 Looking north fromHouston Street | |
| Former name(s) | Bowery Lane (prior to 1807) |
|---|---|
| Length | 1.6 km (0.99 mi) |
| South end | Chatham Square |
| North end | East 4th Street (continues asCooper Square) |
TheBowery (/ˈbaʊəri/)[1][2] is a street andneighborhood inLower Manhattan inNew York City, United States. The street runs fromChatham Square atPark Row,Worth Street, andMott Street in the south toCooper Square at4th Street in the north.[3] The eponymous neighborhood runs roughly from the Bowery east toAllen Street andFirst Avenue, and fromCanal Street north toCooper Square/EastFourth Street.[4][5][6] The neighborhood roughly overlaps withLittle Australia. To the south isChinatown, to the east are theLower East Side and theEast Village, and to the west areLittle Italy andNoHo.[6][7] It has historically been considered a part of theLower East Side ofManhattan.[8]
In the 17th century, the road branched offBroadway north ofFort Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan to the homestead ofPeter Stuyvesant,director-general of New Netherland. The street was known asBowery Lane prior to 1807.[9] "Bowery" is ananglicization of theDutchbouwerie, derived from an antiquatedDutch word for "farm": In the 17th century the area contained many large farms.[3]
TheNew York City Subway'sBowery station, serving theBMT Nassau Street Line (J and Z trains), is located close to the Bowery'sintersection withDelancey and Kenmare Streets. There is atunnel under the Bowery intended for use bya never-built subway extension.[10][11] TheM103 bus runs on the entire Bowery.
The Bowery is the oldest thoroughfare onManhattan Island, preceding European intervention as aLenape footpath, which spanned roughly the entire length of the island, from north to south.[12] When the Dutch settled Manhattan island, they named the pathBouwerie road – "bouwerie" (or later "bouwerij") being an old Dutch word for "farm"[13] – because it connected farmlands and estates on the outskirts to the heart of the city in today'sWall Street/Battery Park area.
In 1654, the Bowery's first residents settled in the area ofChatham Square; tenfreedmen and their wives set up cabins and a cattle farm there.Petrus Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor ofNew Amsterdam before the English took control, retired tohis Bowery farm in 1667. After his death in 1672, he was buried in his private chapel. His mansion burned down in 1778 and his great-grandson sold the remaining chapel and graveyard, now the site of the Episcopal church ofSt. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.[14]
In herJournal of 1704–05,Sarah Kemble Knight describes the Bowery as a leisure destination for residents of New York City in December:
Their Diversions in the Winter is RidingSleys about three or four Miles out of Town, where they have Houses of entertainment at a place called Bowery, and some go to friends Houses who handsomely treat them. [...] I believe we mett 50 or 60 slays that day – they fly with great swiftness and some are so furious that they'le turn out of the path for none except a Loaden Cart. Nor do they spare for any diversion the place affords, and sociable to a degree, they'r Tables being as free to their Naybours as to themselves.[15]
By 1766, whenJohn Montresor made his detailed plan of New York,[16] "Bowry Lane", which took a more north-tending track at therope walk, was lined for the first few streets with buildings that formed a solid frontage, withmarket gardens behind them; whenLorenzo Da Ponte, thelibrettist forMozart'sDon Giovanni,The Marriage of Figaro, andCosì fan tutte, immigrated to New York City in 1806, he briefly ran one of the shops along the Bowery, a fruit and vegetable store. In 1766, straight lanes led away at right angles to gentlemen's seats, mostly well back from the dusty "Road to Albany and Boston", as it was labeled on Montresor's map; Nicholas Bayard's was planted as anavenue of trees.James Delancey's grand house, flanked by matching outbuildings, stood behind a forecourt facing Bowery Lane; behind it was hisparterre garden, ending in anexedra, clearly delineated on the map.
