The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 351

The last kin 1 of Chinatown There was a time when merchant-gangster Harry Mook ruled Chinatown. But times have changed, power has shifted, and Mook has been abandoned by his allies on both sides of the law BY DANIEL GOLDEN VV Vf I 1 t- 'i. it 1 Tse, leader of the infamous Ping On (Peace) gang. According to federal investigators, Ping On was involved in gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, and heroin smuggling. It also controlled the booking of Chinese entertainment in Boston.

Yet Mook is not just a gangster. Until recently he was also a pillar of the Chinese community. The owner of an after-hours joint, the Four Seas restaurant on Tyler Street, Mook has been elected several times as a delegate to the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the neighborhood's traditional ruling body. He's been a board member of the South Cove YMCA and the Kwong Kow Chinese School. A registered Democrat, Mook has donated to political campaigns including a $1,000 contribution with his wife, Marie, to Senate president William Bulger in 1984 and obtained jobs and favors for Chinatown through connections at City Hall and the State House.

His family exemplifies respectability: Marie Mook, a social worker, helps Chinatown youth, one of their three children is a lawyer, and another The Licensing Board hearing drones on. Restaurateurs in drab suits beg for mercy for disturbing neighbors or selling beer to minors and listen glumly to the board chairman's reproaches. Then, on this September morning at Boston City Hall, the last supplicant on the agenda breaks the monotony. The man who steps to the front of the room is dressed like a Chinese Gatsby, from stylishly untucked silk shirt to matching white sandals. Heavy-set, with a broad nose and thin mustache, he wears a sleek gold watch and a huge jade ring that shines like the chrysalis of a butterfly.

Only his eyes belie his flamboyant outfit. Red-rimmed and weary, they imply that he's facing more trouble than a licensing citation. In truth, Harry Mook has enjoyed better days. From the late 1970s to the late 1980s, although his name rarely appeared in the media, the 56-year-old Mook was feared and revered as the godfather of Boston's Chinatown. His power base was the Chinese Freemasons Society, which he built into Chinatown's most powerful association, or tong, through his alliance with Stephen Daniel golden is a stakh writer for the globe magazine.

Photograph by Joanne Rathe The Boston Globe 17.