"Twisted Image" by Ace Backwards - June 1990 High Times Magazine
(Image via: NYCDreamin Archives)
Showing posts with label homeless. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeless. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
70 Years Later - Is History Trying To Repeat Itself?
then...
Excerpt from:
"The Beggar"
by Harlan G. Gilmore
(1940)[p. 87-88]
via
"Down & Out: The Life & Death of Minneapolis' Skid Row"
by Joseph Hart - Photos by Edwin C. Hirschoff
(2002)[p. 19-20]
The tramp...found his jungles swarming with unemployed of all sorts, persons of all degrees of education and of all walks of life. Even women flocked onto the road in surprising numbers. How strange it must have seemed to the aged tramp to suddenly find his freight-trains crowded, his jungles filled, and even his highways lined with foot-loose humanity wandering as aimlessly as himself. As these wandering hordes increased in numbers, towns and localities became both puzzled and alarmed, and the arm of the law became diligent. Trains were met by officers, and "bums" were ordered not to set foot on the ground, vagrants were ordered out of town, and everything concievable was done to keep the transient on the move. Thus the transient found himself almost literally shoved from coast to coast and back again without a chance for food and rest.
...and now:
"Sacramento Moving Homeless from Tent City"
"Moving Day for Sacramento's Tent City"
"Herding The Homeless"
"What Should Rules Be For Feeding the Homeless"
"Residents Concerned About Homeless Influx"
"Residents Upset Over Homeless Outreach Program"
Excerpt from:
"The Beggar"
by Harlan G. Gilmore
(1940)[p. 87-88]
via
"Down & Out: The Life & Death of Minneapolis' Skid Row"
by Joseph Hart - Photos by Edwin C. Hirschoff
(2002)[p. 19-20]
The tramp...found his jungles swarming with unemployed of all sorts, persons of all degrees of education and of all walks of life. Even women flocked onto the road in surprising numbers. How strange it must have seemed to the aged tramp to suddenly find his freight-trains crowded, his jungles filled, and even his highways lined with foot-loose humanity wandering as aimlessly as himself. As these wandering hordes increased in numbers, towns and localities became both puzzled and alarmed, and the arm of the law became diligent. Trains were met by officers, and "bums" were ordered not to set foot on the ground, vagrants were ordered out of town, and everything concievable was done to keep the transient on the move. Thus the transient found himself almost literally shoved from coast to coast and back again without a chance for food and rest.
...and now:
"Sacramento Moving Homeless from Tent City"
"Moving Day for Sacramento's Tent City"
"Herding The Homeless"
"What Should Rules Be For Feeding the Homeless"
"Residents Concerned About Homeless Influx"
"Residents Upset Over Homeless Outreach Program"
Hoovervilles Making a Comeback
From NBCNews.com on March 9th:
A Refuge of Last Resort for Some Californians
A Refuge of Last Resort for Some Californians
Mr Zero - The Real Life Story of Urbain J. Ledoux, Friend to the Down-and-Outers (1874 - 1941)
Urbain J. Ledoux, as a young man, before he was known as "Mr. Zero"(Image via Bibnum2.banq.qc.ca)
I ran across this item on EVGrieve the other day, a photo, from Christmas Day, 1933. The photo was taken in New York City at an establishment known as "The Tub", which was run by a man known to all as Mr. Zero. It showed several homeless men taking their Christmas meal, which was supplied by Mr. Zero. I was immediately interested. Who was this Mr. Zero? I'd never heard or read of the man. So I set about doing a little research and what I found is just simply amazing.
This man was a true hero to the homeless and jobless of not only New York City but of the entire nation. I find it equally amazing that his story is not told more often. It is a story of selfless dedication on the part of one individual to try to make a real change for the better in the lives of those more unfortunate. His name and story should be taught in our public schools as a source of inspiration to our children to try to become better, less self-centered, more caring people. I was struck very deeply by the story of this man and I hope that as you read, you are moved as well.
EVGrieve and Mykola of TimesQueer - you set this in motion - Thank You.
This discovery is much more than just another blog post...it is a lesson in true humanity.
A few additional notes: The "Times" had a bad habit of mis-spelling Mr. Ledoux's first name, usually leaving out the "i", so his name appeared frequently as "Urban Ledoux". In these instances below, I have put the correct spelling in brackets like this: [Urbain].
This man was a true hero to the homeless and jobless of not only New York City but of the entire nation. I find it equally amazing that his story is not told more often. It is a story of selfless dedication on the part of one individual to try to make a real change for the better in the lives of those more unfortunate. His name and story should be taught in our public schools as a source of inspiration to our children to try to become better, less self-centered, more caring people. I was struck very deeply by the story of this man and I hope that as you read, you are moved as well.
EVGrieve and Mykola of TimesQueer - you set this in motion - Thank You.
This discovery is much more than just another blog post...it is a lesson in true humanity.
A few additional notes: The "Times" had a bad habit of mis-spelling Mr. Ledoux's first name, usually leaving out the "i", so his name appeared frequently as "Urban Ledoux". In these instances below, I have put the correct spelling in brackets like this: [Urbain].
And my appologies for the "staggered" sentence layout of this post.
Excerpts from:
"Bowery's Mr. Zero is Dead Here at 66"
New York Times - 04/10/41
-Former U.S. Consul Gave Up Successful Business Career to Befriend the Poor
Excerpts from:
"Bowery's Mr. Zero is Dead Here at 66"
New York Times - 04/10/41
-Former U.S. Consul Gave Up Successful Business Career to Befriend the Poor
Some deep religious instinct sent Urbain J. Ledoux among the poor and disinherited along the
street of forgotten men. He used to say he was inspired by the Sermon on the Mount, but
sometimes he would explain his lifework in vague and deeply mystic terms.
He was the son of Joseph and Octavia Ledoux. They were poor. When they were newly married
they worked in the cotton mills in Baltic, Conn., but they made little headway there. They went
back to St. Helene Bogot, P.Q., and there, Urbain, their first child was born August 13, 1874.
Urbain was still a baby when they returned to the United States, this time in Biddeford, ME.
Later he studied at the College of St. Marie Monoir in Quebec; still later at the College of the
Marist Fathers in Van Buren, ME.
At 21 he was appointed to the United Staes consulate at Three Rivers P.Q. He married Carmeline Painchaud of Biddeford. They had three children, Norman, Yvette, and Lucile.
After seven years at Three Rivers, Ledoux was appointed commercail consul at Bordeaux, but was sent instead to a similar post at Prague. He was noted there for having introduced the first file index system Prague had ever seen.
Eventually he was ordered to Santos, Brazil. He abruptly decided to leave government service. He became an executive for a firm producing denatured alcohol. He was the first, his family says, to import canned heat from Europe.
About this time he began to preach the universal brotherhood of man. He worked for world peace; went to the Hague as a United States delegate and was associated with the Ginn World Peace Foundation. He dreamed of establishing a great international city.
In 1917, Ledoux's vision had taken shape. He worked for the Government War Camp Community Service, helping to feed and shelter transient soldiers. Through all this he remained Urbain Ledoux.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero - Leader of the Jobless (1900's)
street of forgotten men. He used to say he was inspired by the Sermon on the Mount, but
sometimes he would explain his lifework in vague and deeply mystic terms.
He was the son of Joseph and Octavia Ledoux. They were poor. When they were newly married
they worked in the cotton mills in Baltic, Conn., but they made little headway there. They went
back to St. Helene Bogot, P.Q., and there, Urbain, their first child was born August 13, 1874.
Urbain was still a baby when they returned to the United States, this time in Biddeford, ME.
Later he studied at the College of St. Marie Monoir in Quebec; still later at the College of the
Marist Fathers in Van Buren, ME.
At 21 he was appointed to the United Staes consulate at Three Rivers P.Q. He married Carmeline Painchaud of Biddeford. They had three children, Norman, Yvette, and Lucile.
After seven years at Three Rivers, Ledoux was appointed commercail consul at Bordeaux, but was sent instead to a similar post at Prague. He was noted there for having introduced the first file index system Prague had ever seen.
Eventually he was ordered to Santos, Brazil. He abruptly decided to leave government service. He became an executive for a firm producing denatured alcohol. He was the first, his family says, to import canned heat from Europe.
About this time he began to preach the universal brotherhood of man. He worked for world peace; went to the Hague as a United States delegate and was associated with the Ginn World Peace Foundation. He dreamed of establishing a great international city.
In 1917, Ledoux's vision had taken shape. He worked for the Government War Camp Community Service, helping to feed and shelter transient soldiers. Through all this he remained Urbain Ledoux.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero - Leader of the Jobless (1900's)
After the war, he took up the cause of jobless soldiers. He opened the old Fleischman Bakery in
Broadway near Grace Church and fed and sheltered them. He worked at odd jobs himself to raise funds [and] got some donations [as well.]
Broadway near Grace Church and fed and sheltered them. He worked at odd jobs himself to raise funds [and] got some donations [as well.]
Click HERE to read about Ledoux's 11/20/20 speech at St. Mark's Church in NYC, NY.
In January 1921, he led a ragged delegation into Trinity Church in silent appeal for aid. In September of that year he moved to Boston. Reporters, impressed by his earnest desire to help, said, "You must learn to dramatize your cause."
Ledoux hit on the idea of selling the jobless soldiers at auction. He would set a veteran up on the
block. "Here is an ex-soldier," he would say. "He was with the sixth Marines in France. He was
wounded. He is a carpenter. Who will bid?"
In January 1921, he led a ragged delegation into Trinity Church in silent appeal for aid. In September of that year he moved to Boston. Reporters, impressed by his earnest desire to help, said, "You must learn to dramatize your cause."
Ledoux hit on the idea of selling the jobless soldiers at auction. He would set a veteran up on the
block. "Here is an ex-soldier," he would say. "He was with the sixth Marines in France. He was
wounded. He is a carpenter. Who will bid?"
*Includes a terrific photo!
The auction won country-wide attention. Later Ledoux tried to auction soldiers in Bryant Park in Manhattan, but the police stood him off.
*On the day and into the evening of September 19, 1921, Mr. Zero turned it up a notch...
