The Bowery: Past, Present & Future on NYC’s Oldest Street

Wednesday, April 11, 2018, 6:30 - 8pm

Add to Calendar

Postcard of the Bowery El

Join us for a  free, public presentation in word & song celebrating five years of the Bowery’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Reservations are requested.

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. It was an early hub for the working class, gangs, gays, and immigrants. It has seminal links to dance, theater, baseball, streetcars, tattooing, Irving Berlin, Abe Lincoln, and Harry Houdini. In the 20th century, it helped launch Beat literature, Abstract Expressionism, and punk rock. It is one of NYC’s most architecturally diverse streets, and now one of America’s most endangered. 

Presentations include a talk by David Mulkins, vintage songs sung by Poor Baby Bree, and a conversation between architectural conservator Michael Devonshire and architectural historian Kerri Culhane.

Sponsored by Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, Merchant’s House Museum and The Cooper Union

Located in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, at 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets)

More Events & Exhibitions

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.