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It was the street your mother warned you about—even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well.
The Bowery is New York's oldest street and Manhattan's broadest boulevard. Like the city itself, it has continually reinvented itself over the centuries. Named for the Dutch farms, or bouweries, of the area, the path's lurid character was established early when it became the site of New Amsterdam's first murder. A natural spring near the Five Points neighborhood led to breweries and taverns that became home to the gangs of New York—the "Bowery B'hoys," "Plug Uglies," and "Dead Rabbits." In the Gaslight Era, teenaged streetwalkers swallowed poison in McGurk's Suicide Hall.
A brighter side to the street was reflected in places of amusement and culture over the years. A young P.T. Barnum got his start there, and Harry Houdini learned showmanship playing the music halls and dime museums. Poets, singers, hobos, gangsters, soldiers, travelers, preachers, storytellers, con-men, and reformers all gathered there. Its colorful cast of characters includes Peter Stuyvesant, Steve Brodie, Carry Nation, Stephen Foster, Stephen Crane, and even Abraham Lincoln.
The Bowery: The Strange History of New York's Oldest Street traces the full story of this once notorious thoroughfare from its pre-colonial origins to the present day.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
November 7, 2017 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781510726871
- File size: 4538 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781510726871
- File size: 4536 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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November 27, 2017
DeVillo (The Bronx River in History and Folklore) presents a cheerful, accessible history of Manhattan seen through the lens of its oldest street, the Bowery. The name is derived from the Dutch word bouwerie (farm) and dates back to the 17th century, when Dutch settlers established six farms on a trail north of New Amsterdam that became known as Bouwerie Lane. DeVillo tracks the central role this strip of land played in the transformation of New Amsterdam into the contemporary city of New York. The Bowery, he argues, was significant in the Big Apple’s cultural evolution: its theaters hosted prominent 19th-century talent such as Junius Booth, P.T. Barnum began his career at the Bowery Menagerie, and the city’s first movie theaters were built there. It was also a living laboratory for mass transit, from the 1832 debut of the world’s first horse-drawn passenger railway through the rise and fall of the Third Avenue El. DeVillo’s narrative continues through the street’s devolution into a synonym for skid row. Written in a witty, conversational tone (“Like many a later New Yorker, insisted on giving the out-of-towner a grand tour”), this is a breezy, fact-filled trip through NYC history. B&w photos.
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