"Ledoux Defies Police"
New York Times - 09/19/21
The auction won country-wide attention. Later Ledoux tried to auction soldiers in Bryant Park in Manhattan, but the police stood him off.
*On the day and into the evening of September 19, 1921, Mr. Zero turned it up a notch...
"Ledoux Defies Police"
New York Times - 09/19/21
-Mr. Zero Says Auction of Jobless Will Be Held Tonight-
Urbain Ledoux, "Mr. Zero" as he calls himself in New York, intends to hold his auction of jobless
men on the steps of the Public Library at 11 o'clock tonight despite the police. Also, he said, he
will go to Bryant Park at noon today and distribute biscuits and doughnuts to the men out of work who make the park their headquarters.
"I said I would do that, and what I say I will do I do," said Ledoux. "I will start from Cooper Union at 11 o'clock with a truckload of doughnuts and biscuits. I will go to Bryant Park but as the Park Department has seen fit to bar me from the park I will stay in the street. So far as I know there is no law which can prevent me from giving away food in the streets of New York to hungry men."
His only bodyguard will be Kenneth Chase, an ex-serviceman who served with the Chemical Warfare Service in the War and is now out of work. If anyone tries to hustle Ledoux about, or if the police try to interfere, Chase will sing "THe World Is Dying For A Little Bit of Love" as an antidote.
The real contest between Ledoux and the opponents of his plan to sell jobless men will come at
night when he attempts to conduct his auction in front of the library. The police say they will stop this and American Legion and labor officials have disapproved of this method of attracting attention to the needs of the unemployed. One labor leader, who said labor men would be present to protest, has voiced a desire to punch Ledoux if he persists in his plan.
Ledoux said last night that the objections which have met his efforts in this city as "a servant of
ideals" have not daunted him in the least. So far as he is concerned the auction will take place
unless he is taken bodily from the Library steps. He said he would have ten ex-servuicemen "all
fattened up" to be auctioned off, and that he will give their pedigrees and family history and qualities to the people who are asked to bid. The men will be taken to a theatre before their ordeal on the block. "This is no stunt I am pulling nor is it a joke," said Ledoux. "It is a drama of life. It is too sad to be taken as a joke."
Ledoux spent last night visiting the waterfront, where 16,000 sailors are out of work, talking with them and "feeling the pulse of the jobless." He also visited some of the parks and talked with the men he found there.
Excerpts from:
"Police Clubs Break Mobs of Idle; Bar Food and Meetings"
New York Times - 09/20/21
Urbain Ledoux, "Mr. Zero" as he calls himself in New York, intends to hold his auction of jobless
men on the steps of the Public Library at 11 o'clock tonight despite the police. Also, he said, he
will go to Bryant Park at noon today and distribute biscuits and doughnuts to the men out of work who make the park their headquarters.
"I said I would do that, and what I say I will do I do," said Ledoux. "I will start from Cooper Union at 11 o'clock with a truckload of doughnuts and biscuits. I will go to Bryant Park but as the Park Department has seen fit to bar me from the park I will stay in the street. So far as I know there is no law which can prevent me from giving away food in the streets of New York to hungry men."
His only bodyguard will be Kenneth Chase, an ex-serviceman who served with the Chemical Warfare Service in the War and is now out of work. If anyone tries to hustle Ledoux about, or if the police try to interfere, Chase will sing "THe World Is Dying For A Little Bit of Love" as an antidote.
The real contest between Ledoux and the opponents of his plan to sell jobless men will come at
night when he attempts to conduct his auction in front of the library. The police say they will stop this and American Legion and labor officials have disapproved of this method of attracting attention to the needs of the unemployed. One labor leader, who said labor men would be present to protest, has voiced a desire to punch Ledoux if he persists in his plan.
Ledoux said last night that the objections which have met his efforts in this city as "a servant of
ideals" have not daunted him in the least. So far as he is concerned the auction will take place
unless he is taken bodily from the Library steps. He said he would have ten ex-servuicemen "all
fattened up" to be auctioned off, and that he will give their pedigrees and family history and qualities to the people who are asked to bid. The men will be taken to a theatre before their ordeal on the block. "This is no stunt I am pulling nor is it a joke," said Ledoux. "It is a drama of life. It is too sad to be taken as a joke."
Ledoux spent last night visiting the waterfront, where 16,000 sailors are out of work, talking with them and "feeling the pulse of the jobless." He also visited some of the parks and talked with the men he found there.
Excerpts from:
"Police Clubs Break Mobs of Idle; Bar Food and Meetings"
New York Times - 09/20/21
-Wild Scenes at Night Follow Earlier Disorder When Mounted Men Charge Crowds
-Motorcycles Cut Throngs
-Bryant Hall, Hired by Ledoux, Closed to Him on Orders From the Police
-'Slave Auction" Abandoned
-Great Crowds Gather at Public Library - Jobless Men March in Broadway
Scenes of wild disorder ensued last night upon the refusal of the police to allow Urbain Ledoux,
"Mr. Zero", to auction off jobless men in Bryant Park. Thousands of persons had gathered to
witness the novel effort to find work for the men, and there were some thousand workers on hand, their indignation already whetted by the action of the police earlier in the day in refusing to allow Ledoux to feed them a wagon load of buns he had bought for them, or to permit him to hold a meeting in their behalf in a hall he had hired for that purpose.
Milling crowds fought with police in front of the public library between 11 o'clock and midnight last night when the police, in heavy force, descended upon the jobless and drove them away. The men without work jeered, booed and enetered into the {?} with a will.
Finally, after thousands, brought from Broadway and the outpouring theatre crowds by the disorder, had witnessed the fight for some time, the workless men, among whom ex-servicemen were well represented, broke through the police lines, defied the bluecoats and started a march for Central Park.
At midnight they had poured through Times Square and had got almost to Columbus Circle. Their avowed destination was Central Park and they defied and brushed aside policemen who sought to stop them. Police authorities in the meantime mobilized hundreds of reserves to cope with the situation.
Once free of the major numbers of policewho had harried them near Bryant Park, the "down-and-outers" as some called themselves, were orderly enough, and even cheerful. They swept north, through Broadway shouting "Hurrah for the army of the unemployed!" "When do we eat?" and similar slogans of their condition. By the time they reached Columbus Circle they once more had attracted a big crowd of curious followers. They turned into fifty-ninth street and hurried east, swarming at last into Central Park and breaking for the first spacious plot they saw.
There they gathered about a couple of volunteer speakers who harangued them, one shouting for a Socialist Mayor and lauding the name of Debs, while the other expressed rather unfavorable opinions of the present Mayor of New York and the police commisioner. The speakers made it quite clear that they thought the city authorities had behaved as "boneheads" and that all the disorder, clubbing and riding down would have been unnecessary if the police had just left them alone, when Patrolman Callahan of the Arsenal Station decided Central Park after Midnight offered neither the time nor the place for a meeting of the unemployed and telephoned for the reserves.
By this time hundreds of well dressed men and women, alighting from touring cars, taxicabs and
trolley cars, were interested onlookers. From these, one of the men who had constituted himself a leader in the absence of Ledoux took a collection to buy the buns they had been denied by police authority earlier. Five dollars or more soon clinked into a shabby hat, just as the reserves, double-timing, appeared in sight.
Without waiting for the onslaught, the jobless men, worn out with the previous scuffles, abandoned their meeting and fled the park. They formed in ragged fashion in Fifty-Ninth Street and started back for Broadway. At Broadway and Fifty-Ninth Street one patrolman, inscensed at the gathering, swung his club on the head of one of the marchers. While other policemen were admitting that the marchers were harmless, rather spiritless men who meant to menace no one, this patrolman was explaining that "the mob spirit was rising." Some of the men "tried to push" him out of the way he added.
That was the only casulty on the return march. All patrolmen of the West Forty-Seventh Street
station who could be reached had been mobilized at Fifty-Third Street and Broadway with
instructions to halt the marchers, but by the time they had gathered there the dwindling column had passed that point. The policemen boarded trolley cars and followed until they were sure there was to be no disorder.
Beyond Forty-Second Street, the remnants of the "parade", which had dwindled to 40 or 50 men, journeyed along without police surveillance. It was after 1 o'clock when all that remained of the "army" got back to Madison Square Park, where it dispersed wearily on such benches as were not already occupied.
The police throughout the day, had exorted themselves to an extraordinary degree to thwart
Ledoux's efforts in behalf of those out of work. They had broken up and chased his crowds and
prevented his meetings, as well as preventing his efforts to feed those he wanted to aid. Efforts were made last night to learn the purpose of the authorities in adopting such tactics but communication with Chief Inspector William J. Lahey and others failed to elicit any explanation. When Chief Inspector Lahey was asked for an explanation, he said: "No, I won't give you any explanation. Good Night."
*The article continues for several more columns, explaining in greater deatil, all of the events that occured throughout the day and well into the evening. Basically what occured was the complete refusal of New York City policemen to allow Ledoux to give aid and food to those in need. His efforts were thwarted on every level. He was not allowed to hold his "Auction", he was not allowed to distribute food which he had purchased with the intent of giving it to the hungry. The police charged and attacked the crowds of jobless men whom had gathered expecting to find food and aid in finding work.
"Liberty is dying in America," Ledoux said. "You have seen today that the right of assembly and
the right to petition have been denied. Freedom in America is slowly dying. What hope is there for it?" Simply that public opinion may, in it's great common sense, rise and protect these violated liberties which are guaranteed by the constitution. If New York stands for such things as I have seen today, what hope is there? My God, what will the end be? If the conditions that exist today continue and the police act as they have acted today, there will be trouble. I do not want trouble. I am trying to avoid it. By getting these men off the street corners as I have done before and permitting them to talk over things as a safety valve, I think I have prevented much trouble. I am not an agitator. I am working for the common good, trying to serve those whom nobody else serves. The fact that I dislike trouble is the reason I will not attempt to hold the auction. I know the temper of the men, I have talked with them. They told me just what they would do, and I know many would be injured. I have seen the police and know their temper. I know there would be a terrific clash and someone would be killed. These men in the parks are not dangerous, they are not the kind that make trouble," said Ledoux. "They are weak, they want food and work."