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TheBull's Head Tavern was noted forGeorge Washington's having stopped there for refreshment before riding down to the waterfront to witness thedeparture of British troops in 1783. Leading to thePost Road, the main route toBoston, the Bowery rivaledBroadway as a thoroughfare; as late as 1869, when it had gained the "reputation of cheap trade, without being disreputable" it was still "the second principal street of the city".[17]
As the population of New York City continued to grow, its northern boundary continued to shift northward, and by the early 1800s the Bowery was no longer a farming area outside the city. The street gained in respectability and elegance, becoming a broadboulevard, as well-heeled and famous people moved their residences there, includingPeter Cooper, theindustrialist andphilanthropist.[3] The Bowery began to rivalFifth Avenue as an address.[3]
WhenLafayette Street was opened parallel to the Bowery in the 1820s, theBowery Theatre was founded by rich families on the site of the Red Bull Tavern, which had been purchased byAndrew Morris andJohn Jacob Astor; it opened in 1826 and was the largest auditorium inNorth America at the time.[3] Across the way theBowery Amphitheatre was erected in 1833, specializing in the more populist entertainments ofequestrian shows andcircuses. From stylish beginnings, the tone of Bowery Theatre's offerings matched the slide in the social scale of the Bowery itself.
By the time of theCivil War, themansions and shops had given way to popularmusic halls,brothels,beer gardens,pawn shops, andflophouses, like the one at No. 15 where the composerStephen Foster lived in 1864.[18]Theodore Dreiser closed his tragedySister Carrie, set in the 1890s, with the suicide of one of the main characters in a Bowery flophouse. The Bowery, which marked the eastern border of the slum of "Five Points", had also become the turf of one of America's earliest street gangs, thenativistBowery Boys. In the spirit of social reform, the firstYMCA opened on the Bowery in 1873;[19] another notable religious andsocial welfare institution established during this period was theBowery Mission, founded in 1880 at 36 Bowery by ReverendAlbert Gleason Ruliffson. The mission has remained along the Bowery throughout its lifetime. In 1909 the mission moved to its current location at 227–229 Bowery.
By the 1890s, the Bowery was a center forprostitution that rivaled theTenderloin, also in Manhattan, and for bars catering togay men and some lesbians at various social levels, from The Slide at 157Bleecker Street, New York's "worst dive",[20] to Columbia Hall at 5th Street, calledParesis Hall. One investigator in 1899 found sixsaloons anddance halls, the resorts of "degenerates" and "fairies", on the Bowery alone.[21] Gay subculture was more highly visible there and more integrated into working-class male culture than it was to become in the following generations, according to historianGeorge Chauncey.
From 1878 to 1955 theThird Avenue El ran above the Bowery, further darkening its streets, populated largely by men. "It is filled with employment agencies, cheap clothing and knickknack stores, cheap moving-picture shows, cheap lodging-houses, cheap eating-houses, cheap saloons", writers inThe Century Magazine found it in 1919. "Here, too, by the thousands come sailors on shore leave, – notice the 'studios' of the tattoo artists, – and here most in evidence are the 'down and outs'".[22]Prohibition eliminated the Bowery's numerous saloons: One Mile House, the "stately old tavern... replaced by a cheap saloon"[23] at the southeast corner ofRivington Street, named for the battered milestone across the way,[24] where the politicians of the East Side had made informal arrangements for the city's governance,[25][26] was renovated for retail space in 1921, "obliterating all vestiges of its former appearance",The New York Times reported. Restaurant supply stores were among the businesses that had come to the Bowery,[27] and many remain to this day.
