New York City once had a distinct Skid Row. It was the Bowery.
This was the name of the major street that Skid Row was on, as well as a reference to anything having to do with a skid row in New York. The street is still there, and still named Bowery, but things have changed.
The thoroughfare Bowery is only one of two in New York City that I've ever been aware of that does not have a Street, Avenue, Boulevard, or any other designation following its name. The other is Broadway. Symbolically, worlds apart.
Bowery, as a street is really Third Avenue south. The section of Third Avenue, south of Cooper Union is named Bowery. I don't exactly know when it ceased to automatically connote Skid Row, but it did for much of the 20th century. A majority of the people alive today would not associate the area with what I and others of a 'certain age' remember the area to have been.
The family flower shop, that I've referred to a few times, was actually "uptown" from the Bowery, being at 18th Street and 3rd Avenue, nearly ensconced in what could be described as the tony, leafy Gramercy Park area. Nearly. We were close.
In the late 50s and 60s, my formative Manhattan years, 14th Street was a bit of a barrier in keeping the souls of the Bowery from wandering uptown and panhandling in a better neighborhood. Of course it wasn't electrified, and it didn't require a passport or a stop at Customs, but it seemed to represent a street too far uptown that any of the guys would venture north of in search of money for a drink.
Some did cross it, and they didn't blend. And sometimes, when someone's need for money was so acute and their judgment so poor, they occasionally stooped to grab the geraniums we had for sale in front of the flower shop and walk off with several and head for Phil's Neapolitan restaurant and bar at 17th Street, where they would try and sell or barter the pots for a drink from a hoped for sympathetic bartender. Usually, they didn't get that far.
As soon as the geranium disappearance was realized, it was always my job to set off after the unsteady fellow and demand, wrestle, whatever, convince the individual that the pots were not his, and that he should give them back. To me.
I never liked doing this, but the job fell to me because before my father got to the shop from his real job, the only adult in the place was my septuagenarian great-uncle, who didn't walk so well himself. Uncle Pete, by virtue of being a bachelor at the start of World War II was drafted into the Army. As best we ever figured out, he was at least 45 at the time, but he had a pulse and decent vision. So he served his new country by handing out uniforms in the Quartermaster Corps in Kentucky. I was always proud of his discharge papers that said he was of 'excellent character.' Hangovers did affect the person you might meet, however.
So, catch up to the geranium thief I did, always without too much incident or a struggle. I repossessed geraniums as a youth.
What brought these events into active memory was a story I recently saw in the WSJ discussing the documentary ‘On the Bowery,’ a 1956 production that broke new ground in film making. The film has ascended into ‘classic’ status amongst those in-the-know. The movie was being shown at the Film Forum, a retrospective movie house on West Houston Street in NYC for a run of a few days.
The WSJ news story was more than a listing. It was wrapped around a fairly large picture of what was really the opening shot of the movie: a street level view of the Bowery with the 3rd Avenue El overhead, filtering shafts of sunlight onto the cobblestones of the street below, something like looking up through an open Venetian blind. I wasn’t all that old, but it is a scene I do remember.
If it wasn’t for this newspaper story the film would have come and gone, like it probably has a few times in its existence, and I would have never known about it. It is hard to imagine what might someday replace newspapers for efficient and comprehensive delivery of information. But right now I don’t have to give that too much thought. Abraham Lincoln observed that the good thing about the future was that it doesn’t get here all at once.
The film follows three individuals who are not actors, but are indeed Bowery people. I have to say, I grew up hearing them referred to as "bums." It's taken a long life to be a bit kinder in word to what they were, and what they can still be, even if not concentrated in one particular part of the city.
The film basically follows a few days in the life of Ray Salyer, someone who comes to the Bowery as a destination, because basically, he likes to drink, even though he does take breaks from it. He fairly quickly returns to it, because the Bowery is the best place to do what he likes.
Ray is not yet emaciated from prolonged drinking. He doesn't shuffle, and he looks reasonably fit. He is a rugged, good looking individual and might, without too much of a stretch, remind someone today of George Clooney as he looks in his current movie poster for 'The American.' A reviewer in the The Christian Science Monitor says he looks a bit like Gary Cooper.
Reading about the film after seeing it I read that Mr. Salyer was indeed offered roles in Hollywood after the film was released. He turned down a $40,000 contract, saying something, Greta Garbo-like that, "I just want the Bowery and to be left alone."
He apparently didn't disappear into the background all at once. He let himself enjoy some celebrity status when he appeared on an April 24, 1957 telecast of Mike Wallace's 'Night Beat' show on Channel 5, from 11-12 AM. The show's lisiting described that "journalist Carl Rowan and Bowery denizen Ray Salyer" would be Mike's guests. Mike is still with us. I wonder if he remembers Ray.
But Ray felt the Bowery was his home, and he really wasn't heard from again. There were no news obituaries like those for Andy Warhol's film people. Perhaps Ray did go to Chicago eventually. Perhaps he turned things around through A.A. Whatever he did, he did it with few noticing anything.
The most visible of the other two people given screen credits in the film is Gorman Hendricks, a older fellow to whom the film is dedicated. Gorman helps Ray in a few ways. He helps relieve him of his suitcase and few possessions, but then turns part of the hocked value into a handout to help Ray leave the Bowery. Gorman it turns out passed away soon after the film was released.
Visible in one quick scene is a storefront window that says 'Travel Bureau' in a gold leaf lettered arc. Its appearance is almost comical. But as incongruous to its surroundings as it might be, it might also be optimism. There is a way out. Ray doesn't turn here, however.
The bar scenes can be quiet, or raucous, as the number of men in the place increases and the amount of liquor they consume goes up. It never takes much. The bars are not full of men wearing sports logo shirts and hats. In fact, the film is during warmer weather, and few hats of any kind are in evidence. The closest thing there is to sports is an association you have to supply yourself. There is one fellow who is wearing a very rumbled pullover shirt that has the number 12 on its back. Joe Namath’s number, but Joe hasn’t shown up anywhere with that famous number yet. Wait a few years. The wearer is way ahead of his time.
You can catch some signs of what the prices were then. Scotch is 55 cents a shot. Seems like everyone should be drinking that at that price. But muscatel and small glasses of draft beer seem to be what sells. Coins are dropped and pushed forward on the bar. No folding money.
I knew an alcohol counselor once who told me that he met an Indian chief on the Bowery. Twice. Once when he himself was among the inhabitants, and another time when he was there as a therapist. Best he could remember, it was a different chief.
There can't be anything else worse for business than to have the owner of the company sail off a cliff and be killed while using the company's product. But this is exactly what happened when James W. Heselden, owner of Segway, the company that produces the one-person electric personal transportation vehicle that somewhat resembles a pogo stick with wheels, fell 30 off a cliff in England while using a Segway all-terrain type model.