Mr. Ledoux said that he would attempt to establish a community center at St. Mark's Chapel on
Tenth Street, where he conducted a similar center last winter. He said that he has an understanding with Dr. Norman Guthrie, the rector, and that the church would cooperate with him, despite what has been said by Dr. Nalencz, the vicar. [Ledoux] says he has $500 to begin his work in New York, money given by his friends and asserts that is all he will need. After the center is organized he expects it will be supported by voluntary contributions, the funds to be handled by the church business manager.
"I will do there as I have done in Boston," he said. "There will be a barber shop, a cobbler shop,
sewing machines, clothing for the men, an employment bureau and everything that I have found
is useful in such an emergency. At the second breadline I conducted here 150,000 men were fed
and several thousand found employment through my efforts. I myself need little, and what I need I earn."
Some of the statements made by Urbain Ledoux were backed up, without knowledge on his part
of what Ledoux said, by Denis O'Sullivan of 885 Brook Avenue, the Bronx. Chairman of the Bronx Committee to Aid the Unemployed, in a statement issued yesterday. Mr. O'Sullivan said that more 50 per cent of the crime ordinarily attributed to men made desperate by hunger and lack of shelter could be prevented if State and City officials would provide subsistence and shelter for those who walk the city streets at night.
"Police Commisioner Enright must know, also every other chief of police throughout the state and nation," said Mr. O'Sullivan, "that crimes of every character can be prevented in some measure during the next six months if they also use their influence to provide shelter and food for the homeless. It only follows that without food and without a place to rest, the man who would otherwise stand up as a decent citizen, if conditions are sufficiently aggravated, becomes a potential criminal. Why not limit such potential menaces by providing [unreadable]?"
Excerpts from:
"Bowery's Mr. Zero is Dead Here at 66"
New York Times - 04/10/41
He opened quarters on and near the Bowery to feed and shelter the homeless.
Excerpts from:
"Mr. Zero Enlarges Tub For The Idle"
New York Times - 01/19/25
...Ledoux's new experiment in behalf of the jobless man will open today at 26,29, and 33 St. Mark's Place. The basement restaurant called "The Tub" has been renovated and two adjuncts added.
Ledoux, better known as Mr. Zero, announced the plans last night, but refused to talk about his
reported romance. He simply smiled and moved off in the sartorial splendor which the butler,
Henri Jeaulin, World War veteran of the 132nd French Infantry, had imparted.
A telephone, Dry Dock 2010, has been installed and, "by calling that number," said Ledoux,
"you can get a man to fit any job from chemist to steeplejack." He added: "The Tub is one of the
cleanest little restaurants in New York, where you can get meals for 5 cents - all you can eat.
There is a barber shop where expert tonsorial work is dispenced for [almost nothing], and a tailor who cleans, presses and repairs a suit for 10 cents. There are expert electricians, carpenters, stationary engineers, pipefitters, plumbers, and other artisans temporarly out of work. A bookeepr, a former C.P.A., accounts for every cent taken in."
"Mr Zero Opens for Winter"
New York Times - 12/06/26
-Feeds Band of Unfortunates at "The Tub" as First Snow Arrives
-Motorcycles Cut Throngs
-Bryant Hall, Hired by Ledoux, Closed to Him on Orders From the Police
-'Slave Auction" Abandoned
-Great Crowds Gather at Public Library - Jobless Men March in Broadway
Scenes of wild disorder ensued last night upon the refusal of the police to allow Urbain Ledoux,
"Mr. Zero", to auction off jobless men in Bryant Park. Thousands of persons had gathered to
witness the novel effort to find work for the men, and there were some thousand workers on hand, their indignation already whetted by the action of the police earlier in the day in refusing to allow Ledoux to feed them a wagon load of buns he had bought for them, or to permit him to hold a meeting in their behalf in a hall he had hired for that purpose.
Milling crowds fought with police in front of the public library between 11 o'clock and midnight last night when the police, in heavy force, descended upon the jobless and drove them away. The men without work jeered, booed and enetered into the {?} with a will.
Finally, after thousands, brought from Broadway and the outpouring theatre crowds by the disorder, had witnessed the fight for some time, the workless men, among whom ex-servicemen were well represented, broke through the police lines, defied the bluecoats and started a march for Central Park.
At midnight they had poured through Times Square and had got almost to Columbus Circle. Their avowed destination was Central Park and they defied and brushed aside policemen who sought to stop them. Police authorities in the meantime mobilized hundreds of reserves to cope with the situation.
Once free of the major numbers of policewho had harried them near Bryant Park, the "down-and-outers" as some called themselves, were orderly enough, and even cheerful. They swept north, through Broadway shouting "Hurrah for the army of the unemployed!" "When do we eat?" and similar slogans of their condition. By the time they reached Columbus Circle they once more had attracted a big crowd of curious followers. They turned into fifty-ninth street and hurried east, swarming at last into Central Park and breaking for the first spacious plot they saw.
There they gathered about a couple of volunteer speakers who harangued them, one shouting for a Socialist Mayor and lauding the name of Debs, while the other expressed rather unfavorable opinions of the present Mayor of New York and the police commisioner. The speakers made it quite clear that they thought the city authorities had behaved as "boneheads" and that all the disorder, clubbing and riding down would have been unnecessary if the police had just left them alone, when Patrolman Callahan of the Arsenal Station decided Central Park after Midnight offered neither the time nor the place for a meeting of the unemployed and telephoned for the reserves.
By this time hundreds of well dressed men and women, alighting from touring cars, taxicabs and
trolley cars, were interested onlookers. From these, one of the men who had constituted himself a leader in the absence of Ledoux took a collection to buy the buns they had been denied by police authority earlier. Five dollars or more soon clinked into a shabby hat, just as the reserves, double-timing, appeared in sight.
Without waiting for the onslaught, the jobless men, worn out with the previous scuffles, abandoned their meeting and fled the park. They formed in ragged fashion in Fifty-Ninth Street and started back for Broadway. At Broadway and Fifty-Ninth Street one patrolman, inscensed at the gathering, swung his club on the head of one of the marchers. While other policemen were admitting that the marchers were harmless, rather spiritless men who meant to menace no one, this patrolman was explaining that "the mob spirit was rising." Some of the men "tried to push" him out of the way he added.
That was the only casulty on the return march. All patrolmen of the West Forty-Seventh Street
station who could be reached had been mobilized at Fifty-Third Street and Broadway with
instructions to halt the marchers, but by the time they had gathered there the dwindling column had passed that point. The policemen boarded trolley cars and followed until they were sure there was to be no disorder.
Beyond Forty-Second Street, the remnants of the "parade", which had dwindled to 40 or 50 men, journeyed along without police surveillance. It was after 1 o'clock when all that remained of the "army" got back to Madison Square Park, where it dispersed wearily on such benches as were not already occupied.
The police throughout the day, had exorted themselves to an extraordinary degree to thwart
Ledoux's efforts in behalf of those out of work. They had broken up and chased his crowds and
prevented his meetings, as well as preventing his efforts to feed those he wanted to aid. Efforts were made last night to learn the purpose of the authorities in adopting such tactics but communication with Chief Inspector William J. Lahey and others failed to elicit any explanation. When Chief Inspector Lahey was asked for an explanation, he said: "No, I won't give you any explanation. Good Night."
*The article continues for several more columns, explaining in greater deatil, all of the events that occured throughout the day and well into the evening. Basically what occured was the complete refusal of New York City policemen to allow Ledoux to give aid and food to those in need. His efforts were thwarted on every level. He was not allowed to hold his "Auction", he was not allowed to distribute food which he had purchased with the intent of giving it to the hungry. The police charged and attacked the crowds of jobless men whom had gathered expecting to find food and aid in finding work.
"Liberty is dying in America," Ledoux said. "You have seen today that the right of assembly and
the right to petition have been denied. Freedom in America is slowly dying. What hope is there for it?" Simply that public opinion may, in it's great common sense, rise and protect these violated liberties which are guaranteed by the constitution. If New York stands for such things as I have seen today, what hope is there? My God, what will the end be? If the conditions that exist today continue and the police act as they have acted today, there will be trouble. I do not want trouble. I am trying to avoid it. By getting these men off the street corners as I have done before and permitting them to talk over things as a safety valve, I think I have prevented much trouble. I am not an agitator. I am working for the common good, trying to serve those whom nobody else serves. The fact that I dislike trouble is the reason I will not attempt to hold the auction. I know the temper of the men, I have talked with them. They told me just what they would do, and I know many would be injured. I have seen the police and know their temper. I know there would be a terrific clash and someone would be killed. These men in the parks are not dangerous, they are not the kind that make trouble," said Ledoux. "They are weak, they want food and work."
Mr. Ledoux said that he would attempt to establish a community center at St. Mark's Chapel on
Tenth Street, where he conducted a similar center last winter. He said that he has an understanding with Dr. Norman Guthrie, the rector, and that the church would cooperate with him, despite what has been said by Dr. Nalencz, the vicar. [Ledoux] says he has $500 to begin his work in New York, money given by his friends and asserts that is all he will need. After the center is organized he expects it will be supported by voluntary contributions, the funds to be handled by the church business manager.
"I will do there as I have done in Boston," he said. "There will be a barber shop, a cobbler shop,
sewing machines, clothing for the men, an employment bureau and everything that I have found
is useful in such an emergency. At the second breadline I conducted here 150,000 men were fed
and several thousand found employment through my efforts. I myself need little, and what I need I earn."
Some of the statements made by Urbain Ledoux were backed up, without knowledge on his part
of what Ledoux said, by Denis O'Sullivan of 885 Brook Avenue, the Bronx. Chairman of the Bronx Committee to Aid the Unemployed, in a statement issued yesterday. Mr. O'Sullivan said that more 50 per cent of the crime ordinarily attributed to men made desperate by hunger and lack of shelter could be prevented if State and City officials would provide subsistence and shelter for those who walk the city streets at night.
