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

WINDOWS ON THE BOWERYThe Bowery is NYC’s oldest thoroughfare. Originally a Native American footpath and Dutch farm road (bouwerij means farm), it is a cradle of American culture, with seminal links to tap dance, vaudeville, Yiddish theater, Lincoln, Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, tattoo art, Abstract Expressionism, Beat literature, jazz and punk rock. Though listed on the National Register of Historic Places, out-of-scale developments are displacing its residents, small businesses, and historic character. More info/link to Bowery’s National Register listing: boweryalliance.org

GAY NIGHTLIFE ON THE BOWERYPARESIS HALL

On this site once stood the notorious Columbia Hall, one of several Bowery nightspots catering to gay men during the 1890s. Known by anti-vice crusaders as Paresis Hall, it was owned by gangster James T. “Biff” Ellison, who reportedly operated it as a male brothel. Memoirist Ralph Werther recalled the hall differently, as an “innocuous” gathering place for upper and middle class female-impersonators. The upstairs was rented to “Cercle Hermaphroditos,” a club formed “to unite for defense against the world’s bitter persecution” of androgynous men. Historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace consider this one of America’s earliest documented gay rights organizations. Paresis Hall figures prominently in Caleb Carr’s 1994 novel, The Alienist.

Historian George Chauncey suggests that a gay subculture could exist on the Bowery because its diverse mix of people and heavy concentration of theatres, saloons and red-light elements made it more tolerant of those outside the cultural mainstream.

—David Freeland, author of Automats, Taxi Dances & Vaudeville

“The Bowery Queen,” drag performer circa 1890sStereoscope card images

Gangster James T. “Biff” Ellison

NOW 32 COOPER SQUARE

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Two working class friends, 1875-1890 Tintype photo

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