The antiques man on East 55th

Following in the footsteps of a legendary figure, Chen Shizhen has cut out a sizable reputation for himself over half a century in New York

On a weekend morning in 1964, Chen Shiz-hen, 28, looked down from an eighth-floor window of the Ton Ying Company on East 57th Street in Manhattan and saw a familiar limousine parked in front of the building.

"That car belonged to John D. Rockefeller III, who came in almost every weekend to look for 'Chinese toys', as he would call those pieces of antique," Chen, now 83, says.