"Police Commisioner Enright must know, also every other chief of police throughout the state and nation," said Mr. O'Sullivan, "that crimes of every character can be prevented in some measure during the next six months if they also use their influence to provide shelter and food for the homeless. It only follows that without food and without a place to rest, the man who would otherwise stand up as a decent citizen, if conditions are sufficiently aggravated, becomes a potential criminal. Why not limit such potential menaces by providing [unreadable]?"
Excerpts from:
"Bowery's Mr. Zero is Dead Here at 66"
New York Times - 04/10/41
He opened quarters on and near the Bowery to feed and shelter the homeless.
Excerpts from:
"Mr. Zero Enlarges Tub For The Idle"
New York Times - 01/19/25
...Ledoux's new experiment in behalf of the jobless man will open today at 26,29, and 33 St. Mark's Place. The basement restaurant called "The Tub" has been renovated and two adjuncts added.
Ledoux, better known as Mr. Zero, announced the plans last night, but refused to talk about his
reported romance. He simply smiled and moved off in the sartorial splendor which the butler,
Henri Jeaulin, World War veteran of the 132nd French Infantry, had imparted.
A telephone, Dry Dock 2010, has been installed and, "by calling that number," said Ledoux,
"you can get a man to fit any job from chemist to steeplejack." He added: "The Tub is one of the
cleanest little restaurants in New York, where you can get meals for 5 cents - all you can eat.
There is a barber shop where expert tonsorial work is dispenced for [almost nothing], and a tailor who cleans, presses and repairs a suit for 10 cents. There are expert electricians, carpenters, stationary engineers, pipefitters, plumbers, and other artisans temporarly out of work. A bookeepr, a former C.P.A., accounts for every cent taken in."
"Mr Zero Opens for Winter"
New York Times - 12/06/26
-Feeds Band of Unfortunates at "The Tub" as First Snow Arrives
The first big snow of the season, which forced any belated birds except sparrows to scurry
southward sent a band of unfortunates to 33 St. Mark's Place, where "Mr. Zero" opened "The
Tub" for another Winter's succor to men who lack a home and it's necessities as well as comfort.
No formal announcement had been made. Because Mr. Zero provides elemental necessities, his
course is ordered by the elements, and the snowflakes themselves, when they presisted and
gained in depth, were an infallible and sufficient advertisement. At 10 o'clock, an hour before the
cellar door which leads to the Tub opened, a long queue of shabby men extended down the block.
At 11 o'clock, the door was opened and the serving of soup, pork and beans, rye bread and coffee
began. Close to 500 were served within two hours. Over-coats were given to fifty-five of the patrons who seemed to need them most, - the oldest, and those basically disabled. Meal tickets to the Tub were given out to be distributed by the patrons to others in similar straits, and Mr. Zero announced that, if the cold weather continued, he would distribute lodging house tickets.
Click HERE to watch "The Street of Forgotten Men", a 1927* short film by Herbert Brenon
Near the end of this excerpt from the film, you will see several homeless Bowery Men enjoying
the hospitality of Mr. Zero at one of his many charity-relief soup-kitchens located in New York City's Lower East Side.
southward sent a band of unfortunates to 33 St. Mark's Place, where "Mr. Zero" opened "The
Tub" for another Winter's succor to men who lack a home and it's necessities as well as comfort.
No formal announcement had been made. Because Mr. Zero provides elemental necessities, his
course is ordered by the elements, and the snowflakes themselves, when they presisted and
gained in depth, were an infallible and sufficient advertisement. At 10 o'clock, an hour before the
cellar door which leads to the Tub opened, a long queue of shabby men extended down the block.
At 11 o'clock, the door was opened and the serving of soup, pork and beans, rye bread and coffee
began. Close to 500 were served within two hours. Over-coats were given to fifty-five of the patrons who seemed to need them most, - the oldest, and those basically disabled. Meal tickets to the Tub were given out to be distributed by the patrons to others in similar straits, and Mr. Zero announced that, if the cold weather continued, he would distribute lodging house tickets.
Click HERE to watch "The Street of Forgotten Men", a 1927* short film by Herbert Brenon
Near the end of this excerpt from the film, you will see several homeless Bowery Men enjoying
the hospitality of Mr. Zero at one of his many charity-relief soup-kitchens located in New York City's Lower East Side.
*When you click the link you will see the video on Youtube. It will state "1930's" as the film date. I get my date, 1927, from p. 316 of "Low Life" by Luc Sante - a trusted source if ever there was one.
Excerpts from:
"Cold Kills 4 Here; Refuges Are Filled"
New York Times - 01/03/28
-Mercury at 11, the Lowest This Winter - Lodging Houses Have to Turn Some Away
-Two Dead in Doorways
-'Mayor of Eighth Avenue' Frozen on a Rooftop - Entire Nation in Grip of Cold and Snow
The cold wave that has taken a toll of more than forty lives throughout the country, sent the
mercury below zero in many places and caused three railroad wrecks continued to cause
suffering in New York City yesterday. The lowest temperature of the winter, 11 degrees at 5am
was recorded here and four deaths from exposure were reported. Lodging houses were turning
away unfortunates last night after they had been filled to capacity.
Unfortunate men and women seeking refuge from the cold began early in the evening to apply for shelter at the Municipal Lodging House, 432 East Twenty-Fifth Street; Hadley Rescue Hall, 293 Bowery; the Bowery Mission, 227 Bowery, and other places which befriend the homeless.
When the municipal lodging house closed it's doors at midnight last night the 896 beds which
constitute the sleeping capacity of the house were filled, and an additional fifty men were sleeping on benches in the dining room. Eighteen of the guests were women.
By 7 o'clock both the Bowery Mission and Hadley Rescue Hall were full. At the Bowery Mission,
300 homeless men had found a place to sleep and 250 were quartered at Hadley Rescue Hall.
At those public shelters for the homeless hot soup or coffee and sandwiches were given to those
who applied for aid. The Bowery Mission and Hadley Rescue Hall were compelled to turn applicants away in the early evening after both places had been filled.
About 200 men, ranging in age from 20 to 75 years, were befriended by Urbain Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", at his headquarters, 12 St. Mark's Place. He distributed overcoats, sweaters, socks and shoes and other clothing to those most in need and gave an entertainment that included songs, dances, and recitations. Then the men were taken to "The Tub", 33 St. Mark's Place, to get soup and coffee.
Excerpt from:
"Cold Wave Ends; Two Deaths in Day"
New York Times - 01/23/28
Urbain J. Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", urged yesterday that the Municipal Lodging House modify it's
rule that permits unfortunates of New York to spend only five nights and unfortunates from
out-of-town one night in the place. He said there were 250,000 unemployed in the metropolitan
district.
Excerpt from:
"12,000 In Snow Gangs Clear City Streets"
New York Times - 01/30/28
A tenfold increase in the number of unemployed fed and housed was reported by [Urbain] Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", who conducts the Tub at 12 St. Maerk's Place off the Bowery. The five fllors of the Tub were filled to capacity by more than 500 men. The men got membership cards in the "Old Bucks and Lame Ducks," Mr. Zero's own fraternity, and dined on "Mulligan," bread and coffee. Coats and rubbers were distributed to as many as possible. They were awakened yesterday in two shifts at 4 o'clock and 4:45, and all got to work shoveling snow.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero handing out free food at The Tub, NYC (03/08/28)
"10,000 Fed by Mr. Zero"
New York Times - 12/26/28
-Jobless Flock to "Nickel Dinner" in Annual Christmas Event
mercury below zero in many places and caused three railroad wrecks continued to cause
suffering in New York City yesterday. The lowest temperature of the winter, 11 degrees at 5am
was recorded here and four deaths from exposure were reported. Lodging houses were turning
away unfortunates last night after they had been filled to capacity.
Unfortunate men and women seeking refuge from the cold began early in the evening to apply for shelter at the Municipal Lodging House, 432 East Twenty-Fifth Street; Hadley Rescue Hall, 293 Bowery; the Bowery Mission, 227 Bowery, and other places which befriend the homeless.
When the municipal lodging house closed it's doors at midnight last night the 896 beds which
constitute the sleeping capacity of the house were filled, and an additional fifty men were sleeping on benches in the dining room. Eighteen of the guests were women.
By 7 o'clock both the Bowery Mission and Hadley Rescue Hall were full. At the Bowery Mission,
300 homeless men had found a place to sleep and 250 were quartered at Hadley Rescue Hall.
At those public shelters for the homeless hot soup or coffee and sandwiches were given to those
who applied for aid. The Bowery Mission and Hadley Rescue Hall were compelled to turn applicants away in the early evening after both places had been filled.
About 200 men, ranging in age from 20 to 75 years, were befriended by Urbain Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", at his headquarters, 12 St. Mark's Place. He distributed overcoats, sweaters, socks and shoes and other clothing to those most in need and gave an entertainment that included songs, dances, and recitations. Then the men were taken to "The Tub", 33 St. Mark's Place, to get soup and coffee.
Excerpt from:
"Cold Wave Ends; Two Deaths in Day"
New York Times - 01/23/28
Urbain J. Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", urged yesterday that the Municipal Lodging House modify it's
rule that permits unfortunates of New York to spend only five nights and unfortunates from
out-of-town one night in the place. He said there were 250,000 unemployed in the metropolitan
district.
Excerpt from:
"12,000 In Snow Gangs Clear City Streets"
New York Times - 01/30/28
A tenfold increase in the number of unemployed fed and housed was reported by [Urbain] Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", who conducts the Tub at 12 St. Maerk's Place off the Bowery. The five fllors of the Tub were filled to capacity by more than 500 men. The men got membership cards in the "Old Bucks and Lame Ducks," Mr. Zero's own fraternity, and dined on "Mulligan," bread and coffee. Coats and rubbers were distributed to as many as possible. They were awakened yesterday in two shifts at 4 o'clock and 4:45, and all got to work shoveling snow.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero handing out free food at The Tub, NYC (03/08/28)
"10,000 Fed by Mr. Zero"
New York Times - 12/26/28
-Jobless Flock to "Nickel Dinner" in Annual Christmas Event
Urbain Ledoux, "Mr. Zero", friend of the joblwess and drifting population of this city, was again a Christmas host yesterday at his "Nickle-O-Dine" Tub, 12 St. Mark's Place. The distribution of
"Turkey-Mulligan", bread, cakes and coffee started at 10:00am and continued until after 6:00pm. During the day thousands of socks, overcoats and other articles of clothing were given by Mr. Ledoux to approximately 10,000 men.
