Bowery Alliance of Neighbors

Preserving the Bowery

  • Home
    • Purchase Windows on the Bowery Book
    • Windows on the Bowery Posters
    • Did You Know?
    • Help the Bowery Alliance
    • Donate
  • About
    • Position Statement
    • About
    • FaceBook
  • National Register
  • Preservation
    • National Register of Historic Places
    • NY Designated Landmarks & Historic District (Protected)
    • Lost Architectural Treasures (Demolished)
    • Letters Supporting Bowery Preservation
  • History
    • Historical and Cultural Significance of the Bowery
    • Did You Know This About the Bowery?
  • Resources
    • Windows on the Bowery Posters
    • Purchase Windows on the Bowery Book
    • Contact City Agencies…
    • Reading List
    • Video & Film
    • Songs & Audio
    • Bowery Walking Tour
    • Other Walking Tours
  • Contact
    • Staff Directory
    • Mailing List / Membership Form
    • Donate

Jun 24 2016

Film

Onno,
The numbers are just for your convenience, so that
any images, text and the audio/visual doc itself all
share the same #.

BTW – please insert this new sub-category under the RESOURCES drop-down menu: FILM

Audio / Visual docs for website

#1—SONG–“Bowery Buck” 1899 by Tom Turpin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW_ucTesgiI
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.
WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*HISTORY
–Historical/Cultural Significance of Bowery – under Music
*RESOURCES
–under SONGS

#2—FILM–“This Is the Bowery” 1941 10 minutes Director: Gunther V. Fritsch
A beautifully rendered film portrait of the Bowery Mission, produced by the award-winning
MGM shorts series John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade.
PHOTOS:
2a—Bowery Mission buildings at 227-229 Bowery, 2015
2b—Pamplet [no caption needed] Bowery Mission Archives
2c—Serving coffee at the Bowery Mission, circa 1940s Bowery Mission Archives
WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*HISTORY
–Historical/Cultural Significance of Bowery – under Religion / Philanthropy
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #40 – The Bowery Mission piece

#3—FILM–“Nick and Tony in Sightseeing in New York” 1931
10 minutes
Produced by Amity Pictures With humorist tour guides Nick Basil and Tony Martin
A humorous horse and buggy tour through Bowery, Chinatown, Little Italy, etc.
Courtesy Ron Hutchinson and the Vitaphone Project.
PHOTOS
3a—Ad for Chuck Connors’ famous Bowery/Chinatown slumming tour, circa 1900
Courtesy Adam Woodward Collection.
WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*RESOURCES
–Walking Tours
*FILM
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #5 – The 18 Bowery piece where it mentions Chuck Connors

#4—RADIO EXCERPTS—“Sammy’s Bowery Follies: Interview with owner Sammy Fuchs and performers Dora Pelletier, Danny Barrett, Edward R. Smith, and others.” 20 minutes.
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.
SEE Eric Ferrara’s Windows on the Bowery piece on Sammy’s Bowery Follies.
PHOTOGRAPHS:
4a—Outside Sammy’s Bowery Follies Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt
4b—Sammy’s Bowery Follies, 1949 Photo By Burt Glinn © Magnum Photos
4c—Sammy Fuchs, photographed by Weegee Courtesy Charlie Katz
4d—Performers at Sammy’s Bowery Follies
WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*HISTORY
–Historical/Cultural Significance of Bowery – under Theater
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #43 – Sammy’s Bowery Follies piece
*RESOURCES
–Radio Excerpts

[Note to ONNO – Item 5, including images and text and the radio interview itself were on our old website. You should already have that. Am including a CD copy of the interview as well, just in case. Best of all, I’ve attached an already prepared page with the INTRO to the Jolson piece and a place to link it.]
#5—RADIO EXCERPTS—“Al Jolson Remembers His First Singing Job Was on the Bowery” June 6, 1945 interview with Al Jolson is excerpted from Milton Berle’s radio show Let Yourself Go,
which was presented on CBS by the Eversharp Pen Company.
Courtesy: Ed Greenbaum. Special thanks to the International Jolson Society
WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*HISTORY
–Historical/Cultural Significance of Bowery – under Theater
*FUN FACTS ABOUT THE BOWERY
–NYC’S First Entertainment District – 3rd paragraph from bottom
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #28 – Vaudeville Hook is Born! Miner’s Bowery Theatre
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #42 – ‘Sidewalks of NY’ Premieres on the Bowery’ [London theatre]
*RESOURCES
–Radio Excerpts

#6—SONG–“Sidewalks of New York” by Charles B. Lawler and James W. Blake, 1894. Until Frank Sinatra’s hit recording of Kander and Ebb’s “New York, New York,”
Lawler and Blake’s “Sidewalks of New York” was probably the city’s most iconic and beloved song.
The song had its premiere on the Bowery, and was often coupled in medley with the song –“The Bowery.”
SEE Windows on the Bowery signage piece #42 “Sidewalks of New York” Premieres on the Bowery.

*Brief story of the song, plus rendition by Robert Sean Leonard, from New York, New York:
A Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsx_uxISjM0
*1920s recording by Nat Shilkret Orchestra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdRY9IrjxXY
Note – this recording has an interlude with passages of the song “The Bowery.”

