The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-31
THE BOWERY-OLD AND NEW
Pictures of the Great Central Artery of
the Lower Life Of New York City.
The improvement of Twenty Years in This
Malstrom of Vice-RecalIing Raid on
One of the Worst of the Dives.
written for the Indianapolis journal.

| Written for the indianapolis Journal.
| An English essayist, writing s'on the other
| side, compares the Bowery in New York to the
Nevskoi Perspect, in St Petersburg The only
point OF resemblance that I can see between
them is that they are both long. broad streets
In this the Nevskoi has the advantage, but there
is more of what Mr.. Augustin Daily calls ''contem-
poraneous human interest" in the Bowery in
day than in the other thoroughfare
IN a month. The Bowery. Of all the
dsedalian arteries which throb with the
giant pulsations of ominous life through the
city OF New York, is the last to go to sleep at
night and the first to wake up in the morning.
Now and then party of silk-hatted jewellers will
issue from the Brunswick or the Hoffman at an
hour when the Bowery is silent as the Tombs
itself; but as rule business is still going in
the Bowery when Broadway, below Eighth
street (where the Bowery endsl, is dead as last
years mosquito. And should you take your
stand on the topmost stone Of the East-river
bridge tower you would find that while Broad
way is still silent and empty, the Bowery is rap
| idly being peopled with little, moving dots.
The dots are men, women and children going to
work. Scant at 3, numerous at 4 reinforced at
5. numbered by thousands at 6, torrent at z;
| this great Army of Labor comes down the Bow
cry to invest the city From until you shall
see them no more, save in an occasional instance
at noon, when a pap er.capped man or an
aproned and bareheaded girl runs across
the street to the bakers. or when the boy-the
shrill- whistling. sarcastic observant boy-of
great factory enters it with the gallons of hot
coffee which are to accompany the midday meal.
But at 6 in the evening of FIVE days Of the week,
and perhaps as late as IL on Saturdays, you may
see this same great army pouring its phalanxes
| from side streets into the main artery again, and
resuming the march which to every man, woman
and child of them ends at bone.
tits then, at this hour, that the night-sde Of
Bowery life begins
Alas! for the days of yore The Bowery is not
what 1t was twenty years ago. and still less what
1t was before the war drained ii of thousands Of
its most turbulent characters. Perhaps it is hui
| man nature to regret even the decadence of vice.
II that vice be OF picturesque so.t-as the vices
| of the Bowery quarter of century ago assured
| ly were. Now and then you may come across an
elderly Bowerian who will unctuously point out
to You the spot on which Big Kelly and Mike
| Toohill fought lin and out of the gutter" all
| around the Old Bowery Theater block; the loca-
ton of the deadly duel with knives between two
politicians of the Bloody Sixth; the very hydrant
on which Tweed when young fireman used to
sit, waiting for the chance of a ''scrap" with the
rival company down the street; the gambling
house in which "Old Jan" won 500, 900 'off'np a
lozenge, which the dealer took to be 'split"
CHECKED est, small check representing ne-half
the value of an ordinary check the block on
which the gigantic Jim Irving tackled" a whole
target excursion because it was composed of
members not of his political creed; the favorite
haunts of Bill Poole, Lewis Baker. John Nor
-issey; the house inIwhch the imperturbable Ben
Wood is said to have lost block of buildings on
the turn of a single card; the corner where his
brother Fernando. white mustached slim. erect
as grenadier and of cast iron countenance, was
1o1 h. T. i
revolver of its leader with his gloved hand
walking TRANQUILITY away thereupon; and a
thousand other matters of Bowery note. These
days, and the days In which some of these things
wore possible. have gone; never to return.
But there is one phase of Bowery life which is
| not extinct The dives still flourish. They are
not 80 numerous as of yore; they are not so
brazen as they were twenty years ago; there are
| not so many murders reported from them, and
| not so many murders occur in them that are not
| reported But they are vile enough still In
| hundreds of cases the women who gain a
wretched living in them have lost all semblance
OF womanhood, and IN all cases the "men'
| who live by and upon them are beyond char
| acterization and beneath contempt
| In many cases, also. the character of the women
| is far better than the stranger would be led to
suppose have known of women helping the
| "men" to beat and kick helpless stranger out
| of all shape and then to throw him into the
| street, and l have known one of these poor
wretched creatures to fling herself between
dive proprietor and his prey with the full knowl-
| edge that she herself would receive the brutal
| treatment intended for his victim.
Many years ago-exactly how many it boots
| not: but have climbed the rugged mountains
side and culled the bright-topped heather'afull
many time and oft since them was report
er for the New York Herald; a fresh colored.
| fresh hearted boy-only boy. The second joke
| the city editor played on me-(hs first was
| to send me to a Fenan meeting, where,
being palpabIy English, I was taken
for nd oxu1u
my life)-was to send me to report a SATURDAY.
night raid of Bowery dive. In those days the
police invariably communicated the intelligence
of forthcoming raid to the city editors This
particular dive-so called because the dive is al.
ways undergraduates a few doors from Grand
street, and It's proprietor was known to be man
of desperate character, who would be very likely
to make resistance. AS | reached the place blaZ
ing with lamps and gaudy pictures-"The Star of
the Sea-" it was called evidently with view to
catching the sailor men, who love the Bowery
when in port-the doors suddenly opened at the
foot of the steps and man handsomely dressed
ran out, calling murder" Following him, with
his mouth full of curses, rushed a dyedmu
tached, shirt-sleeved, brutal-looking rudian. It
was near IL O'clock but the streets of New York
most of all the Bowery-are generally we'll
populated at that hour of Saturday night. But
despite the presence of a score Of people the
scounderly dive proprietor rushed upon his vic.
tim. threw him down between the car tracks
face up. and deliberately ground thu poor fell
lows nose to a jelly with his boot heel Then
the staggering rufian turned, glared at those
who had congregated. and walked leisurely down
the steps of his dive again
l stood outside until the police captain came.
and informed him of what had happened
my men will be here at H." he said. s'Lets
go down"
He was new TO the precinct, and the dive pro.
prietor did not know him. We seated ourselves at
a round table, and for the first time took an in
ventory of the contents of Bowery dive Pre-
csely as it was then it is now, with the sole ex-
ception that nowadays the Bowery dives
are nearly all on the ground floor.
instead of being underground. Gar
ish pictures of half nude women
hung upon the walls, tawdry red and yellow
screens kept the too inquistive passer- by from
ntixafxt h. Ia