Continuing with the theme of December in New York, here is one topic that may bewilder:

Stanford WHO? You ate in a BANK? On the BOWERY? Evidently there is much here to discuss.

De Bouwerij   Dutch influence in New York, both in physical heritage and language heritage, is a topic unto itself. Suffice it to say here that for just forty years, from 1624 to 1664 (when the English took over) the southern tip of Manhattan was Nieuw Amsterdam.

The primary physical heritage remaining is the street pattern. Nieuw Amsterdam formed a triangle, with the Hudson and East Rivers coming together at the Battery, and the stockade wall from river to river blocking access from the north. Of course the street running east-west right inside the wall was Wal Straat, and is now Wall Street.

As for language: realize that when you see family names like de Wolfe or de Winter, that that "de" is not French. It's the Dutch word for "the", so you can wonder where de wolf spends de winter. I say that because arguably it can be said that the penchant (now dying out) for some speakers of New York dialect to say de and dem might be traceable to the Dutch influence.

One more: the Dutch word stoep, which is pronounced stoop and is related to step and German Stufe, became the New York word for not just one step but an outdoor flight of steps. Also note that the "oo" sound is always written "oe" in Dutch, so you should recognize what "soep" is, or "bloed", or "hoef". The Dutch spelling "oe" has transferred to only one English word; take a look at your shoe.

Enough of heritage. Piercing the wall going northward towards the west end of town was the old Indian trail which under the English took the name Broadway. In Dutch days it was "De Heere Straat", or The Gentlemen's Street.

Beyond that, another road branched off. It led through the countryside to some farms, including the farm that Governor Pieter Stuyvesant had built for himself. It was located between today’s 15th and 16th Streets east of First Avenue, where the Stuyvesant Town housing development is today and a block from Stuyvesant Square on Second Avenue. My guess is that it was more of a country manor house, and calling it "The Farm", was just understatement. At the time, Dutch for "The Farm" was De Bouwerij. Current Dutch has a boer living in a boerderij (boor-de-RAY). How to reconcile that with bouwerij? Was the Dutch word different in the 1600's? Maybe it was a dialect variation? Possibly (pure speculation) it was already the beginning of a transition from Dutch to English. In any case, if it had been De Boerderij at the time it would have turned into The Bowdery, or, more likely, The Boordery, and not The Bowery.

The Dutch word for farmer is boer, like German Bauer. The Boer War in South Africa was the Farmers' War. In that case, the pronunciation bo-er has taken hold, but as you now know boer normally is pronounced boor, and has become an English word. Someone who's a rube, is a boor, and shows boorish behavior. (People tend to always put down farmers.)

Anyway, if, in a bakery, you expect to find a baker, in a bouwerij you expect to find a boer/boor/Bauer.

The word was later anglicized to The Bowery, but one has to give some thought as to how the name moved from the place to the road leading to the place. An answer is in the name of the off-Broadway theater on the Bowery called the Bouwerie Lane Theater. Aside from the curious spelling, the name indicates that originally De Bouwerij Laan led up to De Bouwerij, and when De Bouwerij itself disappeared, De Bouwerij Laan dropped the last word. So we ended up with a street called The Farm.

This sort of thing is not as rare as you think. The strait connecting San Francisco Bay with the ocean is the Golden Gate. The bridge crossing the Golden Gate is the Golden Gate Bridge. Drop the last word (see above) and most people understand that you're talking about the bridge when you say Golden Gate, and may even be unaware that the strait below has that name. Similarly, the wide spot in the Hudson called Lake Tappan, or the Tappan Sea (OK, it's in Dutch: Tappan Zee) is confused with the Tappan Zee Bridge in the same way.

So we have a street called The Bowery. The lower third closest to Wall Street no longer uses that name, nor does what would have been the upper third or so north of about 4th Street to 15th-16th Street. Today’s Bowery is the center section of the original road.

There is a naming elegance to streets that don't use "Street" or "Avenue", either with or without "The". Aside from The Bowery, Broadway comes to mind (originally The Broadway). London has The Strand and The Aldwych, Rome Il Corso (The Courseway), Berlin Unter den Linden (Under the Lindens [Linden Trees]). Don't be misled by the Champs-Élysées: it's full name is l'Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

So the first phase of The Bowery is a 16C Dutch road in the countryside. By the late 17C-early 18C it constitutes the most elegant neighborhood of New York (the 1832 Merchant’s House Museum a half-block west of the Bowery on East 4th Street can attest to that). By the late 19C, from the Civil War on, the city had expanded uptown to this area and The Bowery (which also describes its neighborhood, just as Broadway near Times Square describes the entire theater district) has become the Times Square of its day. It is the center of entertainment, with hotels, theaters, saloons, restaurants, everything that locals or visitors would want. The country lane has become the entertainment center of the city.

I read recently that Stephen Foster died 140 years ago this week, in 1864, in a hotel on The Bowery. Most people hearing that would misunderstand it, picturing him lying in some doorway or something. Granted that Forster wasn't known for holding on to money, but his having died in a hotel on the Bowery simply is the equivalent, at that period in time, to having died in a hotel on Times Square today, with no implications of homelessness involved.

But from this discussion can be seen that phase three of the Bowery is the decline. It is apparently in human nature that respectable centers of entertainment gradually become more and more disrespectable. Even Times Square itself did so, before its recent comeback, and the same for 42nd Street.

There was apparently also a very popular medieval fair held annually in the English town of Saint Audrey. Over time it suffered the usual decline in respectability to the point where any reference to Saint Audrey (similar to any reference to the Bowery today) had a negative slant. Eventually the name (Sain)t Audrey was shortened and developed into "tawdry".