This year Mr. Ledoux was assistedby his two sisters, miss Josephine and Miss Aurise Ledoux,
and by his son, Norman. Another co-worker was "some one from Columbia University" who
volunteered his services and spent the day dispensing free cake and cruellers to the homeless
men as they passed in line and paid 5 cents each for a large bowl of turkey stew, bread and coffee.
At the enterance to Mr. Zero's Tub stood a large [Christmas] tree, behind an improvised railroad trestle, symbolic of the surroundings of a hobo's camp. Under Mr. Zero's trestle yesterday the
ragged and drifting passer-by found waerm clothing, socks, gloves, jackets, underwear and
overcoats. Mr. Zero appeared in Santa Claus paraphenalia and distributed the new clothing,
philosophizing with such words as "If you smile long enough you'll get the job," "Santa Claus is
born when good prevails," "There is another exchange in New York today - the stocking exchange."
For his Christmas treat, Mr. Ledoux used 2,000 pounds of turkey, 2,000 cakes, 3,000 pounds of bread and enough coffee for 10,000 cupfulls. In accordance with his permit from the Health
Department, 135 men slept in the Tub's beds after the feast was over.
"Thanksgiving Feast Stewing At the Tub"
New York Times - 11/27/29
-"Mr Zero" Begins to Concoct Vast Repast for Bowery Guests - Has Clothing For Them Too
"Turkey-Mulligan", bread, cakes and coffee started at 10:00am and continued until after 6:00pm. During the day thousands of socks, overcoats and other articles of clothing were given by Mr. Ledoux to approximately 10,000 men.
This year Mr. Ledoux was assistedby his two sisters, miss Josephine and Miss Aurise Ledoux,
and by his son, Norman. Another co-worker was "some one from Columbia University" who
volunteered his services and spent the day dispensing free cake and cruellers to the homeless
men as they passed in line and paid 5 cents each for a large bowl of turkey stew, bread and coffee.
At the enterance to Mr. Zero's Tub stood a large [Christmas] tree, behind an improvised railroad trestle, symbolic of the surroundings of a hobo's camp. Under Mr. Zero's trestle yesterday the
ragged and drifting passer-by found waerm clothing, socks, gloves, jackets, underwear and
overcoats. Mr. Zero appeared in Santa Claus paraphenalia and distributed the new clothing,
philosophizing with such words as "If you smile long enough you'll get the job," "Santa Claus is
born when good prevails," "There is another exchange in New York today - the stocking exchange."
For his Christmas treat, Mr. Ledoux used 2,000 pounds of turkey, 2,000 cakes, 3,000 pounds of bread and enough coffee for 10,000 cupfulls. In accordance with his permit from the Health
Department, 135 men slept in the Tub's beds after the feast was over.
"Thanksgiving Feast Stewing At the Tub"
New York Times - 11/27/29
-"Mr Zero" Begins to Concoct Vast Repast for Bowery Guests - Has Clothing For Them Too
The special Mulligan Stew, with 1,000 turkeys to give it body, which will be served at The Tub,
12 St. Mark's Place, on Thanksgiving Day, is being concocted, according to [Urbain] Ledoux, the
owner, who is known as "Mr. Zero."
The Mulligan, together with 1,000 pies and bread and coffee and other food, will be served to the Bowery's wayfarers at the nominal price of 5 cents, cripples and others being exempted from any charge, Mr. Zero said, and he added that there would be a surprise feature for the day.
That will be the distribution of scores of overcoats and hundreds of leather jerkins, woolen shirts
and other warm clothing, as he said a survey of the Bowery had revealed an unusual number in need of these articles.
An eater's capacity will be the only limit to the food served to each guest on the holiday, Mr. Zero said, but, taking a lesson from past experience with hungry men suddenly confronted with ample food, he has provided for medical assistance for those who overeat.
The main dinner hour will be from noon to 1:00pm, but food will be available to all comers from
10:00am to 6:00pm. The Mulligan will be dispensed [at] The Tub proper, sweets in the Cafeteria, and two other halls will be used for holiday festivities.
This program will include prizes for songs, dances, recitations, jokes, the longest noses, feet, ears
and legs, and the handsomest man and the homliest man. The entire celebration being the largest Mr. Zero has ever planned.
Excerpt from:
"All In A Week"
New York Times - 11/23/30
For $50 cash [Urbain] Ledoux, otherwise "Mr. Zero", will provide an audience and a hall for any
poet, philosopher or religious lecturer who yearns for a hearing. An attentive and well-behaved
audience, too, as any one knows who has broken bread with the weary and needy in "The Tub"
in St. Mark's Place. No longer need genius (with $50) go unheeded in this heartless metropolis.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero handing out Xmas meals to over 3,ooo in NYC (1930's)
"Mr Zero's Job Ad Based Only on Hope"
New York Times - 07/01/31
Says Offer to "White Collar" Men in Harvest Fields Was Result of His Own Survey
[Urbain] Ledoux (Mr. Zero), champion of the down-and-outers, was released in $5 bail yesterday in Essex Market Court after James M. Fitzsimmons, Assistant District Attorney, had obtained from him the admission that "all I had was hope" when he inserted an advertisement in a morning paper offering work for chauffers in the wheat belt at $4 and $5 a day. Magistrate Harris held Mr. Ledoux for trial in Special Sessions. Mr. Ledoux, beaming upon the court through horn-rimmed glasses, took the stand on his own behalf. Roy Harder, 43 years old of 353 Stockholm Street, Brooklyn, an un-employed chauffer, appeared as complainant. Ledoux said he had worked for several months in the "Whet-Belt," and had learned that 100,000 men were needed there yearly. So he placed an advertisement in a paper on June 18, offering transportation and $4 to $5 a day at harvesting to unemployed chauffers. He said the advertisement was not misleading. On receipt of a telegram from a government office in Kansas City that it could not accept his offer, Ledoux said, he spent $11 in stamps to mail letters to applicants offering help in the form of clothing instead of jobs. The letters said: "While there's life, there's hope." When Ledoux refused to answer a direct question by the prosecutor as to whether he had anything else to offer, the court ordered that his refusal be recorded.
Excerpt from:
"The Microphone Will Present"
New York Times - 11/29/31
12 St. Mark's Place, on Thanksgiving Day, is being concocted, according to [Urbain] Ledoux, the
owner, who is known as "Mr. Zero."
The Mulligan, together with 1,000 pies and bread and coffee and other food, will be served to the Bowery's wayfarers at the nominal price of 5 cents, cripples and others being exempted from any charge, Mr. Zero said, and he added that there would be a surprise feature for the day.
That will be the distribution of scores of overcoats and hundreds of leather jerkins, woolen shirts
and other warm clothing, as he said a survey of the Bowery had revealed an unusual number in need of these articles.
An eater's capacity will be the only limit to the food served to each guest on the holiday, Mr. Zero said, but, taking a lesson from past experience with hungry men suddenly confronted with ample food, he has provided for medical assistance for those who overeat.
The main dinner hour will be from noon to 1:00pm, but food will be available to all comers from
10:00am to 6:00pm. The Mulligan will be dispensed [at] The Tub proper, sweets in the Cafeteria, and two other halls will be used for holiday festivities.
This program will include prizes for songs, dances, recitations, jokes, the longest noses, feet, ears
and legs, and the handsomest man and the homliest man. The entire celebration being the largest Mr. Zero has ever planned.
Excerpt from:
"All In A Week"
New York Times - 11/23/30
For $50 cash [Urbain] Ledoux, otherwise "Mr. Zero", will provide an audience and a hall for any
poet, philosopher or religious lecturer who yearns for a hearing. An attentive and well-behaved
audience, too, as any one knows who has broken bread with the weary and needy in "The Tub"
in St. Mark's Place. No longer need genius (with $50) go unheeded in this heartless metropolis.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero handing out Xmas meals to over 3,ooo in NYC (1930's)
"Mr Zero's Job Ad Based Only on Hope"
New York Times - 07/01/31
Says Offer to "White Collar" Men in Harvest Fields Was Result of His Own Survey
[Urbain] Ledoux (Mr. Zero), champion of the down-and-outers, was released in $5 bail yesterday in Essex Market Court after James M. Fitzsimmons, Assistant District Attorney, had obtained from him the admission that "all I had was hope" when he inserted an advertisement in a morning paper offering work for chauffers in the wheat belt at $4 and $5 a day. Magistrate Harris held Mr. Ledoux for trial in Special Sessions. Mr. Ledoux, beaming upon the court through horn-rimmed glasses, took the stand on his own behalf. Roy Harder, 43 years old of 353 Stockholm Street, Brooklyn, an un-employed chauffer, appeared as complainant. Ledoux said he had worked for several months in the "Whet-Belt," and had learned that 100,000 men were needed there yearly. So he placed an advertisement in a paper on June 18, offering transportation and $4 to $5 a day at harvesting to unemployed chauffers. He said the advertisement was not misleading. On receipt of a telegram from a government office in Kansas City that it could not accept his offer, Ledoux said, he spent $11 in stamps to mail letters to applicants offering help in the form of clothing instead of jobs. The letters said: "While there's life, there's hope." When Ledoux refused to answer a direct question by the prosecutor as to whether he had anything else to offer, the court ordered that his refusal be recorded.
Excerpt from:
"The Microphone Will Present"
New York Times - 11/29/31
A solution to the present world-wide economic situation will be offered by Mr. Zero (Urban Ledoux) when he begins a series of weekly talks over WMCA's wave at 6:30 o'clock tonight. As the slf-styled "Articulate Cry of Misery", Ledoux has traveled the world over in attempt to interest the public in the lot of the hobo and the unemployed. He will be introduced to the radio audience by Donald Flamm, president of the station.
...and these stories could go on and on and on and on. Ledoux was a selfless one-man charity-relief organization for the majority of his adult life. He no dout saved countless thousands from starvation and nearly certain death from exposure on the streets during the freezing cold winters of Depression-era New York City. He was a true American Hero.
...and these stories could go on and on and on and on. Ledoux was a selfless one-man charity-relief organization for the majority of his adult life. He no dout saved countless thousands from starvation and nearly certain death from exposure on the streets during the freezing cold winters of Depression-era New York City. He was a true American Hero.
You can read just a bit more about Mr. Zero by clicking HERE to read an excerpt (p. 216 - 220) of the book "Twenty One Americans" by Niven Busch (1970).
Excerpts from:
"Bowery's Mr. Zero is Dead Here at 66"
New York Times - 04/10/41
He took to freight rods and studied the migratory worker all over the United States. He slept in the parks sometimes, like the men he served. Illness seized him but he ignored it. He lived to see good fruit from his labors. One young bum, whom he picked up in the Bowery, is a portrait painter today with a penthouse on Park Avenue; another is a well-known attorney in Manhattan.
The advent of the New Deal ended Urbain Ledoux's labors. Men who had swarmed to his "Tubs" for hot coffee and unbuttered bread found that they could do better on government relief, a plan he had always urged. Mr. Zero became Urbain Ledoux again.
In 1930 he had married Miss Mary W. Hall, who had played Shakespearean roles with Walter
Hampden. Five years later he took he to South America where he wrote and directed two motion pictures - Spanish Talkies - built around his dream of universal peace and brotherhood.
Excerpts from:
"Bowery's Mr. Zero is Dead Here at 66"
New York Times - 04/10/41
He took to freight rods and studied the migratory worker all over the United States. He slept in the parks sometimes, like the men he served. Illness seized him but he ignored it. He lived to see good fruit from his labors. One young bum, whom he picked up in the Bowery, is a portrait painter today with a penthouse on Park Avenue; another is a well-known attorney in Manhattan.
The advent of the New Deal ended Urbain Ledoux's labors. Men who had swarmed to his "Tubs" for hot coffee and unbuttered bread found that they could do better on government relief, a plan he had always urged. Mr. Zero became Urbain Ledoux again.
In 1930 he had married Miss Mary W. Hall, who had played Shakespearean roles with Walter
Hampden. Five years later he took he to South America where he wrote and directed two motion pictures - Spanish Talkies - built around his dream of universal peace and brotherhood.
Urbain J. Ledoux, brawny grey-eyed mystic and idealist who was the Bowery's Mr. Zero for the
last twenty years, died late Tuesday night in French Hospital. He had spent the best years of his life serving the city's ragtag and bobtail, ignoring the ailment that slowly sapped his great strength.
The body will lie in state in the Andrews Funeral Parlor at 143 East Twenty-ninth Street through Sunday afternoon. Burial will be in Biddeford.
Click HERE to see a photo of Mr. Zero leading a group of men wearing barrels down the Bowery (12/20/34)
A Cartoon That Wasn't Funny in July 2008 is Even Less Funny Now...
Originally appeared in "The New Yorker" - July 21, 2008Caption: "I read something about this in the Times."
We'll all be reading ALOT more about this in the immediate future.
Two Worlds Collide In The East Village, NYC
Rich and poor collide in The Village - NYC, NY(Photo by R. Bredin via Flickr.com)
Excerpt from:
"Old Men of the Bowery"
by Carl I. Cohen/Jay Sokolovsky
(1989)[p. 1]
There is continuing dramatic growth in poverty and homelessness even as certain sectors of society consolidate their power and grow richer...
There But For The Grace Of God...
Homeless, hungry, and alone in New York City(Photo by: Andrew Benedetti via ENS.Newswire.Com)
Excerpt from:
"Old Men Of The Bowery"
by Carl I. Cohen/Jay Sokolovsky
(1989)[p. vi]
Most of us struggle to deny and repress. We may try to view homelessness as individual breakdown and deviancy, often we succumb to psychic numbing. Yet at times when our security is threatened and the armor cracks a bit, one eventually must ask: "What if I lost my job or personal tragedy befell me or my family and I couldn't pay my mortgage or the rent? Who would help? Would anyone really care?" Above all, for this reason, our fate is integrally linked with the plight of the homeless...
The Bowery On The Bookshelf
THE HISTORY OF THE BOWERY- SUGGESTED FURTHER READING
"Flophouse: Life On The Bowery" by David Isay/Stacy Abramson
"God On The Bowery" by Charles J. St. John
"New York Night" by Mark Caldwell
"Old Men Of The Bowery" by Carl I. Cohen/Jay Sokolovsky
"On The Bowery -Confronting Homelessness..." by Benedict Giamo
"Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser
"The Bowery" by Michael Zettler
"The Homeless Transient in the Great Depression" by Joan Crouse
"You Cant's Sleep Here" by Edward Newhouse
The Bowery Of Today As Envisioned In 1961
The Bowery as it looks in 2009 - Out with the old, Up with the new(Graphic via VillageVoice.Com)
Excerpt from:
"The Bowery Man"
by Elmer Bendiner
(1961)[p. 182-183]
What then is to be done to such an insulent, mocking street? It must be destroyed, of course, and replaced with a sober, business-like, no-nonsense avenue that will share the current American Dream - whatever it happens to be. (Like $800.00 Ramones t-shirts!!)
Now the reformers speak not in missionary but in architectural terms. They will cut through the street at this point with a cross-town speedway. Here they will condemn the flophouses and throw up a middle-income housing project. Eventually the old buildings will be replaced one by one and the Bowery will be no more.
It is beginning to look as if the architects and engineers will in fact rebuild the avenue in brick and steel.
It seems now that in a little while the Bum himself may be torn down and a middle-income, white-collar, brief-case-carrying, up-and-coming, bourbon-and-soda man will be constructed in his place.
The trouble is that condemneed people, unlike condemned houses, do not simply lie in an orderly pile of rubble waiting to be carted away. The bum who is replaced on the Bowery is still a bum. He may leave The Street when the last flophouse is torn down, when the Muni reverts to a YMCA, when the last bar becomes a coctail lounge, but he will drift through the city until he finds another street where the liquor is cheap.
Bums will carry the banner all over town. The ten thousand homeless may disperse up and down Riverside Drive and Brooklyn Heights, mocking the smug and the respectible in their own doorways...
Observations Made by "St. John of The Bowery" (1940)
A late 1800's view of the original Bowery Mission, located at 36 Bowery.(Graphic via : HomelessNewYorkers.Wordpress)
Excerpts from:
"God On The Bowery"
by Dr. Charles St. John (Superintendent, Bowery Mission)
(1940)
[p.11 - 18]
Chapter 1: Initiation
I saw the Bowery for the first time on a Sunday morning, and that was bad. The Bowery is bad enough any day of the week, but on Sunday - ! If I'd planned for fifty years to arrive on The Street at the worst possible moment, I couldn't have planned it better. The instant I turned the corner of Spring Street and looked up and down this "Boulevard of Bums", I knew I'd arrived on the dirtiest, foulest, most disreputable and draggle-tailed ten blocks in the civilized world.
The Bowery! All my life I'd heard of it, just as you have. As a youngster in the clean, sunny South I'd learned to sing, with my tongue in my cheek:
"The Bowery, the Bowery,I'll never go there any more."
It was probably the lilt of that tune, or the stories about the Bowery glamour boys of the [18]90's that we heard in those days that made us think there was something funny or even romantic about it. This was the spot where old Peter Stuyvesant had his garden and his apple orchard; the fruit and blossoms of his garden were such a joy to the hearts of his doughty old Dutch burghers that they dubbed it "The Great Bouwerie." Then there was Steve Brodie, who hit the Bowery long aftre Stuyvesant and who had a great gleaming noisy bar and who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge - or did he? And there was another saloon, in the [18]90's with the floor paved with silver dollars, and gambling joints for the Four Hundred and the pitiful little "hotel" where Stephen Foster died. Romance, glamour, lights, color and a life that was short and sweet, and high, wide and handsome - that was the Bowery!
But when I looked it over that Sunday morning in October of 1931 I didn't find that kind of Bowery at all. No Steve Brodie, no silver dollars, no gleam. A stabbing October wind came knifing it's way down The Street and went through my thick overcoat like a knife through paper, swirling the dirt up into my eyes and blowing a sheaf of dirty newspapers out of a doorway. Something wriggled under the papers that had escaped the wind; a man with blood-red eyes stood up in clothes that looked as though they had been dragged through a hog wallow, shivered, rubbed his hands and turned up his coat collar and shuffled off down the street.
I left the sun and walked down a canyon of deepening shadow, dusty, dank, dangerous. An empty street car clanged by; an elevated train roared past overhead, throwing a film of silt to the street below. This might have been Hell itself, I thought, but for the occasional ambitious sunbeam that penetrated the network of the "El" overhead and broke through to leave a tiny spot of light here and there on the pavement. Nauseating odors leaped out of dark hallways and took me by the throat. I saw feet sticking out of alleys. I stepped over men still asleep on the sidewalk, or piled up like pigs trying to keep warm over the hot-air vents in the sidewalk. I looked at them and I watched the sun trying to get at them through the El, and I wondered if even God could penetrate this medley of misery and ever really reach one of these men.
The street wasn't exactly dead, as most New York streets are dead in the early hours of the Sabbath. There were men drifting. Drifting, on the "morning after" - the morning after Saturday night, when they had spent whatever they had. A nickel for cheap whiskey; a dime for "smoke", that deadly concoction of raw denatured alcohol and water that will burn the hide off a rhinoceros. Sunday morning they were having the aweful aching head that follows all that, the dark brown taste, the longing to die and get out of it. Some of them were standing shivering before the barroom doors, waiting for the barkeeper to open up! Filthy saloons and filthy men: these have a natural affinity. No one smiled. Men who had never seen me before glared and cursed at me. Why, I didn't know. A bundle of rags and stench that had once been a man finally mustered up courage enough to ask me for a dime. "Fer a cup 'o coffee, Bud." He got it. He had hardly palmed it when I was run down by a stampede of other dime-seekers who had watched him make his "touch". They came, like a great uncertain flood against a rock on a beach. I had two dollars in change when I turned out of Spring Street; three blocks later I had just fifteen cents left. It was my first lesson; it never happened again; you learn not to let it happen, on the Bowery.