PHOTOS:
6a—sheet music for ‘Sidewalks of New York’
WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*HISTORY
–Historical/Cultural Significance of Bowery – under Music
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #42 – ‘Sidewalks of NY’ Premieres on the Bowery’ [London theatre]

#7—RADIO EXCERPTS—“The Sunshine Hotel,” a radio portrait of one of the last flophouses on the Bowery, was recorded by David Isay with Stacey Abramson at 241-245 Bowery, with narration by the hotel’s manager, Nathan Smith. It premiered on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered on September 18, 1998.
http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/the_sunshine_hotel/

The 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. http://pro.harveywang.com/galleries/flophouse-life-on-the-bowery
Both the book and a cd of the radio portrait are available through Amazon.

PHOTOS:
All photos must have © Harvey Wang [He was insistent about that]
7a—Anthony Coppola Sunshine Hotel, 1999 © Harvey Wang
7b—FLOPHOUSE [book cover] by Isay and Wang, 2000 © Harvey Wang
7c—Nathan Smith, manager 1999 Sunshine Hotel © Harvey Wang [
7d—Sunshine Hotel, 1999 © Harvey Wang
7e—The Andrews Hotel, 1998 © Harvey Wang
7f—Providence Hotel, 1998 © Harvey Wang
7g—White House Hotel, 1998 © Harvey Wang

WHERE TO PLACE LINK:
*WINDOWS ON THE BOWERY – #38 – A Bowery Flop for 5 cents a night
*HISTORY
–Historical and Cultural Significance of the Bowery – Under Additional cultural and historical info
*RESOURCES
–Radio Excerpts
*RESOURCES
–Reading List [under David Isay and Stacy Abramson’s FLOPHOUSE…]

Written by onno · Categorized: Resources

Jun 12 2016

Song & Audio

The Bowery The street’s Famous Anthem.

The browser you’re using does not recognize the HTML5 audio tag. You can download the song here: link.
sung by Poor Baby Bree

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.

The browser you’re using does not recognize the HTML5 audio tag. You can download the song here.
Side One
The browser you’re using does not recognize the HTML5 audio tag. You can download the song here.
Side Two
Sammy’s Bowery Follies
Back
Sammy’s Bowery Follies
Front

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

The browser you’re using does not recognize the HTML5 audio tag. You can download the song here.
Courtesy: Bill Knowlton.

Sammy’s Bowery Follies: Interview with owner Sammy Fuchs and performers Dora Pelletier, Danny Barrett, Edward R. Smith and others.

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.

Sammy’s Bowery Follies
Photo By Burt Glinn © Magnum Photos
Sammy’s Bowery Follies
Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt

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.

Sammy’s Bowery Follies
Courtesy Charlie Katz
Sammy’s Bowery Follies

Al Jolson Remembers His First Singing Job Was on the Bowery

The browser you’re using does not recognize the HTML5 audio tag. You can download the song here.

From Milton Berle’s radio show Let Yourself Go. Broadcast by CBS. Sponsored by Eversharp Pen Company Audio copy courtesy historian Ed Greenbaum. Special thanks: International Al Jolson Society.

Al Jolson reminiscing about his first job on the Bowery, recorded June 6, 1945. June 6, 1945 interview with Al Jolson is excerpted from Milton Berle’s radio show Let Yourself Go.

Al Jolson

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).

Al Jolson

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

The browser you’re using does not recognize the HTML5 audio tag. You can download the song here.

Sunshine Hotel premiered on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered on September 18, 1998.

A radio portrait of one of the last flophouses on the Bowery, was recorded by David Isay with Stacey Abramson at 241-245 Bowery, with narration by the hotel’s manager, Nathan Smith.

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.

Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang

White House Hotel, 1998

Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang

Providence Hotel, 1998

Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang

The Andrews Hotel, 1998

Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang

Sunshine Hotel, 1999

Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang
Nathan Smith, manager 1999 Sunshine Hotel
Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang

FLOPHOUSE [book cover] by Isay and Wang, 2000

Sunshine Hotel FLophouse pictures by Harvey Wang
© Harvey Wang

Anthony Coppola Sunshine Hotel, 1999

“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.

Written by onno · Categorized: Resources

Jun 12 2016

Video & Film

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

This is a 5-minute excerpt.To order the entire hour-long documentary, contact California Newsreel.
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.

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.

Bowery Beautician 1939

“Bowery Beautician” is one of four humorous sequences from the 9-minute short For Your Consideration, which was released in 1939 as part of Warner Brothers’ Color Parade series, which was filmed in 2-strip technicolor. Directed by Ira Genet.

Back in the Bowery’s early roughneck days, when barbers and tattoo artists proliferated and often shared spaces on the street, the cosmetic treatment of a black eye, as depicted in
“Bowery Beautician” was a common procedure.

Written by onno · Categorized: Resources

Jun 12 2016

Walking Tours

Written by onno · Categorized: Resources

Jun 12 2016

Bowery Artist Tribute

Written by onno · Categorized: Resources

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Copyright © 2025 · Altitude Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in