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Leaving Chinatown, we emerge under a sombre shadow cast by many elevated trains converging at the junction of Chatham Square, Worth and Oliver Streets, and find ourselves on the Bowery.
What a change has come over this erstwhile "hot bed of carnival and crime," as the reporters used to call it!
Like many another far famed criminal locality the poor Bowery has lost even that doubtful distinction. McGurk's "Suicide Hall," "The Morgue," and the "Tub of Blood," have all disappeared. It became so penitent a while ago that it wanted to bury its dead past under a new name—Central Broadway. Fortunately the craze soon died out and the old lane which led to Stuyvesant's farm is still preserved under its Dutch name and let us hope will never be changed.
The noisy L reels by its dingy windows
The "Lodging House for Men"
And careless eyes may look upon its inmates (They seldom look again).
Only a bunch of "has-beens," frayed and seedy, Wanting a bath and shave;
Wastrels, who whistled down the wind of Fortune The gifts that Nature gave.
Now, drawn together by the fatal current Of life's Sargasso Sea,
Helpless they drift along, like human wreckage, Yet dream that they are free;
Each morning sees them bent above a paper, Their eyes intent and wide;
Each has a "hunch" that he will make "a killing" Before the day has died.
Though startling stories deck the outer pages, Their flaming headlines pale
Beside the interest of those fateful columns
That say: "Help Wanted—Male"; "Young"—"Strong"—"Ambitious"—"Full of pep
and ginger"
(They scan them, one by one)
"Wanted: a man who is Alive—Aggressive"; (How much alike they run!)
The noisy L reels by its dingy windows
The "Lodging House for Men"
And those who rushed this morning to the City Go rushing home again; But there they sit, in apathetic quiet,
As evening twilight falls,
While, cynically near their dingy lodging,
Shine out—the Three Gilt Balls!
Florence Van Cleve.
The Bowery extends from Chatham Square to Cooper Square. Washington rested at the Bull's Head Tavern on his entrance into New York in 1783. This site afterwards became the famous Bowery Theatre.
side from the old theatre, there is little in it today to attract the tourist. The entire character of the street has changed. Even the old theatre has so long been the home of alien tongues that it is difficult to imagine that it was once one of the most fashionable play houses in town, and that Forrest, Booth the elder; Charlotte Cushman, and other eminent performers of another day held its boards.
Another theatre in the same neighborhood, the National, where Cowperthwait's store now stands, divided honors with the Bowery in those days. Here was first played Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Geo. L. Fox in Humpty Dumpty, delighted our grandparents, as nothing else has ever seemed to do since.
The Bowery of history has its chief distinction in that it was part of the old Boston Post Road, and led to Governor Stuyvesant's farm "Petersfield," which stood about the corner of Third Avenue and 12th Street. The first mile stone which marked the distance to Boston, is still standing opposite Rivington Street. There is little else, however, to interest the reader till you come to the neighborhood of Stuyvesant's old home, and to the church founded by his widow.
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