Pressure for a new name after World War I came to naught[27] and in the 1920s and 1930s, it was an impoverished area. From the 1940s through the 1970s, the Bowery was New York City's "Skid Row," notable for "Bowery Bums" (disaffectedalcoholics andhomeless persons).[28] Among those who wrote about Bowery personalities wasNew Yorker staff memberJoseph Mitchell (1908–1996). Aside from cheap clothing stores that catered to the derelict and down-and-out population of men, commercial activity along the Bowery became specialized in used restaurant supplies and lighting fixtures.[3] In the 1930s and again in 1947, there were efforts to change the name of the Bowery to something more "dignified and prosaic", such as "Fourth Avenue South".[29]
The vagrant population of the Bowery declined after the 1970s, in part because of the city's effort to disperse it.[3] Since the 1990s the entire Lower East Side has been reviving, andgentrification has contributed to ongoing change along the Bowery. In particular, the number ofhigh-risecondominiums is growing.[30] In 2007, theSANAA-designed facility for theNew Museum of Contemporary Art opened betweenStanton and Prince Street.[31] In 2008,AvalonBay Communities opened Avalon Bowery Place, its first luxuryapartment complex on the Bowery; the structure includes aWhole Foods Market. Avalon Bowery Place was quickly followed with the development of Avalon Bowery Place II.[30]
The new development has not come without social costs.Michael Dominic's 2001 documentarySunshine Hotel followed the lives of residents of one of the few remainingflophouses. Construction on theWyndham Garden Hotel at 93 Bowery in the late Aughts destabilized neighboring building 128Hester Street (owned by the same man, William Su), and 60 tenants were thrown out of the building with the help of theDepartment of Buildings.[32] At least 75 tenants were displaced from 83 to 85 Bowery in January 2018 in frigid temperatures due to long-overdue repairs that needed to be made. Tenants accused the landlord of using this displacement to start renovating the buildings into a hotel,[33] and they went on a hunger strike.[34]
The Bowery fromHouston toDelancey Street still serves as New York's principal market for restaurant equipment and from Delancey toGrand for lamps.
Theupper Bowery refers to the portion of the Bowery north ofHouston Street; thelower Bowery refers to the portion south of it.[35]
In October 2011, a Bowery Historic District was registered with theNew York State Register of Historic Places and therefore was automatically nominated for listing on theNational Register of Historic Places. A grassroots community organization named Bowery Alliance of Neighbors (BAN) in association with the community-based housing organization called the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council led the effort for creation of the historic district. The designation means thatproperty owners will have financial incentives to restore rather than demolish old buildings on the Bowery.[37] BAN was recognized for its preservation efforts with aVillage Award from theGreenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation in 2013.[38] The historic district runs fromChatham Square toAstor Place on both sides of the Bowery.[36]
New York's "Little Saigon", though not officially designated, exists on the Bowery between Grand Street and Hester Street.[39]New York magazine claims that while this street blends in with neighboringChinatown, the area is filled withVietnamese restaurants.[40]
This company, founded in 1948 by Tony Amato and his wife, Sally, found a permanent home at 319 Bowery next to the formerCBGB and afforded many young singers the opportunity to hone their craft in full-length productions with a cut-down orchestration. The curtain fell on this well-established NYC opera forum on May 31, 2009, when Tony Amato retired.
TheBowery Savings Bank was chartered in May 1834, when the Bowery was an upscale residential street, and grew with the rising prosperity of the city.[41] Its 1893 headquarters building at130 Bowery is an official New York City designated landmark,[42] as is the 1920s domedCitizens Savings Bank.[43]
The Bowery Ballroom is a music venue. The structure, at 6 Delancey Street, was built just before theStock Market Crash of 1929. It stood vacant until the end ofWorld War II, when it became a high-end retail store. The neighborhood subsequently went into decline again, and so did the caliber of businesses occupying the space.[44] In 1997 it was converted into a music venue. It has a capacity of 550 people.[45]
Directly in front of the venue's entrance is theBowery station (J and Z trains) of theNew York City Subway.
The club serves as the namesake of at least one recording:Joan Baez'sBowery Songs album, recorded live at a concert at the Bowery Ballroom in November 2004.
The Bowery Mural is an outdoor exhibition space located on the corner ofHouston Street and the Bowery, on a wall owned by Goldman Properties since 1984. Real estate developerTony Goldman began the project with Jeffery Deitch andDeitch Projects in 2008. Goldman's goal was to use this wall to present the top contemporary artists from around the world, with an emphasis on artists who work on the streets. Seasonal murals have appeared on the wall curated and organized in collaboration with The Hole, NYC, an art gallery inSoHo run by former Deitch Projects directors Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman.
