The Bowery Mission.

“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.

As it happened, the Bowery Hotel was a very fitting place to contemplate the past, present and future of the formerly gritty thoroughfare. With its dark wood, velvet furniture and red-tasseled room keys, the hotel capitalizes on the nostalgic leanings of its well-heeled clientele, evoking a faded opulence that seems plausibly Gilded Age. But the hotel, which opened in 2007, is only emblematic of just how quickly that past is receding.

A historic photo of the Germania Bank Building at 190 Bowery.

The Bowery of old was a place where a person found a flophouse rather than a $400-a-night hotel, a knife fight instead of the Crime Scene Bar & Lounge. Or, as Mr. Wander put it when we asked: “I’m not quite sure what it’s becoming. But 20 years ago, drinking on the Bowery involved a brown paper bag, and now it involves a sommelier.”

It was, at this point, rather difficult not to feel self-conscious sipping the evening’s signature cocktail—“The Bowery”—a vodka, elderflower syrup, lemon juice and splash of club soda concoction served in a champagne coupe. But, we reminded ourselves as we took a sip, the occasion was a celebration. Even if it sometimes felt like a dirge.

Last month, the Bowery was added to the National Register, a designation that provided long-overdue recognition for a street that has shaped, and been shaped by, every era in Manhattan’s history—from its beginnings as a Lenape foot trail to its years as an entertainment district and, later, a punk rock mecca. The designation, however, offers little in the way of practical protections from the luxury condo era—something that neighborhood groups say is essential to preserving not only the diverse, low-rise architecture that lines the street, but the creative, freewheeling character of the Bowery itself.

“The ferocious pace of development on the east side of the Bowery is destructive,” said David Mulkins, who heads the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, the community group that is leading the preservation effort alongside Two Bridges Neighborhood Council.

“I think the planning commission at this point has not considered the Bowery as a whole, they’re not considering it as a place,” said Kerri Culhane, an architectural historian and the associate director of Two Bridges.

After years of seeking, and failing, to get city landmark status for even small, largely intact, stretches of the Bowery, the groups have recently intensified efforts to convince City Planning to create an overlay zoning district that would cap building height on the eastern side of the street to 85 feet, reflecting zoning restrictions that are already in place on the western side of the street. “To do justice to the Bowery, you really need to do justice to both sides of the street,” said Ms. Culhane.

The effort has attracted supporters among local businesses, restaurateurs, museums and even Martin Scorsese, who last week penned a letter to planning chair Amanda Burden. The filmmaker wrote that “having grown up on Elizabeth Street, the neighborhood and residents of the Bowery became clear catalyst for turning me into a storyteller. Whether it’s Mean Streets or Gangs of New York, the influence of the Bowery—the grittiness, the ambiance, the vivid atmosphere is apparent.”

A zoning change won’t do much to preserve the grittiness, we’re afraid, but it could protect a lot of the old buildings. Preserving a neighborhood’s architectural character isn’t quite the same as preserving the underlying emotional character—but the two are entwined. And over time the Bowery has proved, if nothing else, to be both protean and resilient.

“We’re talking about one of the oldest stretches of America before it was America. It was a highway for humans that goes back no one knows how long. This is where the mores and culture of America were established, the cradle of pop culture,” former Landmarks Commissioner Kent Barwick told the Observer. “There’s probably no stretch of New York that has more history per inch than the Bowery.”

Indeed, if the Bowery has been anything, it has been everything: a Native American footpath, a Dutch farm road, the place where George Washington stopped for a drink before watching British troops leave the waterfront, and where Abraham Lincoln gave the anti-slavery speech that got him the Republican presidential nomination. It has been home to both Astors and drug addicts, a place of circuses, movies and brothels. It has nurtured tap dance, vaudeville, Yiddish theater, Abstract Expressionism, Irving Berlin, Patti Smith and punk rock and now ... well, no one really knows what comes next. Just that the thoroughfare should remain as central to the New York experience as it has always been.

