Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets

Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets explores Chinatown through color, gesture, signage, weather, cultural memory, and everyday resilience — photographs of movement, humor, quiet collisions, and small moments of grace across Boston, New York, Paris, and San Francisco.

Cover of Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets by John Hoey, showing a blurred Chinatown street reflection with a red umbrella, white foreground shapes, the book title, spine, back cover text, and barcode.
View on Amazon

Book Details

Hardcover
12 × 12 in.
192 pages
Premium Lustre paper
Published by AJ Photographic Art, LLC
ISBN 979-8-9931925-4-3

Interior spread from Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets titled Flicker of the Old World, showing a pedestrian passing a large dragon mural beside a Kodak storefront in San Francisco Chinatown.
Diners eating inside a Chinatown restaurant, seen through a window with layered reflections, bowls, hands, glass surfaces, and street details.

Interior Spreads

Selected spreads from the book sequence.

Interior spread from Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets titled One Noodle at a Time, showing a man in a Chinatown restaurant holding a single noodle near his face, with bottles and warm interior light around him.
Interior spread from Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets titled Window Debate, showing people in conversation inside a Chinatown restaurant, seen through a red-framed window with street reflections and signage.
Interior spread from Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets titled Through Layers, A Smile, showing a smiling person seen through layered restaurant window reflections with buildings, cars, street lights, and interior details.
Interior spread from Concrete Lotus: Chinatown Streets titled Table in Waiting, showing an empty restaurant table and chair beside a window, with Chinatown street reflections and a pedestrian outside.

Selected Images

Individual photographs from the book.

Man seated at a Chinatown restaurant table behind a window, with dim sum, tea, menu cards, and layered street reflections across the glass.
Person with an umbrella seen through blurred Chinatown window reflections, white foreground shapes, a passing car, and layered street light.
Two diners eating noodles inside a Chinatown restaurant, seen through a window layered with street reflections, signage, hanging lights, and patterned glass.
Restaurant worker in a white coat and mask seen through a Chinatown window, layered with reflections of hanging roast ducks, street structures, and interior surfaces.
Person seen from behind wearing a floral shirt in front of a Chinatown restaurant with red signage, Chinese characters, parked cars, and city buildings.
Person wearing a large butterfly-patterned hat walking through a Chinatown street, with storefront signs, brick walls, and strong afternoon light.
Diners seated inside a Chinatown restaurant seen through a window, layered with reflections of pedestrians, lanterns, signage, tableware, and street activity.
Restaurant counter seen through layered Chinatown window reflections, with a worker behind the counter, warm lights, chairs, street reflections, and glass surface markings.
Person looking into a Chinatown bakery display case filled with cakes, layered with window reflections, business hours signage, and street details.
Person seated behind a Chinatown restaurant window looking at a phone, layered with reflections of buildings, signage, cars, and evening street light.