Left on the walls

Small ads, like those posted on poles or stairwells in Chinatown, may look messy and temporary, but they carry deep meaning. For many immigrants, they’re more than just flyers — they’re lifelines. They offer housing leads, job listings, community classes, and more, all in languages and visuals that feel familiar.

My project started with the question: what do these little pieces of paper say about the people who put them up — and the people who read them? As an international student, I grew up seeing these ads in my neighborhood. When I moved to New York and saw similar ones in Chinatown, I felt an instant connection. That’s when I knew I wanted to preserve and reimagine this visual culture in a digital space.

To bring this idea to life, I built a website that lets users generate digital small ads — the kind you’d see pasted on a wall in Chinatown. The layout, fonts, and colors are randomly generated to mimic the wild, overlapping style of real-life flyers.

In the first version of my site, users could only create one random ad at a time. Now, in the second version, they can upload their own information and store it on the site — just like posting on a real community board.

“

In the movies, they always say— New York is a city of miracles. A place where everyone can find their own.

But as I walk the streets, I find myself drawn not to miracles, but to the everyday lives beneath them.

I wandered into Chinatown that day, and saw countless small ads plastered across the streets.

Red ones, yellow ones, bold white letters, each scribbled over with black ink.

Through these colorful, wild little posters, I glimpsed the true lives behind them.

To many, these slips of color are just decorations on the city’s walls.

But for countless immigrants, they are the first chapter of a new life.

In a time without social media, without translation apps to bridge the silence,

my uncle began his life in America, guided by nothing more than a small red slip of paper on a wall.

He once told me, he still remembers it clearly—

The weight of that red card in his hand, the way he crouched by the roadside, dialing the number that could change everything.

For those who arrived without the language, these ads held the map to living—

A doctor to trust, a roof to sleep under, a job to survive, a teacher for their children, a gentle hand for their elders.

All of life’s fragile hopes, tucked into those chaotic, fading slips of paper.

Now, these little ads are quietly slipping out of our lives.

A screen in our palms offers all the answers, and the old paper slips, left behind, grow yellow and brittle— becoming memories of a time we no longer touch.

Even as they still flutter along the streets, no one really stops anymore. No one leans in for a closer look, or lifts a camera to remember them.

I want to preserve these small ads, these fragile pieces of everyday miracles.

I want them to live alongside the new age, to remind us, always— how deeply they once mattered, woven into the fabric of our lives.

To paste a small ad on the wall, or to tear one free, is to believe, still, in miracles.

To believe someone will notice, to believe someone will answer.

The wind keeps carrying their hopes, and the story of immigrants drifts on— unwritten, unfinished, alive.

”