A police siren screamed and the men in the street dived for cover. From either end of the street came cops, blue-uniformed, nightsticks out. A man near me hurled a bundle wrapped in greasy brown paper and took to his heels; an officer collared him, dragged him back to the refuse can and pulle dout the package. He kicked it open; out fell a pair of pants, 20-odd pairs of socks and a pair of spats! The vagrant was on his way to Thieves Market, where such things are sold at auction.
The raid went like clockwork; two by two, the police took their prey, one carrying the head and the other the heels, and threw them bodily, like sacks of grain, into the patrol wagon. Within five minute's time they had their load; the wagon was a bedlam of plain and fancy cursing, a most complete Babel of denunciation and condemnation heaped on the heads of all policemen in general and these policemen in particular. Loaded, there was still room for a few more. All the good seats were taken, but there was the floor; out of the alleys and doorways came the cops carrying those who couldn't get up. One old fellow on an air vent twisted and moaned as they approached him. Out came the nightstick; he was slapped, hard, a dozen times, on the soles of his paper-thin shoes. That hurts. Try it. The old fellow opened his eyes and his lips went tight with pain.
Come on, bum, on your feet! I was sick at my stomach, weak in the knees. I wanted to run, to get out of there, to get as far away as I could. I wished I was back in Mississippi, where the sun was bright and men were men and things were clean. I'd been a fool to come here. I just hadn't known what I was letting myself in for, when I was daydreaming, back home, of becoming Superintendent of Bowery Mission.
The Mission was just across the street; I walked over and stood looking up at the Mission sign and I heard voices. "Go back, you chump, before it's too late. You can't do anything against this flood; you might as well try to dam the Mississippi with a sieve. Who do you think you are anyway? Go back. Get yourself a nice little church somewhere, with decent people in it. Or go joint the Marines. You weren't meant for this. You're not the type, are you?" Questions, questions, questions. I knew them all, I'd been asking them of my soul for years. But it was no good. For I knew that while I knew all the questions, God knew all the answers, and God pushed me in through the door of the Bowery Mission with the words, "I sent you here, didn't I?"
The Mission chapel was jammed. Remember, this was October; in October, when the weather begins to get cold, you can always count on a capacity audience on the Bowery. Every seat had been taken for over an hour and there was standing room only. A staggering stench hit me in the face, the stench of the unwashed, whiskey-sodden humanity of The Street. I moved down the aisle and stepped on some fellows foot. He didn't mince his words: "Watch where you're going, you big lunk, or I'll crown you." He didn't know he was talking to the new Superintendent; it probably wouldn't have made any difference if he had known it. I went up into the pulpit and looked at them. Dear God in Heaven, were these men? Edwin Markham's line ran through my mind:
"Is this the thing the Lord God made to have domination over sea and land?"
To have dominion! I thought of the cop slapping the old man on the soles of his shoes. "Come on, bum, on your feet." Could anything, anyone, any power on earth ever get these men on their feet? They were licked; they were through; they had hit bottom and not one in a carload of them had enough fight or man left in him to get up. Or so I thought, that morning.
I realized with a start that I had announced a hymn and that they were singing. It was pretty terrible, that first song, worse than the singing of any fifth rate chior I had ever heard of. Not one in ten even tried to sing; why should they? What did they have to sing about? An old fellow on the front seat dropped his book and reached for it and fell sprawling on the floor; two men near him grabbed him by the seat of the pants and jerked him back; the old fellow wanted to fight, but they laughed and held him down. The crowd snickered.
I threw open the Bible on the pulpit and tried to swallow the lump, as big as a grapefruit, in my throat; I began to read. "Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob and Jacob begat Judas..." There was a silence deeper than the silence of the tomb. I'd blundered. That passage - how did I ever light on that? - that passage had about as much meaning to this crowd as the theory of relativity has to a Hotentot. There was only one thing to do, and to my dying day I'll never cease thanking God that when He made me, He gave me a good sense of humor. I laughed.
"Sorry, boys. You don't care very much about who begat whom, do you? Neither do I." It broke the ice. One young fellow on the aisle whacked his neighbor over the head with his hymnal and looked up at me with the brightest, keenest pair of blue eyes I've ever seen. I didn't just throw open the Book again; I leafed it carefully back to the passage that began, "Come, ye blessed of my Father...I was an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thristy and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in..."
Silence fell again. I knew they were listening to this; I had that fifth sense of the preacher who knows when he has his audience. Even the old tramp on the front pew lifted his rheumy eye and cupped his ear and looked up at me with an expression that screamed: "Well, let's have it. Let's hear what you've got for us." The boy with the blue eyes pinned them on me, and I found myself staring back at him, quoting Scripture from memory and saying to myself, "He's young. He's got some fight left in him. He doesn't belong here. I'll send him home. Come on boy, on your feet."
I had been - initiated.
[p. 34, 36 - 37, 38]
Every street in New York City ends in a river; that's one reason for the high suicide rate of Manhattan. But the Bowery begins and ends in Hell; suicide is slower there. It is just fifteen blocks long, just one mile long, and it has been called The Last Mile, the Meanest Mile, Dead End, The Street of Forgotten Men. Any of those names fit, and all of them put together don't do it justice. The Bowery is bottom; when a man comes down here he's as far down as he can go, except for the bottom of the river.
They are not all theives on the Bowery. By and large, I've found that most of the boys along The Street will take alot of punishment before they'll stael. That's the last resort. Panhandling is easier, and they know we'll take care of them at the Mission rather than send them out to steal for a meal or an overcoat. They're not thieves by nature, but by compulsion. They are old men, young men, down on their luck. They are old fellows, beaten, and young fellows who just can't get jobs. They are a cross-section of America; I'd say there were about twenty-five thousand of them on The Street.
I don't see many fights; most of the fight has been knocked out of them. They don't want trouble; they only want God and man to leave them alone.
[p. 151 - 152]
Youth beats a path to New York City. Youth sees movies of the glamorous Big Town, and youth thinks the streets are paved with gold and lined with sterling silver curbstones. Youth comes rushing in where angels wouldn't tread, finds no gold in the streets, no jobs, few friends, and fewer chances to make good.
[p. 58 - 59, 60 - 61]
Fifteen years ago, this was an old man's street. But [the] youth are different. They're not like that. They are young. Out of the twenty-five or thirty thousand men on the Bowery, I'd say twenty-five percent of them are aged eighteen to twenty-five. From fifteen to twenty per cent are college-bred. Young men. Fresh youngsters coming in to fill the places left by the veterans who die in the night and the river. Too young to know what it's all about. They fall easily for scheme and wile of the crook and the confidence man that the old fellows would laugh at. Old Father Time has done a face-lifting job on the Bowery since 1929: he's made it look tragically, unbelievably young.
These boys don't want your pity or your pennies; they aren't looking for charity. They hate being handed a pair of socks or a meal. They don't want to live like the old hoboes of yesterday; the old bum's jungle holds no allure for them. They still have their dreams and their self-respect. They've been caught up a dead-end street and they want someone to help them fight their way back and out of it. What we have on our hand on The Street today is not the problem of the old alcoholic but the problem of rebuilding the morale of the young.
About ninety-nine per cent of the boys down here are here because they found nothing to keep them elsewhere.
Many of the boys come to me from homes in which parents have been living beyond their means. Every day of my life I hear of some father who "once made a lot of dough," but who, when he fell on hard times - or more normal times - just couldn't adjust himself and live again on a sensible scale. This mechanical American idea that a man has to be rich to be successful has dropped our youth into a bottomless pit. We've got to keep up with the Joneses. Mother has got her heart set on a new fur coat. Mother goes out and buys alot of new furniture on the installment plan, on an income that just about makes ends meet as it is. Then dad gets a cut, the installments lapse, the furniture man comes and takes out the furniture, and mother, bitter because she didn't get the new fur coat, follows it out. Dad throws up his hands - and the young son "goes on the bum." If I've heard that story once since the boom days, I've heard it a thousand times from the lips of the children who really pay the bill.
[p. 147]
There's always tomorrow. What tomorrow and the future will do to the Bowery I'm not sure; that depends upon what happens in the world beyond the Bowery.
-end
*I try to stay away from adding any religious content to this blog or reccomending someone read something of religious content, but I will make an exception for this book. Order a copy here: "God On The Bowery" by Charles J. St. John (1940)
As you can see from the excerpts above, this is an amazing read. And it's not really preachy or anything, it just really paints a vivid picture of the state of the Bowery circa late 1930's - early 1940's. It also contains some stories, strikingly similar in scope, to what is happening in the United States at this moment in time, nearly 70 years later.
I must also state that I am against any form of "feeding the soul before feeding the body", as has been alleged through the years to be the practice at the Bowery Mission, and sadly, so many other "Christian Charity Relief" organizations throughout the world.
Excerpt from:
"The Bowery Man"
by Elmer Bendiner
(1961)[p. 23 - 24]
...first the [Bowery] Mission feeds your soul and only afterwards the rest of you. If you are not religious, you may look upon the hour-and-a-half service as a performance in which you must sing for your supper. In fact, though, you are required to do no more than sit in the pew and expose yourself to the Mission's ministrations.
[p. 105]
The Bowery Men on the line know the relationship between the two types of service offered. You cannot be fed, flopped, shaved and deloused without first hearing the gospel message (known on the street as an "ear banging"). The soup lines wind through the Chapel.
But, even though I may disagree with the methods, the Bowery Mission has undoubtedly saved thousands of lives, maybe hundreds of thousands, since it's inception in 1879.
