Walking Tour: The Bowery – from tap dance & vaudeville to skid row & punk rock
Organized by Bowery Alliance of Neighbors
Originally a Native American footpath and Dutch farm road, the Bowery was the city’s first entertainment district and “cradle of American popular culture.” It has seminal links to tap dance, vaudeville, Yiddish theater, Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, baseball, modern tattooing, and Harry Houdini.
The stomping ground for sailors, shopgirls, gangs, gays, grifters and the immigrant Irish, Italians, Chinese, Jews and Germans, it later became America’s iconic skid row, but rebounded in the late 20th century, impacting the emergence of Abstract Expressionism, free jazz and punk rock.
Architectural sites include the city’s oldest brick house, Stanford White’s Beaux Arts designed Bowery Savings Bank, and the Cooper Union, one of America’s first free universities. In 2013 it was named to the National Register of Historic Places. Join David Mulkins, author of The Bowery, a just-released illustrated history.