Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
adjective
- containing bowers; leafy; shady: a bowery maze.
noun, plural bow·er·ies.
- (among the Dutch settlers of New York) a farm or country seat.
- the Bowery, a street and area in New York City, historically noted for its cheap hotels and saloons and peopled by the destitute and homeless.
noun
- the Bowery a street in New York City noted for its cheap hotels and bars, frequented by vagrants and drunks
“farm, plantation,” from Dutch bowerij “homestead farm” (from the same source as bower); a Dutch word probably little used in America outside New York, and there soon limited to one road, The Bowery, that ran from the built-up part of the city out to the plantations in middle Manhattan, attested from 1787; the city’s growth soon overran it, and it was noted by 1840 as a commercial district notorious for squalor, rowdiness, and low life.
Bowery Boy, the typical New York tough of a generation or two ago, named from the street which he chiefly affected …. He rather prided himself on his uncouthness, his ignorance, and his desperado readiness to fight, but he also loved to have attention called to his courage, his gallantry to women, his patriotic enthusiasm, and his innate tenderness of heart. A fire and a thrilling melodrama called out all his energies and emotions. [Walsh, 1892]
A section of lower Manhattan in New York City.