“It was always so quintessentially New York—a little bit naughty, the underside of the city, the underside is always the real city,” reflected Mr. Barwick. “The Bowery still has that sense of being the real New York, something special, the place where talent is more important than connections. But it’s on life support.”

kvelsey@observer.com

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

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."

The press office confirmed after the storm briefing that he meant the Battery, not the Bowery. It seemed possible, perhaps there was a water mane break or some other disaster. However, if it was simply a storm surge, the city would be in serious trouble were the Bowery flooded, given that the infamous roadway is beyond even Zone C, the area expected to flood during a Category 4 hurricane. So basically, we're talking about Noah's flood.

That said, heavy rains could still leave the streets soaked, so be sure to wear your designer duckies if you head out into the Frankenstorm.

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

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.

The State Register of Historic Places has added the Bowery to its list, according to DNAinfo, and that is an important step toward national recognition. The only problem is, both lists offer no formal protections, just plaques—the Bowery has made half a dozen "endangered lists" in half as many years—all the while more and more crazy developments are planned. Only the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission can take action, and it has protected a handful of buildings in the area but does not seem willing to create a whole district. (It got an incredible amount of pressure for proposing an East Village tenement district, the response basically being, "What's there to save?")

Regardless, the preservationists are thrilled with the registry:

“The Bowery nomination is unique—it not only recognizes the architecture and cultural history of the street, but it acknowledges the earliest planning history of New York,” said historian Kerri Culhane, who wrote the Bowery’s 171-page nomination, in a statement.

“By extension, the Bowery nomination should be used as a planning tool to help guide better planning, zoning and contextual infill on this vibrant and dynamic thoroughfare, which continues to make history today.”

[...]

“It’s hard to believe that a case had to be made for the significance of one of our most historic streets and all of the folklore that surrounds it,” said Two Bridges president Victor Papa.

“This isn’t just Lower East Side history—this is national history. It is now undeniably clear that the Bowery plays a central role in the canon of American history.”

They'd be crying in their beer, if Mars Bar hadn't already closed.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

"We were a bit dinged up."

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.

Also, there was the pain: screaming molars rubbing up against sore, seared gums, our jawline banged, the burning skin of our neck still raw and throttled. We were a bit dinged up.

Against the side of the building stood three men. Black guy, with a short-sleeve, green, button-up shirt that didn’t quite cover the wired-together torso muscles. Another, this one massive, in a gray T, with a flesh-pouched face. Third black man, with decades on the other two, wearing a Panama hat.

The officers snapped out of the front seats.

“Can you identify who did this to you?” the first wanted to know.

“Yes,” we said. “The man in the green shirt and the big guy next to him. Never seen the guy in the hat before.”

“You heard the kid,” he said. “Cuff ’em!”

A slew of policemen from the other cars roughed the two men against the brick wall and slapped the word-of-God metal handcuffs around their wrists, arms back behind them. They shoved them into the back of a cruiser, but before ducking in, one of the guys, the big guy, swiveled his neck back toward our unmarked car. We locked eyes for an infinite second. With that, we slinked down in that back seat, behind the headrest, ducking our scarlet-laced, hammered-on mug.

The cruisers ahead of us cranked up the sirens and sped off.

“So,” the officer said, as he eased his big ass into the cushion of the driver’s. “What the hell happened to you tonight?”

"PLANS FOR LATER?" ASKED A FRIEND at the other end of the table. It was earlier that night, trouble still a dot on the horizon.

Our long and relaxed dinner at the new, soaring, silver-encrusted Hotel Americano, under the High Line in Chelsea, was winding down, and the hours of whiskey, wine and striped bass were working their woozy magic.

“Not really,” we said, scooping up the last of our shared dessert. A server refilled our flute with Champagne, and did the same for the girl. “Meeting up with a friend. Nothing too crazy.”

