Tag Archives: bowery

The Bowery 1962

In April 1962 my father attended a business meeting in Manhattan for Ma Bell. While my father was at his appointment, my older brother and I accompanied my mother to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty and rode a taxi north through the Bowery heading to the Enpire State Building. As we passed […]

FLOP HOUSE Charles Bukowski

you haven’t lived until you’ve been in a flophouse, with nothing but one light bulb and 56 men squeezed together on cots with everybody snoring at once and some of those snores so deep and gross and unbelievable— dark snotty gross subhuman wheezings from hell itself. your mind almost breaks under those death-like sounds and […]

BOXING DAY ON THE BOWERY by Peter Nolan Smith

Every Christmas my mother cooked a 20-pound turkey, I mashed seasoned potatoes, and my sisters set the dining room table with yams, creamed onions, turnips, peas, stuffing, and all the fixings for my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers, friends, cousins, sisters, and brothers. Grace was said with bowed heads. Our plates were swept by forks and […]

Poppers ReDux

Jan. 2 1979 Suicide was headlining CBGBs. The duo weren’t for everyone, but the screaming fury of Alan Vega and monotonal drone of his keyboard player Martin Rev were an effective remedy for a long holiday of drinking, especially if the holidays were not ready to call it quits. My hillbilly girlfriend was in West […]