The Bowery - Back In The Day - A Brief Socialogical History
"The Bowery" at Night by W. Louis Sonntag Jr. (1896)(Graphic via Powerstandards.com)
Excerpts from:
"On The Bowery - Confronting Homelessness In American Society"
by Benedict Giamo (1989)[p.28-30]
In the early 1900s, close to twenty-five thousand men were lodged nightly along the Bowery. Their numbers increased during 1914-1915, a period of widespread unemployment. A study of fifteen hundred homeless men conducted by the city-run Municipal Lodging House at this time revealed the obvious economic factors responsible for their plight. It was found that the majority of the men were clearly willing to work if given the opportunity or requesite medical attention. Such was the case during the 1830s when economic collapse had forced the unemployed into urban skid rows as a last resort to starvation and isolation. Homelessness and joblessness were so closely linked at this time that the extant of occupancy in the Bowery Men's Shelter proved, in fact, a reliable index of the rate of unemployment in the manufacturing industry.
Improvements in the conditions of labor mandated by the New Deal and a state of economic poverty largely stimulated by wartime industries and recruitment promoted a more widespread national and per capita affluance. From the 1940s on, skid row responded by becoming less a direct consequence of capricious labor market forces wraught by an unregulated system of industrialization. Yet the homeless were prevalent on the Bowery and in other skid rows throughout the country, lending substance to an abiding state of disenfranchisement in the midst of national prosperity, middle-class suburbanization, urban renewal, and corporate hegemony. The rising American standard of living had resulted in a minority status of poverty in which the homeless constituted its base component. But though the extent of homelessness had diminished, the intensity of it's condition had not. As one Catholic Worker volunteer observed, skid row represented "perhaps the bitterest, most physical and obvious poverty that can be seen in an American city.
The population of the Bowery's skid row dwindled from 13,675 in 1949 to 3,000 in 1971, a contraction of more than three-fourths of it's community. By the late 1970s, the number had dropped to about 2,000; by 1987, it was down below 1,000. Though reduced in magnitude, the structured, institutionalized context of the Bowery still served throughout to order a well-defined subculture. But as of today (fall 1988) there are only two bars, one liquor store, one municipal facility, nine flophouses, one lunch counter, one coffee shop, one mission, and three social service agencies along he Bowery. This faded setting exists within an overshadowing array of restaurant and office equipment supply shops, lighting fixture stores, crockery outlets, hardware concerns, banks, and jewelry exchanges. But more than it's modern commercial or residential features, is the automobile traffic along the Bowery that conveys a sense of fluidity amidst the broken, statuesque figures of the homeless gathered on median stips and street corners. At best, when delayed by traffic lights, the cars offer a means of livelihood for these reduced entrepreneurs who, unsolicited, bring out their bottles of window cleaner and worn rags to clean windows in an industrious appeal for some change. The demise of the Bowery as a traditional skid row and its ascent as a residential street has been aided by the process of urban renewal. The influx of artists and other city residents into this area has been made possible by the availability of cheap rents and high vacancy rates in lofts and warehouse buildings. The rapid gentrification of neighboring SoHo as an art center, prime living area, and urban playground has extended its reach into the Bowery vicinty, giving rise to experimental and traditional theatres, restaurants, rock clubs, art galleries, and enhanced real estate values.
The altered factors and dispersed condition of homelessness in New York City today, during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, while leading to further destabilization of the Bowery as a skid row subculture, have worked to distribute rather than diminish the number of homeless throughout the city. The decline of skid row has not caused the disappearance of homelessness; instead, it has signaled a reconceptualization of its renewed force and decentralization. Contemporary homelessness, extensive (an estimated 36,000 [1988]), scattered, and incohesive, has proven to be a diffused and disoriented way of life far beyond the ordered community of skid row. In flight from its territorial base, homelessness has transgressed the geographical boundries of skid row, but in doing so it has not retained the subcultural identity endemic to its structure and affiliative network of supports. In its most recent development, homelessness has become uprooted, unearthing a subculture clinging to the arcane remnants of the Bowery like a vine to its fallen arbor.
Excerpt from:
"The Masque Torn Off"
by Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage (1882)
Hark! What is that heavy thud on the wet pavement? Why, that is a drunkard who has fallen, his head striking against the street - striking very hard. The police try to lift him up. Ring the bell for the city ambulance. No. Only an outcast, only a tatterdemalion - a heap of sores and rags. But look again. Perhaps he has some marks of manhood on his face; perhaps he may have been made in the image of God; perhaps he has a soul which will live after the dripping heavens of this dismal night have been rolled together as a scroll; perhaps he may have been died for, by a king; perhaps he may yet be a conqueror charioted in the splendors of heavenly welcome. But we must pass on. We cross the street, and, the rain beating in his face, lies a man entirely unconcious. I wonder where he came from. I wonder if anyone is waiting for him. I wonder if he was ever rocked in a Christian cradle. I wonder if that gashed and bloated forehead was ever kissed by a mother's lips. I wonder if he is stranded for eternity.
Excerpt from:
"On The Bowery - Confronting Homelessness In American Society"
by Benedict Giamo (1989)[p.197, 199-201]
Nicky Star (presumably a street person)
"See that gutter, man, I laid in it; see those stairs, I laid on them; see that railing, I laid against it; see that curb, that step, that sewer, that grating, I laid on them all. I've been in every gutter on the Bowery...Hey, let me tell you something now, hey, hey, listen here, the Bowery's at 43rd and 8th; the Bowery's at 30th and Lex; the Bowery's at 14th and 5th. Uptown! The Bowery's in their fuckin' room - their apartment. Hey, let me tell you something. Now you listen good and hard - the Bowery can be everywhere."
...the modern evolution of homelessness has rendered the Bowery obsolete. As I have previously mentioned, since the early 1980s when I completed my extended sojourn among its inhabitants, the Bowery has indeed become homeless, and this fact presents an irony which militates against the formation and reinforcement of subculture. The consequences of this new, uprooted form of homelessness are grave indeed, for the dissolution of a cohesive subcultural base (complete with a well-defined ecological infrastructure) puts the generative culture-making process of a distinct homeless subculture into question. This is particularly evident among the prevalent deinstitutionalized mentally ill population of modern-day homelessness, which according to the literature ranges from 20 percent to 90 percent. Being homeless is likely to have a qualitative impact on the already preexistant condition of mental illness. The complete loss of all structural affiliations and any sense of containment, the lack of involvement in any identifiable subculture, and the physical and emotional harships of living in extremis can only further the deterioration of one's psychic equipment to the point where the damage becomes irreparable.
Ellen Baxter and Kim Hopper
at a public hearing before the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Development
"The received wisdom of the post-war commentators who predicted the imminent demise of skid row has, in the course of the pst decade, been proven flatly wrong. Skid row - as a way of life, not a distinct place, is flourishing in a manner not seen in this country for fifty years.
What Baxter and Hopper failed to realize, however, is precisely that requisite link between a "distinct place" and a "way of life," an intimate connection with the modern, dispersed condition of homelessness has not been able to construct. Bowery subculture could not have flourished as it did for more than one hundred years if it were not for the evocative sense of place which defined condition and character, delimited a collectivity, and determined the generative nature of symbolic action and ensuing depth of completion. All these factors contributed to the heightened tension between culture and subculture, a dialectic which served as the primary catalyst for the former's ideological position of social distance and mystification and for the latter's culture-making process. Though Baxter and Hopper are highly aware of the altered condition of modern homelessness, they do not seem to grap the consequences for the nature of the dialectic and the possibility that it too has been rendered homeless.
Life on the streets isn't what it used to be. In the first place, skid row is no longer contained by well demarcated "tenderloin" sections of the inner city, nor is it confined to the religious missions and public refuges...the subways, train and bus depots, the doorways and abandoned buildings, public parks, and loading docks, the alleys or sidewalks of an entire city, these are home to thousands of New Yorkers every evening. It is not only the Bowery anymore...
Bowery History/Observations Continue HERE...
Ghosts of The Bowery
Here, as promised yesterday, are a few more photos from the 1975 book "The Bowery" by Michael D. Zettler. I wonder what ever became of these men...sadly, I think I know their eventual fates.
"The Bowery" (1975) by Michael D. Zettler.
(All Images via this book)
"I'm here by choice...that's right...gotta make a choice, the wine or the job...I used to have a good car, lots of clothes...Yeah me! One time my girl says to me, "Artie, it's either me or the wine!" I says, "I hate to tell you this sweetie...but so long!"
"Not '58! The last time I fought in the Garden was 48. 1947!! I fought on some damn good cards then...I was never a boxer though...a fighter. It's all I know how to to. If I ever lost it was because I didn't hit 'em, cause when I hit 'em they stayed hit."
"Naw. The kids don't fuck with the Bowery bums...and it ain't just because we ain't got nothing...they respect us. They know we seen it all. Their parents tell 'em not to fuck with the bums too. They respect us. That's the truth too...what good is it anyway, we ain't got nothing, we ain't nobody...just bums."
"Naw...things ain't going too good. I seem to let my emotions carry me away...I can't seem to get ahold. I try to. Thanks for asking...I appreciate that."
Thanksgiving Day 1974
"What have I got to be thankful for? I'm still alive, that's one thing...but I didn't even get a good meal down at the mission."
There is no caption for this set of photos. I think an apt one would be:
"I've fallen and I can't get up!"
"The Bowery" (1975) by Michael D. Zettler.
(All Images via this book)
"I'm here by choice...that's right...gotta make a choice, the wine or the job...I used to have a good car, lots of clothes...Yeah me! One time my girl says to me, "Artie, it's either me or the wine!" I says, "I hate to tell you this sweetie...but so long!"
"Not '58! The last time I fought in the Garden was 48. 1947!! I fought on some damn good cards then...I was never a boxer though...a fighter. It's all I know how to to. If I ever lost it was because I didn't hit 'em, cause when I hit 'em they stayed hit."
"Naw. The kids don't fuck with the Bowery bums...and it ain't just because we ain't got nothing...they respect us. They know we seen it all. Their parents tell 'em not to fuck with the bums too. They respect us. That's the truth too...what good is it anyway, we ain't got nothing, we ain't nobody...just bums."
"Naw...things ain't going too good. I seem to let my emotions carry me away...I can't seem to get ahold. I try to. Thanks for asking...I appreciate that."
Thanksgiving Day 1974
"What have I got to be thankful for? I'm still alive, that's one thing...but I didn't even get a good meal down at the mission."
There is no caption for this set of photos. I think an apt one would be:
"I've fallen and I can't get up!"
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