Devil’s Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery

This anecdote-laden urban history of New York City’s Bowery by Alexiou (The Flatiron) makes for addictive reading. Throughout the 20th century, the street (“synonymous with despair”) in lower Manhattan was once a key thruway in old New Amsterdam, built on an old Lenape Indian footpath north of the colonists’ original settlement, along which rich settlers built their estates. In Alexiou’s hands, the history of the Bowery­­—from farms to grotty nightlife to bums and back to high-end real estate for the wealthy—is a slice of New York City history. The chapters on the city’s tumultuous early days are top-rate urban history, yet Alexiou hits her stride in describing the 19th century, when the Bowery—with its immigrant riots, gin joints, whorehouses, and attitude that “everything was for sale”—was “America’s center of sin.” Astutely written and smartly researched (this isn’t the same shopworn collection of old anecdotes from Herbert Asbury’s 1928 Gangs of New York), the book dives deeply into such Bowery notables as Tammany Hall boss Tim Sullivan and continues through the early 20th century (which she covers too briefly) before coming to life again with the punk music scene at CBGB. This is a fascinating micro-take on New York’s cycle of boom and bust. Agent: Wendy Schmalz, Wendy Schmalz Agency. [em](July) [/em]