New Movie Releases DVD

For years, New York City's Bowery was the place for men with nowhere else to go, thousands and thousands of them, from war veterans to failed grandiose would-be architects of a new universe. Large numbers of the lost souls sought comfort from their dismal feelings of personal defeat in the deadening effects of alcohol and, later, drugs. These abject cast-offs from society found cheap beds, chicken-wire cubicles and brotherhood in the flophouses that masqueraded as hotels.

And the flophouses remained a mainstay of the Bowery for decades, even as wholesale restaurant suppliers and lighting-fixture stores moved onto the street. However, beginning in the late 1970’s many of the flophouses began to disappear, as the ever-encroaching spread of gentrification claimed loft space and constructed a number of sparkling residential buildings for wealthier residents.

Now, the raucous sounds of a boulevard peopled by swaggering sailors, working-class laborers, fresh immigrants and predatory con men have grown increasingly faint. In the new urban morning light, the boisterous old sounds have become ghosts receding into the walls. A new day has dawned on the Bowery.

This piece includes a number of color and vintage photographs, music audio and a short video presenting a pictorial history of the Bowery.

Please visit my website to view these photographs, and to watch this touching, engaging 3-minute short film:

http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/in-the-shadows-of-the-bowery-the-old…

• added by:
  disembedded
   
• 0 comments