Lower Manhattan’s New Voice in the State Assembly

Yuh-Line Niou, who will soon take office as the first Asian-American to represent lower Manhattan in the New York State Assembly, began her working life the summer after her sophomore year in high school, eighteen years ago, as a temporary nurse’s aide. Niou’s mother, a nurse, had told her to “make herself useful.” The edict stuck and other jobs followed: as a hostess at a Japanese LaserDisc karaoke bar, car mechanic (“technically, I was the oil-and-lube girl”), legislative intern, and lobbyist. The other day, Niou stood on Bayard Street, outside what was once Winnie’s, a beloved watering hole in Chinatown that was shuttered last year, where she’d spent a stretch in 2010 mixing cocktails.

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