The Bowery is deeply embedded in NYC folklore. The Dutch name de Bouwerie was easily translated into the English Bowery, meaning something like farm road. In Middle English, Bower meant something like a pleasant country house. It has been a long time since there were farms in this area. Saloons have thrived on the Bowery since Dutch colonial days. The first was Cornelius Aertzens inn at Bowery Village, established in 1665. The first recorded armed gang in NYC, The Forty Thieves, had it's headquarters in Rosetta Peer's saloon at Anthony (later Worth) St in 1825. The Bowery was New York's theater district until it was supplanted by Broadway in Midtown. The thing though that seems to have fixed people's image of the Bowery in their minds was Charles Hoyt's hit song "The Bowery"
Oh, the night that I struck New York,
I went out for a quiet walk;
Folks who are "on to" the city say,
Better by far that I took Broadway;
But I was out to see the sights,
There was the Bow'ry ablaze with lights;
I had one of the devil's own nights!
I'll never go there anymore.
Chorus: The Bow'ry, the Bow'ry! They say such things and they do strange things on the Bow'ry!
The Bow'ry! I'll never go there anymore!
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