The Viele Map

"No other city is so spitefully incoherent"

--James Baldwin

Welcome to Manhattan Unlocked Walking Tours

Discover the hidden-in-plain-sight history and have fun decoding the architectural assortments of New York's most iconic (and architecturally complex) neighborhoods.

About Us

Manhattan Unlocked began as a blog over a decade ago to explore and explain the complex and captivating histories behind New York's constellation of neighborhoods that stretch nearly five miles from the Battery to Central Park--what most people consider New York City. It was a journey to test the waters for a book project, and the results were promising enough to dive into discovering the single story history behind the architectural creation of New York City. Our method of research and exploration involved creating immersive walking tours for key New York neighborhoods that together tell a unifying story of the city.

Our Walking Tours

Join us on a journey through time and space and re-discover long lost geographies and bygone transit systems. Manhattan Unlocked walking tours cover neighborhoods with their own unique stories to tell, but that were all part of the "city's" move uptown from City Hall to Central Park.

What Makes Our Tours Special?

  • Historical Insights:We believe that understanding Manhattan's long lost geography is crucial to grasping how "the city" moved uptown.
  • Transit Tales:Learn how different forms of rail transit--from horsecars in the 1850s to subways in the 1900s--shaped the city's architectural diversity.
  • The Pump Uptown:Discover how the daily act of "commuting to work" played a pivotal role in the city's growth, turning it into the vibrant metropolis we know today.
  • The Book: Build: The History of New York City on the Island of Manhattan

    While our walking tours provide a taste of Manhattan's history, we're also hard at work on a book that will dive deep into the city's past and explain the logic behind the "conveyer belt" of neighborhoods running up Broadway and Fifth Avenue, along a path of modern-day "ruins" of forgotten "cities."

    Join Us on a Walking Tour

    We are relaunching our walking tours over the Fall 2023 after the challenges of covid. We hope to see you on a tour of the history behind the world's most inspiring streetscapes.

    Re-launch dates:

    Sept 18: Midtown Manhattan Art and Architecture Walking Tour

    Midtown west

    Sept 27: Holdouts! Based on the Alpern & Durst Book

    Midtown east

    Oct 10: Recreate the Most Requested Walking Tour of 1840s New York

    NoHo & SoHo to City Hall

    TBD: Explore the Ruins of a Forgotten City in the Middle of Manhattan

    Astor Place to Madison Square

    TBD: A Disastrous History of Housing the Poor

    Chinatown and The Lower East Side

    In the meantime, the old blog for "testing the waters" remains below.

    Click Here to See Tours

    Friday, March 4, 2011

    The Bowery & Chatham Square, Then and Now

    While preparing Part II of  The Story Behind the Lower East Side, I came across some old photographs of Chatham Square and couldn't resist checking out their locales…hence this post.

    Here’s a photograph from Kenneth Dunshee’s As You Pass By. This is reportedly a funeral procession heading up the Bowery through Chatham Square in 1869.  Doyers Street would be in front of the tall building with the arched windows. Unbelievably, two of these buildings are recognizable today!


    Chatham Square

    Can you see them?…

    IMG_2470

    The windows have lost their pediments, and the facade has gotten a 1970s-style brick makeover, but the dimensions and arrangement of the windows leave no doubt that this is the same building.


    Chatham Squarei
    IMG_2456i
    IMG_2457

    This building has a distinct 3-angled facade, “curving” to accommodate Doyers Street. 

    Chatham Squareii

    It has the same number of windows (three) across the middle section, and though the windows have lost their arches the corbelled cornice is still evident on the Bowery side.  The next picture shows it more clearly…

    IMG_2470i
    Chatham Square2

    Different angle, same cornice detail…

    IMG_2460i

    I couldn’t get the elevation of the photographer, but the next picture shows the street level today.

    Chatham Square



    IMG_2454i






















      (added 3/5/2011)

    To give you an idea of the area in 1869, we were four years out from the Civil War, and the Draft Riots of 1865 1863 probably still loomed large in the city's consciousness (and conscience).  The Draft Riots were a nearly week-long "event" that started out as a legitimate protest against the policy of permitting wealthy people to buy their way out of military service that, over the course of days, devolved into vicious gang assaults on African-Americans, wealthy abolitionists, and Republicans.  That was in the city at large.

    Chatham Square had been developing as a working class entertainment district since the depression of 1837. By 1869, the upper classes had long since moved uptown, and the Bowery Theater, once the entertainment focal point for the genteel enclaves at the Battery, St. John's Park (the entrance to the Holland Tunnel today), and Bond Street, had changed its format to appeal to working class. 

    The Bowery was, of course, a famous entertainment district. This entry from Allston T. Brown’s, A History of New York Stage from the First Performance in 1732 to 1901 (v.2), says what was going on at 7 Chatham Square (the building to the left of the first old building above) in 1854.  


    Gotham has a place like this in mind when it says, “‘Variety’ shows refused to specialize in any one popular entertainment form but mixed them all.  Starting in 1865 Tony Pastor, a former clown and veteran concert saloon entertainer, ran one out of an old Bowery theater.”  Tony Pastor would go on to invent vaudeville, a cleaned up, family-oriented version of the variety show.  When you look at that old picture above, you’re looking at vaudeville and its pre-history.

    Also important to note is that Chinatown was just about to start.  Once again, Gotham reports, “In 1872 [3 years after the picture] Wo Kee, a former Hong Kong merchant, moved his general goods store from Oliver to Mott [just down Doyers], dropping the first anchor in the area that would soon be known as Chinatown.”   

    They're far from beautiful or important buildings today, but it's amazing to see how substantial and good looking they were back then.  


    (added 3/6/2011) 

    Shorpy's is a great website and had this great image of the area, circa 1905, when the 2nd and 3rd Avenue elevated trains merged in Chatham Square.  


     
    The 3-sided facade is beautiful with its arched lintels and its cornice, which now completely wraps around. In 1905 it was the Chinese Tuxedo Restaurant.  

    The other building to the left looks more like it did in 1869 than it does today, though in this picture it's gotten its fire escape.  One thing that's new here since 1869 is the building with the mansard roof and the triangular pediment over the windows. It is only an echo of its former self...




      

    span>

    9 comments:

    1. Nice post, but one correction: the draft riots were in 1863, not 1865.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Thanks, Stephanie--that was a sloppy mistake.

      ReplyDelete
    3. Is that a dirt road or cobblestones? It's hard to tell from the picture... And where did you find the picture? It's great.

      ReplyDelete
    4. Thanks, I believe it is a dirt road. I'm not expert about street surfaces but perhaps because Chatham Square was so wide and expansive, it would have been inefficient to pave with belgian block or cobblestone. Chatham Square was the first clearing outside of the city that was on solid high ground, and the Boston stage (and others) terminated in Chatham Square. Perhaps the low risk of flooding made paving unnecessary.

      ReplyDelete
    5. No mention of the Chatham Theater? Very important venue.

      ReplyDelete
    6. I'm happy about everything you bring it very interesting and helpful, thanks.Swertres Hearing Today

      ReplyDelete
    7. Amazing Article, Really useful information to all So, I hope you will share more information to be check and share here. BEST SUBLIMATION PRINTER

      ReplyDelete
    8. I have read your whole post it's very informative.STL Results Today

      ReplyDelete
    9. Having read your article. I appreciate you are taking the time and the effort for putting this useful information together.

      ReplyDelete