Actor Frank Chanfrau as Mose, the firefighting Bowery Boy, 1848 400 YEARS ON NYC’S OLDEST

STREET Mulkins D.

The Bowery—its broad, crooked arc first traversed on foot by Native Americans over unknown centuries—remains New York City’s oldest thoroughfare, and one of the world’s few streets whose name evokes meaning beyond a mere place on a map. Stretching 1.25 miles from Chatham Square to Cooper Square, 400 years of Euro-American history make the Bowery undisputedly the city’s most architecturally diverse & historically significant streetscape, with buildings representing every decade since 1780. Colonial Dutch bouwerij (farm) road; Manhattan’s Harvard Theatre Collection Harvard Theatre first Free Black settlement; George Washington’s Revolution-era procession route; epicenter of

WINDOWS ON Gruen/bobgruen.com Bob © THE BOWERY 19th century Irish-American political influence as well as German-American culture; the Bowery was also site of Lincoln’s famous anti-slavery speech. New York’s first entertainment district, since the early 1800s, the Bowery has incubated uniquely American cultural expressions, including tap dance, minstrelsy, vaudeville, jazz, Abstract Expressionism, Beat literature, and punk rock.

The Ramones outside CBGB, 1975

The Bowery was a 19th century stomping ground for the working class, the Bowery Boys gang, Top: 1901 stereoscope view of Bowery north from Canal gay New Yorkers and waves of Irish, Italian, Chinese, German and Jewish immigrants. Since the 20th century, it has served as a jewelry, lighting and restaurant supply district; a base for the homeless; and a live/work space for an influential community of cutting edge artists. WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY While the shiny, generic condos of recent overdevelopment consume rare & significant sites The Bowery is NYC’s oldest thoroughfare. Originally a Native American along the fabled thoroughfare, the Bowery’s importance was recognized with listing in the footpath and Dutch farm road (bouwerij means farm), it is a cradle of American culture, with seminal links to tap dance, vaudeville, Yiddish National Register of Historic Places in 2013. Despite this honor and widely supported calls theater, Lincoln, Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, tattoo art, Abstract Expressionism, Beat literature, jazz and punk rock. Though listed on for preservation, this richly layered repository of social, economic, political, cultural and the National Register of Historic Places, out-of-scale developments are displacing its residents, small businesses, and historic character. architectural history remains one of the country’s most endangered historic places. More info/link to Bowery’s National Register listing: boweryalliance.org

—Kerri Culhane, Architectural Historian Funding for the BOWERY SIGNAGE PROJECT: La Vida Feliz Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Patricia Field, Andre Balazs, Adam Woodward, John Derian, Michael A. Geyer Architect, and contributions from Bowery friends and neighbors. Poster Design: Professional Practice Class, The Cooper Union

Link to National Register of Historic Places for expanded research: http://boweryalliance.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/BoweryNRegisterDocument.164171445.pdf Bowery’s National Register nomination sponsors: Bowery Alliance of Neighbors and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council