The Bowery was in general decline, and the building of the Third Avenue Elevated only made things worse. Some cities put els running down mid-block. This is common in Berlin, and in some parts of Chicago. All New York els, such as on 3rd, 6th, and 9th Avenues, ran right down the street from sidewalk to sidwalk and shut out light and caused further decline.

Maybe because the Bowery had been so high, that it just had that much more to fall. Its reputation became the worst of the worst of the worst. Its image became hell on earth. In the years when the homeless were called bums, the Bowery, former country lane, former entertainment hub, became a center for the homeless, and the term Bowery bum came into general use. Even homeless people who had never seen the Bowery were still called Bowery bums, so bad was the Bowery's reputation. There were many homeless shelters on The Bowery, also called SRO's (Single-Room Occupancy [hotels]), and commonly called flophouses.

To digress: there is one other street associated with homelessness: Skid Row in Seattle. The street apparently began as a place where logs were slid down to the harbor. For so many years homeless people, even those that had never been near Seattle or New York, were referred to as being on Skid Row or being on the Bowery.

As the Bowery just started its decline, and just started to lose its reputation, the song was popular:

Then its reputation declined into oblivion. This is still the image in most people's minds. It is, thankfully, no longer an accurate image.

Phase four must have started slowly, with the tearing down of the Third Avenue El in the mid-1950's. The Bowery became a commercial district. Even today it's the center of two types of business. As you go up and down the street, you're struck by how many wholesale lamp and lighting supply houses there are, and also commercial kitchen supply houses.

Yet for years people kept away. I know exactly when we went to the Bowery the first time. It was March 12, 1977, Bev's 40th birthday. We decided to do some walking tours on her birthday, and then go out to dinner that evening. I remember the Michelin guide urging people to go and take a look at the Bowery neighborhood, that it wasn't unsafe, and was worth visiting. I remember it was a birthday, because as we were standing at a corner waiting to cross, a women mentioned to her companion that it was her 40th birthday that day, so we struck up a conversation.

The Bowery today is in full renaissance. I understand that there are only a couple of homeless shelters left, the others having dispersed to other neighborhoods. There is a new art museum going up, called, appropriately, the New Museum. There is a very expensive condominium building going up. The stretch of "country lane" still called The Bowery runs from Chatham Square in Chinatown about 12-15 blocks north, where it splits and forms both Third and Fourth Avenues. The lower third of the Bowery is today very Chinese in appearance.

Stanford White   You may know Stanford White, the famous architect. You always hear his name as a mantra: Stanford White of the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. He built Washington Arch in Greenwich Village. He built the Boston Public Library. Anything large, impressive, Beaux Arts, and with a lot of columns and marble, is very possibly by Stanford White of the firm..., etc.

He built the original Madison Square Garden, which actually was on Madison Square before it was moved several times. On the top floor he had a gentleman's club. Stanford White was famously shot to death at a fancy dinner at this club by Harry K. Thaw, husband of Evelyn Nesbitt, who White was running around with (Thaw was acquitted). If all of this sounds more and more familiar, it's because it was used as part of the story of "Ragtime", the novel and film with James Cagney.

I grew up with there always being a Bowery Savings Bank, although it must since have merged into another bank. Talk about choosing an unfortunate name. The name was fine while the Bowery's reputation was outstanding, and when it declined, the bank just had to grit its teeth. At any rate, no one less than Stanford White built a huge bank building for the Bowery Savings Bank on the west side of the Bowery at the corner of Grand Street, going through to Elizabeth Street. In recent years the building was closed for some time, then a club tried unsuccessfully to use it as a clubhouse.

Capitale   I was in Florida last May reading a restaurant review in the New York Times called "Splendor on the Bowery". Now that title is eye-catching. It reviewed a restaurant called Capitale that had taken over the bank building. They liked the food, but of course it's the restored building that steals the show. The article started: "In a city with no shortage of grand dining rooms, Capitale takes the cake. ...it is almost preposterously opulent, a gilt-encrusted temple with 45-foot-high coffered ceilings, Corinthian columns the size of sequoias and enough marble to rebuild the Parthenon." This was of course intriguing.

In December we were driving up the Bowery for the Christmas party at the Merchants House Museum, and drove past Capitale. There was something special going on, because there was a truck with four searchlights lighting up the sky. I later found out ESPN had taken over the building for a party. I decided it was time to make reservations. We went to Capitale three days before Christmas.

They were very accommodating. When they heard we had a wheelchair, they offered to save a parking space for us on the Bowery in front of the restaurant, and had someone help us up the steps.

There are apparently several private rooms, upstairs and in the basement level, including the former boardroom. We were led into the restaurant on the main level, which was impressive, but before we sat down the maitre d' asked if we wanted to go through the glass doors at the end to see the main ballroom. Did we ever. I know banks used to be grand, but this was spectacular. The columns went up to there, the ceiling was coffered (honeycombed), there was a huge colored skylight, a dance floor had been installed in the center. There was only average illumination. When a function is held there, the lighting is that much more impressive.

During dinner, we chatted more with the headwaiter. It's the private rooms that run the business, and they're very successful. The restaurant is sometimes closed 2-3 times a week to accommodate functions that overflow the main room.

Elton John had held an AIDS benefit recently. On the Bowery.

Bill Clinton had held a political fundraiser recently. On De Bouerij.

Madonna was going to have some MTV event there, but cancelled whan another venue was offered free of charge.

Nevertheless, this is no longer your grandfather's Bowery.

The opening declaration should now be clearer: