Writer Stephen Crane (1871-1900) began his internationally renowned writing career as a newspaper reporter in Asbury Park, N.J. He went on to become a war correspondent, poet, and writer of short stories and novels. His innovative, objective, observational, true- to-life writing style, known as literary Naturalism, or, Impressionism, influenced Ernest Hemingway and other modern writers that followed.
Though best remembered for his war novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Crane also wrote several important works set in New York City’s Bowery, including his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) about a young woman’s struggle to survive the grating poverty, aloneness and prostitution.
David Mulkins’s The Bowery, a pictorial history, does a deep dive into a world that Stephen Crane once called “the most interesting place in New York.” The city’s oldest street, and first entertainment district, the Bowery was something of an incubator of American popular culture, as well as a famous skid row. It was the stomping ground for gangs, gays, sailors, shopgirls, sporting men, the working class and immigrants. A place like no other.
Special guest: Ramona Baker, ragtime pianist.