On the Bowery 1977

Walking through the Bowery.

Memories abound from the last century.

In 1962 my father had a business meeting in New York with executives from AT&T. He drove our Ford station wagon with my mother and his two adolescent son south from Boston and we stayed at the Manhattan Hotel on West 34th Street. While he was with fellow electrical engineers we visited the Empire State Building, saw the Rockettes, ate at Tads Steakhouse, and viewed the Statue of Liberty. On the way back by Yellow Cab we rode along the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. A sunny day much like that of the photo.

Spotting a man sprawled on that narrow meridian strip, I asked, if he were dead.

“No, he’s just drunk.” My mother answered with a disapproving glance.

I knew what drunk was since an old man hung out at the gas station in our suburban town. Red Tate. A Korean war veteran. My father, a WWII veteran, sometimes gave him a buck for a bottle of wine. There weren't many bums in my hometown. It was a dry town without any liquor stores, but Red Tate always had his bottle of Thunderbird.

In the next block were three more collapsed men. Lost to oblivion.

I later lived in the East Village and frequented CBGBs, passing countless enlistees to a state of inebriation on the Bowery. I never joined them, but not for lack of trying.