The Bowery The street’s Famous Anthem.

The Bowery is a song from the musical A Trip to Chinatown with music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Charles H. Hoyt. The musical toured the country for several years and then opened on Broadway in 1891. A sardonic, cautionary tale that emphasized the Bowery’s darker elements, it was often used in medley with the Sidewalks of New York.

“A Night at Sammy’s Bowery Follies” (Coral Records, 1960)
Recorded live inside the famous club “Where the high life meets the lowlife.

side One

1. “Sammy’s Bowery Follies” / “The Bowery” / “East Side, West Side” (aka “Sidewalks of NY”) —Ensemble
2. “I’ve Got Rings On My Fingers” / “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover” —Mabel Sidney
3. “Mary’s a Grand Old Name” / “Shine on Harvest Moon” —Flo Reide?
4. “A Little Bit of Heaven” / “Ace in the Hole” —Eddie Smith
5. “I Want a Girl, Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad…” / “After the Ball” /
6. “The Band Play On” / “Sidewalks of New York” / “California Here I Come” —Dora Pelletier
7. “Give My Regards to Broadway” / “Yankee Doodle Boy” / “You’re a Grand Old Flag” —Bill Pollack?

side Two

1. “Hi Neighbor” / “You’re My Everything” —Danny Barret
2. “Goodbye My Lady Love” / “Hello My Baby…” / “I Don’t Care” —Goldye Shaw
3. “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” / “MacNamara’s Band” —Lucille Donner
4. “My Mother’s Eyes” / “When You Waltz with the One You Love” —Dodie Flynn?
5. “Carolina in the Morning…” / “Sammy’s Bowery Follies” —Mark Barnett

Sammy’s Bowery Follies interviewed by Bill Knowlton in 1959

Photographed by famous photographers like Weegee, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Lissette Model and Erika Stone, the legendary Sammy’s Bowery Follies was — from its hey day in the 1940s and 50s until it closed in 1970 — a unique place where the highlife meets the low life.

Featuring out of work performers from the dying institution of vaudeville and serving drinks affordable for the Bowery’s down-and-out, this gay 1890s-themed club became a hotspot for tourists and even the glitterati.

Al Jolson Remembers His First Singing Job Was on the Bowery

Legendary stage, screen, radio, and recording star Al Jolson (1886-1950) appeared in a vaudeville act as “Master Joelson & Fred Moore” on the Bowery during his first 2 years performing: In 1901 at London Theatre (235 Bowery).

In 1902-3 at Miner’s Bowery Theater (165-167 Bowery), birthplace of the vaudeville hook, which was used to eject unpopular acts. The “joint named McGurk’s” that Jolson recalls as the possible site of his first singing job, was a dive bar at 295 Bowery that became notorious in the 1890s after several down-and-out young women ended their lives there after taking carbolic acid. Rather than keep a low profile, the joint profitably catered to thrill-seeking slummers as McGurk’s “Suicide Hall”. Eventually closed down by reformers, McGurk’s was referenced in countless books and movies, including Mae West’s homage to the Bowery, She Done Him Wrong (1933).

Sadly, despite tremendous efforts to save 295 Bowery through landmarking, it was torn down and replaced by the atrocious Avalon Bowery Place building. For a full account of McGurk’s see “Down in the Bowery Dives: The History of McGurk’s Suicide Hall>” a fine recent piece from the Bowery Boogie (12-5-12) and an earlier one from The Bowery Boys New York City History:
Bibliography: Michael Freeland, Jolson – The Story of Al Jolson. Published 1972; reprinted 2007 by Vallentine Mitchell Publishers. Alvin F. Harlow, Old Bowery Days. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1931, pages 400-401, 497-498. Luc Sante, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. New York: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1991. Miner’s Bowery Theatre, 165-167 Bowery, circa 1900.

Sunshine Hotel

This is an audio portrait of one of the final vestiges of the Bowery, New York’s notorious skid row. In the first half of the century, the mile-long Bowery’s bars, missions and cheap hotels (or flophouses) were home to an estimated 35,000 down-and-out men each night. Today, only a handful of flophouses, virtually unchanged for half a century, are all that remain of this once teeming world. For several months in 1998, David Isay and Stacy Abramson had unprecedented 24-hour access to the Sunshine Hotel, one of the last of the no-frills establishments. “It was like stepping into King Tut’s Tomb,” Isay says. “The Sunshine is this fascinating, self-contained society full of unbelievable characters. While it’s a profoundly sad place, it is, at the same time, home to men with powerful and poetic stories.” The Sunshine Hotel was awarded the Prix Italia, Europe’s oldest and most prestigious broadcasting award, in 1999. This radio documentary and interviews that Isay and Abramson conducted at other Bowery hotels inspired the book called Flophouse: Life on the Bowery, which features powerful photographs by Harvey Wang.

Both the book and a cd of the radio portrait are available through Amazon.

Nathan Smith, manager 1999 Sunshine Hotel

“Bowery Buck” 1899 by Tom Turpin

Tom Turpin (1871-1922) was known as the “Father of St. Louis Ragtime.” In 1897, his popular “Harlem Rag” made Turpin the first African American to have rag composition published.

She Done Him Wrong 1931

The screen’s most famous seduction line was when Bowery showgirl Mae West told the supposed mission worker Cary Grant to come up and see her sometime in 1933’s She Done Him Wrong.

Nick and Tony in Sightseeing in New York 1931

Produced by Amity Pictures Courtesy Ron Hutchinson and the Vitaphone Project

With humorist tour guides Nick Basil and Tony Martin, a humorous horse and buggy tour through Bowery, Chinatown, Little Italy, etc. Warning – This film is a document of its time that contains a politically incorrect parade of stereotypes with something to offend almost everyone.

This Is The Bowery 1941

Produced by the award-winning MGM shorts series John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade with Gunther V. Fritsch director.

A beautifully rendered film portrait of the Bowery Mission

W.C. Fields

The Old Fashioned Way

Remembered today primarily as a beloved film comedian from Hollywood’s golden age, W.C. Fields first became famous as one of the world’s great jugglers. Born in Philadelphia, Fields’ first New York appearances — in the late 1890s, as a tramp juggler — included gigs at the Globe Dime Museum (298 Bowery), Miner’s Bowery Theatre (165-167 Bowery) and the Gaiety Dime Museum (138 Bowery).

Though filmed 35 years after his early appearances on the Bowery, this scene from The Old Fashioned Way (1934) showcases his comedic juggling prowess.

Ethnic Notions Documentary 1986

Note: One of the film’s outstanding voices is that of historian/choreographer/performer Lenwood Sloan, who wrote the text for the signage posters on 37-39 Bowery and 46-48 Bowery.

Directed by Marlon Riggs. Narrated by Esther Rolle 58 minutes

Ethnic Notions is a powerful documentary that examines the anti-Black stereotypes that permeated popular culture from the ante-bellum period until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

While this website and our Windows on the Bowery posters touch on African American struggles and their contributions to American culture, it also touches on the emergence of minstrelsy, a theatrical genre that codified negative stereotypes of Blacks for over 100 years. This Emmy-winning documentary gives us the historical context of minstrelsy and helps convey its negative impact on the lives of African Americans.