It was late, around 1 a.m., so we thanked the owner and lit out into the post-rain haze that had tucked its way into that ancient corner of 10th Avenue where Marquee still squats empty as sin. It was warm in the fog, the air so dense whole people could hide in it. Surprise people, dangerous people, obscured by the relentless frieze of shadows.

The cab zipped downtown, and we parted with our friend at Broadway-Lafayette, before heading to the neighborhood place where our pal was already nursing a Stella. We arrived, circulated, chatted, danced—it was a Wednesday at Kenmare.

“I think I’ve got to head out,” we told him later, gulping down the rest of a vodka and soda. Sure, we had a good booth—a French kid in leather who said his band was “big in Europe” clutching a young blonde, a jolly 20-something who worked in public relations—but it was late, a school night.

We were out: handshakes, cheek pecks, a stroll down Kenmare Street, past bodegas where men glanced at video keno screens over sandwiches and past other drunken kids counting on muscle memory to get them home. We had the routine down, all of us.

But perhaps there was something off. Who is that, lingering on that corner? How odd. And XIX, a posh lounge under Travertine—man, it seems awfully packed. And all those hissing shadows. No matter, we thought. The light was red, so instead of crossing we continued onto Delancey, across Bowery, to a dim pitch of sidewalk flanked by a park and a railing.

Suddenly fast footsteps behind us—thudding pitter-patter in a wave, rubber soles smacking like jazz snares, loud, louder, nearly here, bent arms and fists cutting the air. We swiveled around on a pivot and saw. The two men were barreling forward, a vortex, a dolly zoom, and as the bigger one pounced on our back, razorblading his tree trunk arms around our neck, the smaller one bashed the side of our face as we fell helplessly the ground, and two certain words went through our head.

Oh fuck.

“Give us everything!” the smaller one shouted. “Money, wallet, cell phone, everything!”

Our cheek bitten by gravel, we splayed our arms trying to get at our pockets, as the bigger guy squeezed tighter around the top of our spine, our ass scraping across the ground. Did they have a gun? A gun?

Oh fuck.

“I don’t have any money,” we spat.

Of course we didn’t have any money. In fact, of the many men and women leaving chintzy places that night, we must have been the last demin-jeans-and-tweed-jacket fast walker they’d want.

The smaller man hit us again.

“Give us everything!”

Out came the wallet, and the cracked iPhone, and the keys affixed to a simple key ring. We had nothing, they took everything. There was little left for them to do, then, but run off into the same dewy mist, leaving us busted and defeated on the ground, squinting to see them dive into that damp mystery that once made the city seem so damn romantic.

"AND SO WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?" the hulking detective asked as he scribbled into a notepad.

We had been taken to the city’s Fifth Precinct house, in Chinatown, for a few rounds of questioning. The two men we had sent away, our assailants, were locked up somewhere in the building. The sole witness to what went down, a driver parked near the scene, sat next to us. And there were the detectives who paced around the room.

We cleared our throat, for effect.

“I found my keys, they must have dropped them or something, so I could have gone home and licked my wounds, but instead I went back to Kenmare, to find my buddy,” we began. The detective was writing furiously, so much that he had begun to sweat fat beads that crested over the ripples of flesh on his forehead. The notebook just might have been identical to the one we carried in our jacket.

“Did they have a weapon on them?” one asked.

“Not that I know of,” we responded.

An officer rubbed at his chin.

“I had a cocktail and a smoke to calm down, and asked my friend to text my phone, because why not, who knows,” we continued.

The text had read: “Hey you have my friends phone ... where are you?”

A few minutes later, a response: “This is the police. We just stopped these two guys with this phone.”

“We received a 911 call from a cabbie and two guys matched the description,” the cop explained. “One had two phones on him. We asked why he needed two iPhones, and he said, ‘That’s how I roll.’ But I was looking at the text messages, and the phone didn’t fit the profile of a black male, it fit the profile of a white male. And then when that text from your friend popped up, it only helped.”

