Leggett and Bradley were left to beg the volunteers wandering outside the event, clad in khaki green outfits reminiscent of Communist Party uniforms, for answers. Jose Rodriguez, 44, from New York City, was busy attaching heart-shaped stickers to his body that read: "Follow the good example such as Lei Feng."

Volunteers dressed in the uniform of Lei Feng try to catch a glimpse of Chen.

“They put me here to be one of his soldiers,” Rodriguez said, adding that Guangbiao is "a great man, because he’s trying to help people here.”

Before long, Guangbiao arrived with his own army of ear-pieced guards and an entourage in tow. People stuck behind the barricades booed him and shouted, “Fuck you!” and “Liar!” while his uniformed volunteers excitedly crowded around him and waved their arms like he was a pop star. Chen’s assistant and media liaison Margaret Yang clung tightly to her glossy black Chanel shopping bag amid the chaos.

Chen reaches through the gates outside the Boathouse to people who didn't

make it inside. That includes press who were invited.

The gates to the restaurant soon closed. Several members of the press weren’t allowed inside the Boathouse and milled around outside with the 100 or so volunteers, feeling the first prickling of late June heat exhaustion.

The 250 pre-selected guests eventually arrived in four buses driven from New York City Rescue Mission. They were greeted at the entrance by waiters in white gloves and bowties serving glasses of ice water on silver trays. One woman shouted, "I feel like a VIP today!" as she took a glass and walked inside. Many were reluctant to speak to the press, but Milles Mansa, took the time to defend Guangbiao.

“This is literally the wealthiest district in New York. There’s more millionaires and billionaires in New York than in any other city in the world. [Guangbiao’s] motive is to help the needy, that’s his only motive,” Mansa said.

But he agreed that the money should have been given to individuals. “It would have been better to give people the money,” he said.

Waiters await the arrival of New York's homeless with juice

and ice cold water.

Lorna Richardson, 36, came to Central Park from Hempstead, Long Island, and has been homeless and living in a shelter for nine months. Richardson and her son, Stephen, had tickets to the luncheon, which they got from New York City Rescue Mission, but like many, she would have appreciated the money.

“It’s been hard. I came to see the philanthropist, but at the same time I would have appreciated the money. That $300 could go towards me paying off my credit debt,” Richardson said.

“I just happened to look on the Internet real quick and it said, ‘Mr. Chen Guangbiao is giving away $300 to each attendee and a free lunch in Central Park.’ We could put that money in an interest-bearing savings account at the credit union and that will help us buy beds, linen, towels, cookware,” Richardson said.

A few enterprising homeless men, bitter about Guangbiao's bait and switch, plotted ways to sue him for false advertising by lying down and contracting heat exhaustion.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.