Not all of the arts on the Bowery are going the way of CBGB's, the landmark punk rock club at 315 Bowery that was priced out of its space a year ago after a rent dispute.
Instead, dollars are rolling down the street into the doors of The New Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened its doors Dec. 1, 2007. Click below to hear reviews from museum-goers on the opening day.
Some of the other art venues in the nabe are hanging on. The Amato Opera, Dixon Place, the Bowery Ballroom, Marion's Marquee Lounge and the Bowery Poetry Club continue to offer weekly entertainment.
They have no plans to close. Original owners have hung on to their appreciating real estate and arts patrons have pooled their resources to purchase some of the art houses so that poets, performers and opera singers can continue to call the Bowery home.
“I can’t lose it because I own it,” says Tony Amato, owner of the Amato Opera at 319 Bowery.
Amato and his wife, Sally, founded the Amato Opera in 1948 at the former Circle in the Square on Bleecker Street. In 1952, they located a building with an affordable price and moved to 319 Bowery. They spent the next 50 years delighting audiences and the Amato cast and crew by producing, directing, and designing classic operas on an intimate stage.
Celebrating the 60th anniversary with the Amato Opera, Amato in his mid-80s still inspires awe in colleagues and audiences alike with his youthful exuberance and passion for opera. One of his greatest pleasures is to train young singers for the stage.
With an operating budget of $200,000 a year, most of the staff is volunteer. Orchestra members and singers are paid between $10 and $25 a show.
Amato thinks that, within one year, the rapid development in the neighborhood will usher new patrons and energy into his theater.
“My dream is to have some opera lover to sustain this company – say with between $80,000 - $100,000 per year – so we can pay all these young artists and stage staff a decent salary.”
Poet Bob Holman founded the Bowery Poetry Club at 308 Bowery in 2002. One of the most prolific and devoted poets in America, he runs the successful performance space for other devotees of the spoken word, theater and music. Although there is not a poetic economy to speak of, Holman says, "The act of giving (through poetry) is also an economy, a reciprocal investment of love and language."
Many residents attribute the changes to the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani.
"His policy to clean up the city and get the addicts off the streets really began to change this neighborhood,” says Louie Trazino, a 23-year veteran with Engine 33/Ladder 9 at 44 Great Jones St. “When the dealers and addicts left, there was less crime."
When the crime decreased, people became less afraid to venture to the area and, within a few years, the Bowery became a destination center with Marion's Continental Restaurant and Lounge and the Bowery Bar, now known as the B Bar and Grill. Both establishments are still thriving almost 15 years later.
The restaurant in the Avalon Bowery Place has locals atwitter with its $29 hamburger. Also on the rise, the 23-story Cooper Square Hotel at the top of the Bowery is battling with Community Board Three for a liquor license.
While the corpse of CBGB’s is still slightly warm, it is not stopping celebrity chef Daniel Boulud from opening a restaurant just one block south of the original CBGB’s. He will call it “DBGB."
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| New Media Newsroom 2007A: In the Nabe 
Biz on the Bowery
Down Bowery Lane