Ghosts And Occasional Mayhem

Ghosts And Occasional Mayhem. 104-6 Bowery. , This anchor of the Bowery was, in the 19th Century, a hosiery shop where one clerk stabbed another; then a beer hall where bartender Schaefer was arrested twice for selling beer on Sunday; then a theater whose name changed with the human tide: the National, the Columbia, the Roumanian Opera House, the Teatro Italiano. Here, in 1898, a man murdered another man for strolling with his wife., There were many fires and many owners, including a 260-lb. Tammany functionary named Alderman Fleck, who ran a music hall for dose in de know. When do-gooders failed to close it for acts of immorality, Fleck threw a party that the New York Times said featured scantily clad women “with capricious thirsts.”, The building served as a moving-picture theater, a rag-sorting business, a penny arcade, and a longtime flophouse offering cheap 4-by-6 cubicles with chicken-wire ceilings. In 1980, George Skoularikos moved into Cubicle No. 40 and stayed long after everyone else had left or died, stalling a new owner’s plan to transform the building into this hotel for Chinese tourists., After court intervention, George finally agreed to leave in exchange for some money and a return to his native Greece in 2005. He died just a few months later, joining Schaefer, Fleck, and so many others in the chorus of ghosts at 104-106 Bowery., - Dan Barry, Writer/Historian, New York Times