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A makeshift memorial outside of slain Chinatown resident Christina Yuna Lee’s apartment building was vandalized overnight, her former landlord told The Post on Wednesday.
The memorial, which was set up on the sidewalk in front of the building where Lee was stabbed to death over the weekend, featured flowers, candles and signs decrying anti-Asian hate, some of which were found destroyed Wednesday morning.
“This morning, the candles that we have all lit as a community for her during the vigil and we all left out here were smashed. The ‘Stop Asian Hate’ sign was torn. One sign was ripped up. I threw it away,” Brian Chin, the landlord of the Chrystie Street building where Lee was found butchered to death in her bathroom over the weekend, said Wednesday.
“I had to clean up all the shattered glass. I try to put the sign back together as best as I can … They try to desecrate her as much as they could and we as a community are beyond fed up, we are beyond angry and we are tired of being attacked,” he added. “We are tired of seeing this hatred and we are not going to stand for it anymore.”
Early Sunday morning, Assamad Nash, 25, allegedly stabbed Lee 40 times and left her to die after he forced his way into her sixth-floor apartment after she returned home from a night out.
During Nash’s arraignment Monday night, prosecutors said the attack was sexually motivated but they’re continuing to investigate to determine if race also played a role.
Wellington Chen, the director of Chinatown Business Improvement District, was outside of the building Wednesday afternoon helping to tape signs around the memorial and arrange flowers as others swept up shards of glass from the shattered candles.
“You don’t desecrate a memorial like this … on top of this horrific event, that’s the last thing we need,” Chen said.
“It means a lot to us Asian people and it should mean a lot to all New Yorkers, too.”
Virginia Buchan, who stopped by the memorial to pay her respects, said she was “horrified” by the vandalism.
“This is simply an outpouring of empathy and recognition for a woman,” said Buchan, a teacher who lives in Chinatown and has two adopted Asian children.
“I am angry and appalled. I find it incomprehensible. Why would somebody take the trouble of destroying a peaceful memorial?”
Wai Fun Tso, who’s lived in the neighborhood for two decades, was furious to hear the memorial had been vandalized.
“This is racism against Asians. I can feel it. Why are they after us? I don’t know. We didn’t do anything wrong,” Tso, 62, said.
“I feel sad. I am upset. Don’t touch it. Leave it alone. Let her rest in peace.”
Chin, who previously had surveillance cameras set up outside of the building, said the vandalism wasn’t captured on tape because the NYPD took his equipment as part of their probe into Lee’s murder.
He said he didn’t report the vandalism to cops.
“What’s the point?” he questioned.
“It’s a sign of how things are in the Asian community. We don’t report these things anymore.”
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