were still outnumbered by restaurant
supply stores hawking used free-standing
ranges on the sidewalk.
“The Bowery is truly one of the most
underappreciated neighborhoods in New
York,” says Eric Ferrara, the director of
the Lower East Side History Project, a
nonprofit dedicated to preserving and
promoting Manhattan’s downtown neighborhoods. “It’s one of the most culturally
Art and Architecture
Reshape the Bowery
The Bowery’s artist residents have been
pivotal to the changing neighborhood
sprouting up and several entrepreneurs
had set their sights on the neighbor-
hood. Among them were hoteliers Sean
MacPherson and Eric Goode, who
opened the Bowery Hotel, which instantly
became one of the coolest places in Man-
hattan to rest your head or score a bar
stool. Another luxe establishment, the
Cooper Square Hotel at the northern end
of the Bowery, soon followed.
The New Museum of Contemporary
Art is worth seeing for the building alone.
It looks like a series of haphazardly stacked
aluminum boxes, and the architects who
designed it, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue
Nishizawa of the Japanese architecture
48 Arrıve • January/February 2011 • arrivemagazine.com
since the 1960s, when they moved in
and created a rebellious counterculture.
Even so, in 2002, when the New Museum
of Contemporary Art announced it was
relocating to the Bowery from SoHo, it
seemed like a brave pioneer. When the
museum reopened in a striking high-
design building in late 2007, it put an
international spotlight on the Bowery’s
art scene. By then, art galleries were
firm SANAA, won the 2010 Pritzker
Architecture Prize. The artwork inside
is surprising, too, and visiting the New
Museum is a great alternative for fans of
experimental contemporary art.
Other impressive structures by big-name architects have since gone up on
the Bowery. “The Bowery has long been
known as a street of extremes, a haven
for free speech and creative invention,
Clockwise from top left:
There’s never a shortage
of style at the Patricia Field
boutique; the hair salon at
Patricia Field; denim galore
at Rag & Bone; Daniel
Boloud’s DBGB bar; indoor
and outdoor seating options
at The Bowery Hotel’s bar;
The Bowery Poetry Club &
Café, which hosts weekly
poetry slams; The Bowery
Hotel’s terrace and lobby.