The mural series was initiated from March to December 2008 with a tribute toKeith Haring’s noted 1982 Bowery mural. This was followed by a mural by the Brazilian twin-brother duoOs Gêmeos, which they dedicated to artistDash Snow, who had recently died from a drug overdose; this was presented from July 2009 to March 2010. The next mural, byShepard Fairey, was on exhibit from April through August 2010, and was followed by a mural byBarry McGee which celebrated the role ofgraffiti tagging in the history of New York City street art; it was on display from August to November 2010. This was followed by a tribute to Dash Snow byIrak, which ran from November 24–26, 2010.[46] Other artists to have murals presented include the twins How & Nosm (2012),Crash (2013),Martha Cooper (2013), Revok andPose (2013),Swoon (2014), andMaya Hayuk.[47][48]
Bowery Poetry is a performance space at Bowery and Bleecker Street. It was founded in 2001 as Bowery Poetry Club (BPC), and provided a home base for established and upcoming artists. It was founded byBob Holman, owner of the building and formerNuyorican Poets Café Poetry Slam MC (1988–1996). The BPC featured regular shows byAmiri Baraka,Anne Waldman,Taylor Mead,Taylor Mali, along with open mic,gay poets, a weekly poetry slam, and anEmily Dickinson Marathon, amongst other events. The club closed in 2012 and reopened in 2013 as a shared performance space under the name "Bowery Poetry". Bowery Arts + Science presents poetry, and Duane Park presents alternativeburlesque in this space.[49]
The Bowery Theatre was a 19th-century playhouse at 46 Bowery. It was founded in the 1820s by rich families to compete with the upscalePark Theatre. By the 1850s, the theatre came to cater to immigrant groups such as theIrish,Germans, andChinese. It burned down four times in 17 years, and a fire in 1929 destroyed it for good.
CBGB, a club that was opened to playcountry,bluegrass &blues (as the name CBGB stands for), began to bookTelevision,Patti Smith, and theRamones ashouse bands in the mid-1970s. This spawned a full-blown scene of new bands (Talking Heads,Blondie, edgyR&B-influencedMink DeVille,rockabillyrevivalistRobert Gordon, and others) performing mostlyoriginal material in a mostly raw and often loud and fast attack. The label ofpunk rock was applied to the scene even if not all the bands that made their early reputations at the club were punk rockers, strictly speaking, but CBGB became known as the American cradle of punk rock. CBGB closed on October 31, 2006, after a long battle by club ownerHilly Kristal to extend its lease. The space is now aJohn Varvatosboutique.
Miner's Bowery Theatre was avaudeville orvariety show theater opened by SenatorHenry Clay Miner in 1878.[50] The theater was known for its method of encouraging anyone to get on stage and perform on amateur nights, and for its method of removing bad performers from the stage by yanking them off with a wooden hook.[51]Starting in the 1890s, a stage-prop shepherd's hook was used to pull bad performers bodily from the stage, after audience members shouted, "Give 'im the hook."[51] The phrase, "Give him the hook" originated at Miners Bowery Theatre.[51]
In December 2007, the New Museum opened the doors of its new location at 235 Bowery, at Prince Street, continuing its focus of exhibiting international andwomen artists and artistsof color. This new facility, designed by theTokyo-basedfirmSejima + Nishizawa/SANAA and the New York-based firmGensler, has greatly expanded the museum'sexhibitions and space. In March 2008, the museum's new building was named one of the architectural seven wonders byConde Nast Traveler.[52] The museum has an ongoingBowery Project honoring artists who lived on the Bowery with taped interviews and archived records.[53]
Notes
Historically, the Lower East Side and East Village neighborhoods and the Bowery area combined to form the 'Lower East Side' of Manhattan: between Fourteenth Street and the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges and between Broadway and the East River. ... Technically, Bowery ends at Fourth Street, where Cooper Square begins. Originally, Bowery ran to Union Square at Fourteenth Street, and served as the westernmost border for the historical Lower East Side. However, in 1849 wealthy residents of the Union Square area changed the name of their section of Bowery from St. Mark's Place to Fourteenth St. to Fourth Avenue, with Cooper Square (Fourth Street to St. Mark's Place) serving as a buffer zone, in an effort to dissociate it from the lowlier working-class and immigrant reputation of the Bowery (Anbinder 2001).
Now there is Joey Ramone Place.... The sign bearing Ramone's name recently went up on the corner of 2nd Street and Bowery, near CBGB, the group's musical home.
Reminders of the bands who have passed through CBGB remain all around the club, from the corner of Bowery and 2nd Street – now renamed Joey Ramone Place – to the countless band names scrawled on the bathroom walls.
Sources
Further reading