The detective lifted his head out of the notebook. “Look,” he said. “The perps fit the description for guys who we’ve been after for months. Stealing wallets and phones all over here.”

“They work at the Forever 21 on Broadway,” another cop chimed in.

“We’re going to need your help to put these guys away,” said the detective. “Are there any other details you forgot?”

“Actually, there’s one more thing,” we said. “After they got a hold of my phone and wallet, the smaller guy started reaching up in here”—we smacked our palm up our inner thigh—“and started yelling, ‘No homo! No homo!’ as he patted around my crotch.”

Because he wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.

Around 5:30 the detective, along with his no-noise sidekick, had wrapped up questioning the driver, the sole witness. We shook his hand and thanked him—he had mentioned, in a solemn tone, that to hang around in a police station during prime club-departure hours is not exactly the best way to do business. No regrets, though.

“I watched, once outside my house, a young man get stabbed eight times, and I called the police then and saved his life,” the driver said by way of explanation. “I thought, maybe I would have to do this again.”

ANOTHER HOUR WENT BY as the last few loose ends got figured out. Without a wallet—the muggers had tossed it in the sewer or trash when they found it empty—we had no way of getting back save for walking. Even we didn’t want to walk home after a night like that.

A police escort would be the only solution.

“You’ll have to get in the back,” an officer said after handing us our phone. “Sorry about that.”

We climbed into the cage, the same type of crate that held the perps a few hours before. They would be in that jail for at least a week, when the prosecution would bring the case before a grand jury.

He cocked the gear shift and the cruiser shot out into the end of the night, through the Nolita streets that led to our haunted section of Delancey Street, and up back toward Houston, until we arrived home.

“Thanks for the ride,” we said. “Do you have a light? The guys grabbed our lighter, too.”

“Stopped smoking years ago,” he said, opening our door.

“Probably smart,” we said, scootching out of the back and onto the corner of Allen and Houston.

There were footsteps behind us, and we spun around. No one was there.

“Never been in the back of a cop car, actually,” we said.

The policeman hopped back in the driver’s seat.

“Well,” he said. “Let’s hope it never happens again.”

nfreeman@observer.com //  @nfreeman1234

As you can see in these new renderings provided by the building's architect, Gene Kaufman, it has light up balconies that will shimmer at night, bringing a bit of that dance-club flare back to the cleaned up thoroughfare. This is not the first time Kaufman has designed a hotel that twinkles in the night, either.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

At the corner of East Third Street, the old Salvation Army was just sold to a French hospitality group for $7.6 million, according to The Post (third item), and will be transformed into a 65-room boutique hotel and restaurant. The family-run company operates a number of such operations in Europe and had been looking to make its first foray into the city.

It is not the first time a high-end project has been proposed for the site. A sushi palace was planned two years ago but got torpedoed by the irate neighbors weeping about the degritification of the famed thoroughfare.

Opponents should take solace, though. At 65 rooms, the project seems rather modest compared with some of its outsized neighbors.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Now, Grub Street reports that Appleman has made a move that could shock the New York food world, if only for its absurdity: the chef said ciao to Pulino's and hola to Chipotle. If you go to the Chelsea branch of the international chain, the acclaimed and widely admired chef will wrap your burrito for you.

His place behind the glass stuffing pinto beans and barbacoa meat into tortillas, however, is just a part of Appleman's involvement with Chipotle. Founder Steve Ells has brought him on to be a high-level consultant "improving the model, and focusing on cooking techniques and getting better ingredients.”

"What led me to this was being able to make a change," Appleman told Grub Street. "I was just trying to figure out, ‘How can I make a difference?’ It’s one thing to be a really good chef and cook and it’s another to impact millions of people — from the farmers, ranchers, and everyone down to the 20,000 employees. As you get older and wiser, you’re looking for more fulfillment.”

