Time's Up: Buzzcocks in Chinatown Photo Quiz Results

Okay, I think I left this one on the burner too long. In any event, everyone who weighed in seems to agree on the location. My good friend Erik of LightBulbHead fame (among various other `Net locales over the years) had this to say:

I actually recognized the band (a first!) and with some goggling I came up with 20 Mott Street as the location for the Buzzcocks to be standing. I haven't confirmed, but the Amazon "look inside" at the index of the book it's from (I swear I didn't check tumblr till after I found it) lists an Ian Dickson photo of them. This could be his.

Meanwhile, the enigmatically monickered MildMannered Pervert offered:

It was at 20 Mott Street (or at least it was in 1940! - that NYPL directory website is A-MAZING!) Don't bother looking it up on Google Maps as all you're gonna see is scaffolding and blue plywood.

But, again, leave it to Bob Egan of PopSpots to put in the hours and do some hands-on reporting. Here's Bob's take and his requisite photographic evidence beneath. Click on it to enlarge:

Hi Alex, 

I thought I’d weigh in on the Buzzcocks photo quiz as it provided me a fun afternoon wandering around Chinatown asking questions.

As you can see from my attached photo, I’m going to agree with commenter #3, MildManneredPervert , that the photo as taken at 20 Mott Street.
 
Be reversing the photo you can see the word HOP on the awning across the street , right where the WO HOP restaurant has been for 30 years.

And there is also, above the WO HOP awning, a similar brickwork style in both pictures, something discovered and pointed out  to me by Robert K Chin, a New York photographer , one of whose specialties is stock photography of Chinatown (you can Google Robert K Chin Photography to see his photos ) who was aiding me on my search. 

I also spoke to two long time Mott Street store owners from the 20 Mott block who remember  eating in the China Lane and remember it having stairs leading to a basement. 

So that’s what I’ve got.  Is that enough proof?  It’s not the killer wide shot photo of the band in front of the building, but circumstantially it’s not so bad.