MOCA Collections Open House

Three Years After the Fire

Monday, January 23, 2023

Morning Open House from 11:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. and Afternoon Open House from 2:00 - 4:00 P.M. EST

MOCA Collections & Research Center, 3 Howard Street, New York, NY 10013

Free Admission | Open to General Public | Advance registration is not required but highly recommended.

Morning Open House Registration

Afternoon Open House Registration

Due to the limited capacity of the Workshop and efforts to adhere to safety guidelines, guests may have to wait to enter the collections space during peak times. RSVP does not guarantee immediate entry.

Almost three years ago on January 23, 2020, MOCA experienced a devastating 5-alarm fire at its collections and archives site located at 70 Mulberry Street in the heart of Chinatown.

In the days that followed, MOCA received an unprecedented outpouring of support from volunteers, community members, and professional institutions near and far that was critical to the successful rescue of MOCA's archives from the fire-damaged building. Many of MOCA's collections were originally salvaged from over 42 years of collecting from abandoned storefronts, vacated apartments and neighborhood trash cans at times when Chinatown and its population underwent change or were donated treasured family heirlooms that are simply irreplaceable. Our volunteers’ crucial collective efforts helped us save 95 percent of this invaluable 85,000-object collection of Chinese American history and heritage. 

Since October 2020, MOCA’s archives have been safely relocated to the MOCA Workshop on 3 Howard Street, the new temporary base of operation for MOCA’s ongoing and multi-pronged fire recovery and conservation efforts. 

To mark the third anniversary of the fire at MOCA's archives, we cordially invite you to attend MOCA's very first Collections and Research Center Open House on Monday, January 23.

What to Expect at the Open House

-Behind-the-scenes tours of MOCA's Collections & Research Center, custom-designed by renowned architect Ming Thompson to house MOCA's archives after the fire, featuring state-of-the-art collections storage, a reference library, and digitization stations.

-Conservation and preservation work-in-progress stations set up on the 1st and 2nd floors at which trained staff members will give live demonstrations of the photograph rehousing, newspaper rehousing, textile rehousing, and digitization work that they have been engaged in as part of MOCA's fire recovery efforts.

-Launch of the oral history recording station – As a repository and creator of one of the nation’s largest oral history collections documenting Chinese life in America, MOCA preserves and gives platform to often unheard American voices, in hopes of contributing to redefining the American narrative one story and one oral history at a time. MOCA will introduce a new oral history collecting initiative, and visitors can get a sneak peak into the intimate space in which interviews will be recorded.

-Projected slideshow presentations of the 5-alarm fire and efforts to rescue MOCA's collections, as well as new and ongoing archival initiatives, including new acquisition highlights, collections highlights, conservation workshops, and Sponsor An Object project.

-Display of newly acquired objects in the collection and MOCA on the Road objects, along with researched stories providing information and context about them, which shows how MOCA has been expanding and filling gaps in its collections since the fire

To all who have donated and entrusted us with your stories, thank you so much for helping us build this vast and beautiful archive of Chinese American history. It has been the distinct honor of our small but mighty staff to care for and offer access to an extensive collection of 85,000+ objects documenting and supporting research on Chinese American history. Please consider supporting our work through donating to MOCA's Fire Recovery Fund. No gift is too small and each contribution enables us to continue preserving MOCA's historical treasures for generations to come.

Support MOCA Fire Recovery and Conservation Efforts

Register for MOCA FEST 2023

Artwork courtesy of Dingding Hu, who collaborated on this series of Manhattan Chinatown illustrations with MOCA. Additional programs will be added, and full registrations will also become available throughout MOCA FEST.

Free Digital Guide

Discover more about the Museum in our bilingual digital guide on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app. Explore our permanent collection, get a behind-the-scenes look at our Responses exhibition, and more with exclusive audio content and commentary. Download the app here.

Download Free Bloomberg Connects App

Google Arts & Culture

In 2021, MOCA launched a partnership with Google to make hundreds of digitized images of objects, sculptures, letters, photos, and videos from MOCA’s collections available for free on the Google Arts & Culture digital platform. 

MOCA's special virtual exhibition titled Trial by Fire: The Race to Save 200 Years of Chinese American History, available exclusively on the platform, tells the story of the Museum’s race against the clock to retrieve, rescue, and repair its archives. Trial by Fire is an original MOCA exhibition written, researched, and compiled from the Museum’s daily social media posts, and primary sources such as videos and images, public records, and news reports that documented the first critical weeks of the fire, its aftermath, and recovery effort afterward.

In addition, over 200 digitized high-resolution images from MOCA’s collections are available for the first time on the platform, as well as digital exhibits of With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America, MOCA’s permanent exhibition, and the My MOCA Story video project, a crowdsourced social-media storytelling project launched by MOCA at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Explore Google Arts & Culture