Benny Ong had emigrated to the United States in1921, at the age of twelve. Soon after his arrival in New York City, he took a two-dollar-a-week job in a laundry, developed a taste for gambling, and, on his eighteenth birthday, followed his older brother Sam into the Hip Sing. Like many young men of his generation, Benny Ong had played a role in the great tong wars of the 1920s and â30s, during which territories and criminal rackets were established by the Hip Sing and On Leong tongs that remain deeply imbedded in the structure of modern-day Chinatown.
In 1935, Ong was arrested in connection with the death of a man during the robbery of a gambling game run by a rival tong. Legend has it that Ong was innocent and went to jail rather than implicate another Hip Sing member. Later newspaper reports revealed, however, that he admitted his guilt and provided the identities and whereabouts of three alleged accomplices. Either way, Ong was found guilty of murder and served the next seventeen years in an upstate New York prison. When he was paroled in 1952, he returned to Chinatown and picked up where heâd left off, eventually assuming leadership of the Hip Sing tong from his brother, who died of cancer in 1974.
Uncle Benny may have had a checkered past, but he was still a tong leader, which afforded him a position of considerable power. And his stature increased even more when, in the mid-1970s, he became a ranking member of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), Chinatownâs official governing body, comprised of leaders from the abundant family associations, district associations, and tongs.
As leader of the Hip Sing, Uncle Benny was believed to have been the first to establish strong ties between the tongs and the gangs. At the time Uncle Benny took over, the gangs were getting uppity, shaking down merchants, robbing tong-sponsored gambling parlors, and showing a general lack of respect toward community elders. Ong saw the value in incorporating gang members into the tong structure, where their activities would become more organized and perhaps less wantonly destructive to the community at large.
Of course, paying gang members to protect Hip Sing gambling halls and to apply pressure during territorial disputes was also a great personal benefit to Benny Ong. Bennyâs power in Chinatown continuedto grow, even though he was jailed again briefly in 1977 on charges of having bribed an immigration official.
The lengths that Uncle Seven was willing to go in utilizing the leverage of the gangs became a matter of great controversy in December 1982, following one of Chinatownâs most well-known gangland slaughters. Two days before Christmas, four gunmen from the Flying Dragons walked into the Golden Star tea room, a Chinatown saloon on East Broadway. Using an assortment of automatic weapons, they let loose a barrage of gunfire. Patrons dove for cover behind tables and booths. Shattered glass littered the room like confetti. By the time the gunmen fled, three people lay dead and eight more had been seriously injured.
The Golden Star was a popular gathering place for members of the Kam Lum, an upstart tong recently begun by a disaffected Hip Sing member. In Chinatown, trying to start a new tong in another tongâs territory was like trying to eat a bowl of chicken broth with chopsticksâit simply wasnât going to work. Benny Ong viewed the very existence of the Kam Lum as a challenge to his authority. In a rare instance of public frankness, he was quoted in New York magazine as saying of the Kam Lum leader, âSixty year I build up respect and he think he knock me down in one day?â
After the shooting, the angry Kam Lum leader first accused Ong of having masterminded the bloodbath, then had grave second thoughts. Eventually, he apologized to Uncle Seven and his tong all but disappeared from the scene.
Now, eight years after the Golden Star massacre, Benny Ong was faced with a new
In 1935, Ong was arrested in connection with the death of a man during the robbery of a gambling game run by a rival tong. Legend has it that Ong was innocent and went to jail rather than implicate another Hip Sing member. Later newspaper reports revealed, however, that he admitted his guilt and provided the identities and whereabouts of three alleged accomplices. Either way, Ong was found guilty of murder and served the next seventeen years in an upstate New York prison. When he was paroled in 1952, he returned to Chinatown and picked up where heâd left off, eventually assuming leadership of the Hip Sing tong from his brother, who died of cancer in 1974.
Uncle Benny may have had a checkered past, but he was still a tong leader, which afforded him a position of considerable power. And his stature increased even more when, in the mid-1970s, he became a ranking member of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), Chinatownâs official governing body, comprised of leaders from the abundant family associations, district associations, and tongs.
As leader of the Hip Sing, Uncle Benny was believed to have been the first to establish strong ties between the tongs and the gangs. At the time Uncle Benny took over, the gangs were getting uppity, shaking down merchants, robbing tong-sponsored gambling parlors, and showing a general lack of respect toward community elders. Ong saw the value in incorporating gang members into the tong structure, where their activities would become more organized and perhaps less wantonly destructive to the community at large.
Of course, paying gang members to protect Hip Sing gambling halls and to apply pressure during territorial disputes was also a great personal benefit to Benny Ong. Bennyâs power in Chinatown continuedto grow, even though he was jailed again briefly in 1977 on charges of having bribed an immigration official.
The lengths that Uncle Seven was willing to go in utilizing the leverage of the gangs became a matter of great controversy in December 1982, following one of Chinatownâs most well-known gangland slaughters. Two days before Christmas, four gunmen from the Flying Dragons walked into the Golden Star tea room, a Chinatown saloon on East Broadway. Using an assortment of automatic weapons, they let loose a barrage of gunfire. Patrons dove for cover behind tables and booths. Shattered glass littered the room like confetti. By the time the gunmen fled, three people lay dead and eight more had been seriously injured.
The Golden Star was a popular gathering place for members of the Kam Lum, an upstart tong recently begun by a disaffected Hip Sing member. In Chinatown, trying to start a new tong in another tongâs territory was like trying to eat a bowl of chicken broth with chopsticksâit simply wasnât going to work. Benny Ong viewed the very existence of the Kam Lum as a challenge to his authority. In a rare instance of public frankness, he was quoted in New York magazine as saying of the Kam Lum leader, âSixty year I build up respect and he think he knock me down in one day?â
After the shooting, the angry Kam Lum leader first accused Ong of having masterminded the bloodbath, then had grave second thoughts. Eventually, he apologized to Uncle Seven and his tong all but disappeared from the scene.
Now, eight years after the Golden Star massacre, Benny Ong was faced with a new
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