The Bowery Hall of Fame (Continued)
THE LAST OF THE BOWERY FLOPS
1. The White House Hotel, 320 Bowery:
Offers deluxe cubicles to foreign travelers, along with standard
cubicle accommodations for its traditional clientele. Nightly
rates are as high as $30.
2. The Palace, 313 Bowery: Located above
CBGB, the Palace was the largest of the Bowery lodging houses
and could sleep more than 500 people. Leased by the Bowery
Residents Committee in the mid 1990s, the building has become
a transitional housing, emergency shelter and social services
facility. A handful of lodgers remain.
3. The Sunshine Hotel, 241 Bowery: Perhaps
the last of the Bowery's traditional lodging houses, the Sunshine
was the subject of a radio documentary by David Isay.
4. The Prince Hotel, 218 Bowery: Sold
in 2000 to a private developer, the Prince is slated to be
turned into luxury lofts. It houses about 25 elderly lodgers,
most of whom live on one floor.
5. Andrew's Hotel, 197 Bowery: Until
an upscale development started going up just to the north,
the Andrews offered lodgers an unusual luxury: cubicles with
a view. This long, narrow building has cubicles running down
either side, and each unit backs onto a window. The Andrews
is still home to roughly 90 lodgers, and was recently acquired
by non-profit Common Ground, which plans to upgrade and preserve
the building as a low-cost lodging house.
6. The Grand Hotel, 143 Bowery,
7. The Sun Hotel, 140 Hester Street,
8. The Providence Hotel, 125 Bowery:
These three hotels now cater to the area's sizable Asian immigrant
population. Some cubicles are rented in eight-hour shifts
and sleep two to a cubicle.
9. The Palma Hotel, 90 Bowery: Evacuated
after a fire in the early 1990s, the Palma's cubicles were
torn out in 1999.
295 BOWERY: SUICIDE PARLOR TO URBAN
RENEWAL LOT
"By popular accord, the very worst dive
on the Bowery in the 1890s was McGurk's Suicide Hall..McGurk's
was nearly the lowest rung for prostitutes..hence the suicide
craze that gave it its name and, incidentally, its grisly
allure as a tourist attraction.
"In October [1899], for example, Blonde
Madge Davenport and her partner, Big Mame, decided to end
it all, and so they bought carbolic acid, the elixir of choice,
at a drugstore a few doors away. Blonde Madge was successful
in gulping it down, but Big Mame hesitated and succeeded in
spilling most of it on her face; the resulting disfiguration
resulted only in her getting permanently barred from the place."
-- From Luc Sante, Low Life
"On February 11th 1999 we were notified
that the City of New York intended to destroy the city owned
building at 295 Bowery where my neighbors and I have lived
for over a quarter of a century.
"If McGurk's is turned to dust and supplanted
with blank high rise market housing, official power will have
buried its past in order to expunge it. Then it will be as
if it never happened. No one will ever have to notice these
deaths, mysterious folk reason that this building has stubbornly
remained notorious for a hundred years, a landmark of gossip
and legend repeated in every nook about the city of New York,
an eerie and appalling specter never dealt with, formally
and publicly never acknowledged."
-- Kate Millet, 295 Bowery resident
PLAYING IN THE DIRT
In its early days, the Bowery rivaled
lower Broadway as a residential and theatrical row for the
upper class. Its reputation as a magnet for raunchy entertainment
dates to around 1850. Following the riot at the Astor Place
Opera House, which helped divide the downtown theater district
along class lines, the Bowery became the center of vaudeville
and burlesque, and spawned related trades in circus side shows,
saloons and tattoo parlors. After the Third Avenue elevated
line was built over the Bowery in 1878, the street became
identified with vice. Alcoholism, opium abuse, homelessness
and prostitution existed side by side with commercial entertainment.
It gave the Bowery a reputation for dangerous pleasure, and
made it the destination for New York's thrill-seeking middle
classes and artistic aspirants for more than a century. From
Chuck Connors and his choreographed slumming expeditions to
punk rock pioneers at CBGB, the street drew those in search
of illicit thrills, downscale authenticity-and sheer voyeuristic
pleasure.
STEVE BRODIE, THE BIG JUMP AND THE
LIVING MUSEUM
On July 23, 1886, local Bowery boy Steve
Brodie was on the front page of every city newspaper, instantly
famous for jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. No one, however,
is really sure that Brodie actually jumped. Rumor has it Brodie
was hiding in the East River, and got another man to drop
a dummy into the river.
Nonetheless, the feat made him a celebrity.
For a while, he was an exhibit at Alexander's museum at 347
Bowery, bragging about his exploits. His "permanent exhibit"
began in 1890, when he opened a saloon at 114 Bowery. His
bar was a living museum, complete with a mural of the jump
and the clothing he claimed to have worn. Tour buses stopped
at the door, and guides exclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen,
to the left you see one of the great historical scenes of
this great city. That, ladies and gentleman, is Steve Brodie's
famous saloon. You have all heard of Steve Brodie, the man
who made that terrible leap for life from the Brooklyn Bridge.."
In 1894, Brodie was asked to star in
a play called "On the Bowery." It was not unusual for local
Bowery celebrities to show up in the theater; the original
lead of this play was a local boxer. Brodie's jump was incorporated
into the play (he saved his heroine by jumping off the Brooklyn
Bridge) but the rest of the plot consisted mainly of show
tunes. As an encore, Brodie sang Charlie Hoyt's song, "The
Bowery." An excerpt follows:
On the night I struck New York
I went out for a little walk.
Folks who are onto the city say,
Better for I took Broadway.
But I was out to enjoy the sights:
There was the Bowery, a blaze with lights.
I had one of the Devil's own nights, I'll never go there anymore.
CHORUS:
The Bowery, the Bowery!
They such things, they do strange things.
Oh the Bowery, the Bowery!
I'll never go there any more.
Years later, local merchants complained
that the ditty destroyed the street. At the time, however,
the song merely added to Brodie's fame. He eventually returned
to his saloon and, in true Bowery fashion, died before 40
of diabetes.
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