McNally probably can't hide his rage that his star chef got poached by, of all places, a fast food chain. Could a Mexican themed joint be Keith's next venture, just to spite Appleman? ¡Nosotros queremos!

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Earlier: Will Work for Food: Going Whole Hog at Pulino's

It's also is a bit of a sore thumb on Second Avenue. Mars Bar is garish and gross; it's on an street that's so clean you could have a blanket-less picnic with your tofu from Whole Foods, which is conveniently located right next door. Mars Bar is a loud, dirty and full of unapologetic malcontents, seemingly of another age; outside people pass by, quickly and looking down, on their way to buy a bottle of Riesling and some organic kale for the night's salad. Mars Bar serves up cheap whiskey and cancer; directly around the corner, Daniel Boulud serves up House-Made Pappardelle "Gourguignon" at DBGB. Mars Bar is not a nice place, and this is what makes Mars Bar one of the best.

It's a tragedy, then, that a decision by Community Board 3 would force the glorious filth hole to close for two years and remodel extensively, Eater reports from a New York Times story on proposed low-income housing on Second Ave. BFC Partners, the project's developers, will ask the board for approval tomorrow.

Mars Bar is clearly not the joint for everyone -- oftentimes, we've found it's a great place to take someone you don't really like, to scare them -- and many must be in favor of the closing. One of these people is Hank Penza, the owner and man who has to spend an unseemly amount of time there. He's confident he can stay afloat while the bar is closed.

“They won’t choke me,” Penza told the Times. “I didn’t get off the boat yesterday with a pound of spaghetti in my hand.”

But if the plans get approved we'll be pouring some out for Mars Bar. It will be a markedly different stroll down Second Avenue without the old drunken punks collapsing out the door, growling the words to a Germs song, and stumbling down the street.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Yet, as often happens with these sorts of complicated land-use actions, somebody feels left out. In this case, it is the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, but the group has about as powerful an ally as one could hope for: Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver.

BAN, as the group is known--can you get more NIMBY than that!--want to cap tall buildings on the Bowery's eastern flank. Unlike the west side of the street, where none can rise above 120 feet, on the eastern sidewalk, developers can build about as high as they want. Hence outsized structures like the Bowery Hotel, New Museum, the new Cooper Union Building, and 52 East 4th Street (at right).

In a recent letter to Commission Chair Amanda Burden, Silver writes:

I believe that the east side of the Bowery deserves the same type of zoning to ensure that new buildings are of a size and scale that maintain the Bowery as the unique New York City thoroughfare that it is today.

[...]

The recent rezoning of the East Village/Lower East Side leaves out the east side of the Bowery, making it vulnerable to out-of-scale buildings that would diminish the consistency of the streetscape and the Bowery's historic character.

I strongly support the East Bowery Preservation Plan and I urge City Planning to study and rezone the east side of the Bowery to preserve and protect this historic and significant neighborhood in my district.

Will having one of the biggest machers in the city on its side help BAN protect the Bowery? Maybe not. The Department of City Planning prefers the current arrangement, as it encourages development in a concentrated area that has already seen a number of projects go up, creating a new normal. Rachaele Raynoff, a department spokeswoman, explained it this way in an email:

The Department of City Planning appreciates the dynamic nature of the historic Bowery, and its enduring strength as a vital, economically thriving corridor, having seen a range of new development activity and investment. The wide, centrally-located street continues to support a mix of commercial, residential, community and cultural uses, and has excellent access to mass transit. As the Department considers citywide policies on rezoning, we work hard to balance the varying needs of a broad and ever-expanding city and continually seek to strike a balance among uses, constituencies and planning strategies.

In other words, were the city to downzone everything, there would be nowhere left to build.

mchaban [at] observer.com / @mc_nyo

According to a release issued by the gallery in November, Sperone Westwater will relocate from West 13th Street in December 2009, the move "prompted by Sperone Westwater’s increasing need for larger and more flexible space..."

More from the release: