Very interesting historical account! I have always been fascinated by the history of the different boroughs in NYC and this was awesome!

I enjoy reading about the history of New York, and I was eager to learn more about a section of the city that I had not visited very often when I was growing up in Manhattan. I was disappointed, then, when the first rather long section of the book was essentially a broad, familiar history of New York City from its founding through to the 19th C. Some of that material provides background for the later conversations about the evolution of the Bowery and culture, but most of it was extraneous. Later sections were more interesting, but I think a reader looking for a cultural history of this specific region of Manhattan might quit before actually getting to the Bowery parts.

One other note: the syntax is way too casual or chatty for a popular history. At times it feels like the "breeziness" of Alexiou's language draws attention to itself and away from the subject. It is also annoying.

I found this book to be drier than I had hoped it would be. I love NYC and was excited to learn more about this part of the city. It was just too disjointed and dry.

Any book on a piece of New York's history is going to catch my eye, and this one on the Devil's Mile, aka the Bowery certainly did. It went all the way back to the beginning, before Manhattan was even a city, and told the story of the Bowery and its development over time in chronological order up until about the 1950's or so. This could have been a really dry, history textbook type read, but it really was not. The author kept the pace moving, and the stories were very interesting. I knew at a high level this was not always the best part of town to be in, but never really knew why, and I certainly had no idea how fascinating and important this piece of land and its history was to the city. I read this in basically one sitting, and I think it should be noted that for non-fiction that is pretty rare, but that's how interesting this book was. There are quite a few things that I learned originated in the Bowery that I had no idea, for example, the term 'go on a bender', and that the Yiddish plays were the precursor to Broadway musicals! If you like to learn about New York, or the history of cities in general, then this one is for you! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the electronic ARC of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

I received a free Kindle copy of Devil's Mile by Alice Sparberg Alexiou courtesy of Net Galley  and St. Martin's Press, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as  I am an avid reader of New York City history and the description of the book sounded interesting and covered a subject about which I have not previously read. This is the first book by Alice Sparberg Alexiou that I have read.

This is a well written and researched book. It holds your interest which makes it a fairly fast read. The book concentrates on the history of the bowery from the 1600's until the present day. The only drawback is that it concentrates itself on the pre 1930's history with the time after that getting more of a once over lightly treatment.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the history of New York City and the Bowery in particular.

Solid read for New York history buffs.

This is more a history of Manhattan than the Bowery specifically in the early going, though that's likely part of the point, in that the Bowery has always been instrumental in the evolution of the city.

This is fun and well-researched, though none of the information will be new to you if you're up on your New York history.

Very little to complain about, except for two small things. The first is that this book really needs visuals. Photo plates would be ideal, but maps were an absolute must. It's not hard to conceive the earlier iterations of the Bowery in your mind if you are very familiar with New York and its layout, but visualizing most of the content will be difficult if you are not from/well-acquainted with Manhattan.

My only other complaint was with the excessive segments on theater. They're much too long, tend to drag, and seem to be featured disproportionately to other topics.

Finally, I'm struggling with exactly how to classify this book. Much of it is very academic in nature, but there’s also a lot of editorializing which, while a welcome addition, doesn’t achieve the objectivity required to call this a purely academic work.

Call it a People’s History, I suppose, or something else trite but fittingly touched with the type of irreverence so frequently associated with the charming, gritty history of the Bowery.

Oh, those two Astor brothers! (Kindle location 1023) (And how appropriate that the term “going on a bender” originated on the Bowery!) (l. 1126) What a clever rogue Dixon was! (l. 1289) Oh, that Thomas Hamblin. (l. 1341) But Comstock had the law -- his law! -- on his side. (l. 2219) Yes, the Bowery! (l. 2231) No siree Bob! (l. 2564)

This is a fun book to read, but in my sight overcontaminated with exclamation mark-laden asides, see above. All of them could be removed -- they add nothing to the book. Don’t tell me, show me.

I can’t imagine people without a long-term alliance with New York City enjoying this book much, but if you are a New Yorker, by birth or choice, it will be entertaining and interesting. It is very readable and full of entertaining anecdote. If you from out of town, it might be a good book to read while you find yourself staying at one of the trendy new Bowery hotels or frequenting one of the trendy new Bowery bars that the author excoriates in the final chapter.

The book chronicles the successive waves of escapees and castoffs of other areas of the world who invaded the Bowery, including but not limited to the Dutch, the English, American nativist, “bedizened wantons” (l. 1795), flaneurs (l. 1802), well-meaning do-gooders, Tammany Hall politicos, Yiddish thespians, hobos, Chinese, and today’s craft-beer swilling hipsters. Each generation has a dramatic story to tell.

Sometimes, one is left wishing for more details: “At 252 Bowery, photographer David Landau was fined $400 for manufacturing obscene mirrors” (l. 2241). Call me a pervert if you wish, but I really wish to know more about this case and, if possible, the design and manufacture of obscene mirrors. It seems a line of artisanal craftsmanship which is woefully overlooked in our time.

I will admit that I sometimes had a quarrel with the author. She seemed to come down with undue harshness on the excessively pious and on self-appointed guardians of the public morals, while people who engaged in human sex trafficking and forced or coerced others into a life of prostitution were given a pass as a regrettable but colorful part of our part.

Still, this history is well-researched and fun to read, so worth a look if you are a New Yorker or are planning to be, however temporarily.

I received a free unfinished galley of the ebook for review. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for their generosity.

With a historical book like this I always worry it will be dry and the real charm and personality of those being written about will be pushed aside in order to cram as much actual fact into the work as possible.

I was quite happy to read the book and have so much history as well as the many characters that made up the Bowery, and so many references and tidbits it makes you feel like you've lived it.

Damned good book. It's history, with all the concomitant extensive acknowledgements and endnotes. but it's rather short, as histories go, and it reads like a competent novel. There's no question Alexiou has done serious academic history here, but it's anything but stuffy or pedantic. Her personal voice comes through in places, but it's never amateurish or off-putting; it's rather refreshing.

The book is organized in a way that makes more sense than a rigid chronological order. It's roughly chronological, but rather than following a year-by-year outline, the chapters focus on individual personalities or particular themes (e.g., Peter Stuyvesant or the evolution of punk rock on the Bowery). Thus there is some overlap of years and even generations in the chapters, but the format helps the reader focus on the subject at hand rather than having to keep straight which person is which.

Highly recommended, even if you're not a New Yorker (which I'm not).