By Kim Velsey 3/26 4:55pm

Historic Sites

The Bowery Mission

The Bowery Boys Push Back: Preservation Effort For Manhattan’s Historic Thoroughfare Gathers Steam

“This is a street that predates Manhattan. It has been one of the finest addresses in the city and it has been skid row, and now it’s changing again,” said Bill Wander, offering an extremely brief history of the Bowery.

We were standing with Mr. Wander, historian for McSorley’s Old Ale House (yes, McSorley’s has a historian), in the Bowery Hotel, surrounded by other historians, preservationists, punk rockers, poets, Italian bakers and many a downtown bar veteran who had gathered to celebrate the Bowery’s recent listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/29/12 12:51pm

Frankenstorm

A soggy Bowery after a Feb. water mane break. (Bowery Boogie)

The Bowery Has Not Flooded (Yet!)

If you happen to live on the city’s now-glitzy skid row, you should be high and dry, at least for the time being, so fear not for a slip-up during the mayor’s storm update this morning. If you caught it, Mayor Bloomberg said the Bowery had flooded, when in fact he meant The Battery, according to his staff.

“There has already been some flooding already in the Bowery, as well as the FDR and some of the Rockaways,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “We expect surge levels of 6 to 11 feet. A surge of 9 to 10 feet is possible along Coney Island and the Rockaways. And a surge of 11 to 12 feet may occur at the Battery Monday evening.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/24/11 10:03am

Making History

Ah, the good old days. (Bowery Alliance of Neighbors)

Save Our Grit! Bowery Listed to State Register of Historic Places

It used to be the Bowery was the last place anyone wanted to be caught dead in New York—quite likely because you could wind up dead on skid row. But as it has become the locus of over-the-top downtown development in recent years, nostalgists and preservationists have joined forces to try and preserve the area. Even Assembly Speaker and local representative Shelly Silver has expressed an interest to seeing the Bowery stay the same. The state has finally come through and given the historic byway a boost, though it may be too little, too late. Read More

By Nate Freeman 10/04/11 6:37pm

The Wee Hours

"We were a bit dinged up."

Big Snare On Kenmare: The Wee Hours Tracks Down the Men Who Mugged Us

The unmarked cop car sped out into the late night cobwebbed streets of Nolita at 3 a.m., bursting through red lights, sirens blaring, and ricocheting around turns that shook us back and forth, east to west. We had to lay low in the back seat, even for the quick trip to the corner of Mott and Houston. We pulled up next to three cruisers, sitting hotly in a giant cough of simmering exhaust, tire tread and the flash of red, white and blue. Read More