bowels of the bowery

The elevated railroad erected in the 1870s over the Bowery served as a dirty and obvious symbol of the area's decline. The tracks, which ran mere feet away from some buildings, blocked sunlight to the streets below. Popping up and thriving like mushrooms in this darkness were flophouses, brothels and cheap saloons. A stroll on what once was a bucolic lane leading to Peter Stuyvesant's farm became a walk along the path of vice.

During the 1950s, the filthy and unsightly elevated lines were torn down, leaving the only rail transportation below the streets. These tracks occasionally draw a crowd that embodies a certain spirit of the old Bowery days. Today's 'derelicts and deviants' are more likely to stroll these railways with a can of Rusto in hand, rather than a bottle. Like the many authors and artists who have immortalized the bouwerij, these writers also leave their mark, but few will see it.