
Along the way, Yu let his mind go blank. His foot pain eventually went away. He listened to music, took in the ghostly sight of the empty city, which—he hates to admit—was kind of fun to experience. Yu ran along the Hudson River, past the highest natural point in Manhattan—265 feet above sea level—and looped around Fort Tryon Park in Inwood. He thought, based on previous runs, that he would realistically cover about five miles an hour and—given the 12-hour benchmark—would probably hit around 60 miles altogether—despite the fact he had never run nowhere near that far.
By the time the sun started its descent for the day, after reaching its peak at 12:53 p.m., Yu had already logged over 30 miles. A few hours later, a fellow lion-dancing friend met him at mile 43, where Yu chugged a bottle of San Pelligrino while sporting a New York Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club T-shirt, before continuing on for his eighth hour straight. (Throughout the day, Yu also fueled his body with Clif Bars, beef jerky and Gatorade to keep his energy up.) Without his friends—the ones he met through the aforementioned Chinatown athletic club he joined when he was 14 years old—Yu said he might’ve given up around mile 30 if they hadn’t met him around the city to keep his spirits high. (As a testament to their style of encouragement: Filming from the 103rd Street 6 train stop in East Harlem, a friend posted an update on the @runforchinatown Instagram Story to note that Yu was still going strong, and added the run was making his [peach emoji] look “real good.”)
If you’re wondering how someone stomachs the stamina necessary to accomplish this achievement of both the mind and body, you should know that Yu comes from a long line of heroes, many of whom have gone great distances without recognition. This year, amidst the increase in racism toward Asians during COVID-19, Yu’s family will accept a Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of his great-grandfather, Sing Kee Chin, who fought for America in World War II, even as the country at the time did not allow him to immigrate to the United States. (The Chinese Exclusion Act also forced his grandfather, a so-called “paper son,” to use someone else’s identity to gain citizenship in America.) Meanwhile, his mother, Minerva Chin—who is a founding member of the after school and summer program A Place for Kids—has been named both a “local hero” and an “agent of change” within the past decade for her work in lower Manhattan after 30 years as a public school teacher at P.S. 130 in Chinatown. Yu said his mother didn’t quite understand her son’s initiative and—in a funny way, he insists—even forgot entirely about the run when she texted him out of excitement that Green Garden Village (or 216 Grand St.) had reopened for business. When he failed to respond to her photo in a timely manner, it hit her: Today was the big day, and she wished him all the luck.
The fourth-generation hero of our story had a rough idea of the general route he wanted to take, though he was determined all the while to end the run in Chinatown in honor of his upbringing. After making a U-shape around Central Park—forgoing the northern stretch to turn down Lexington Avenue, popping over to Second Avenue to pick up 44th Street then over to 12th Avenue to head south—he double backed around the tip of lower Manhattan in order to run across his second bridge of the day. He crossed over into Williamsburg, taking Kent Avenue until it turned into Flushing, and geared up to let the Manhattan Bridge lead him home. The sun had come out by then, and—somehow—Yu was all smiles, the scarf he had used to keep warm and safe at the start now served as a headband for the final stretch.
In that moment, past the point of human exhaustion that most could not fathom, Yu didn’t neglect to shout out “where it all started” as he spotted P.S. 124, his Chinatown elementary school, from the bridge. Some of his friends from then still live in the neighborhood, he said, so they met him with seven minutes to go until 7 o’clock to cheer him across the finish line. One drove by blasting music as Yu steadily jogged alongside Columbus Park, barreling up Baxter, grinding down Grand then hanging a right onto Mott—right past the apartment where his mother still lives, like his family has for years. “Mom! Mom! Mom!” He and his friends yelled like they were kids again, coming home after school with a belly full of dumplings.
Yu recognizes, especially during Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, that the brave generations that came before him forged a path for Yu to appropriately wrap his journey with a victory lap in Chinatown. Though, unfortunately, with the current state of the city, celebratory and almost-obligatory dim sum would have to wait. Rather, Yu carb-loaded with a slice of pepperoni pizza—chased it down with Shin Ramyun instant noodles—and announced the final count on Instagram: 61.6 miles in 11 hours, 59 minutes and two seconds. Overall elevation: 1,439 feet. Total donations: Nearly $20,000—and counting.
As you might expect, the recovery process after running over two marathons worth of mileage in 12 hours takes time. For the first three days, Yu took it easy. He could, understandably, hardly move. The soreness from such a physical feat is caused by microscopic damage to muscle tissue, which, irrespective of how it sounds, is actually a good sign. Some experts recommend one day of rest for every mile run, others say it should be a day per kilometer, though it varies from person to person. Regardless, if the recovery is rushed, it could cause permanent damage beyond repair.
When we talked on Tuesday, Yu was outdoors for the first time since Friday evening, stretching his legs to ease himself back into his regular routine. He wasn’t running, but he was walking, and that was enough for then. “Leland’s run and accomplishments are so inspiring,” Tam said, confirming his one-day fundraiser increased funds for Welcome to Chinatown by roughly 20 percent, which helped the organization fulfill a request to feed 1,000 nurses who traveled to NYC to help with the coronavirus crisis.
It is people like Yu who give hope that Chinatown will recover in the same way Yu is currently: Slow and steady, taking the time needed to get back on its feet, which will vary from restaurant to cafe to 99 cent store. At first, it might look like a walk—maybe even a crawl—but soon we will see the city back up and running, and the community will continue to cheer it on along the way.
Indeed, with people like Yu, there’s no doubt we will all meet again on Mott Street, after our endurance has been tested, past the point of exhaustion, when the pandemic is finished. Only then will we be able to say, with the spirit and the strength of 10,000 dancing lions: Welcome to Chinatown.
