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Native American footpath, Dutch farm road and site of NYC’s first free Black settlement, the Bowery stretches 1.25 miles from Chatham Square to Cooper Square. An early social hub for the working class, gangs, gays, and immigrant Irish, Italians, Chinese, Jews and Germans, Stephen Crane called it “the most interesting place in New York.”
An incubator of American history and culture, it has important links to Washington, Lincoln, baseball, streetcars, tap dance, tattoo, minstrelsy, Yiddish theater, vaudeville, Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Harry Houdini, and even Mae West. A long-time home to rescue missions and affordable jewelry, lighting and restaurant supply districts, its artists’ community helped foster Abstract Expressionism, Beat Literature, and improvisational jazz and punk rock. NYC’s oldest, most architecturally diverse street--including its oldest brick house--in 2013 it was named to the National Register of Historic Places. Despite such honors, it is one of the city’s most endangered historic streetscapes. Meeting at Duane Street & Centre Street at southern tip of Foley Square Park (near the Foley Square rest stop)