The New York City Tattoo: The Origins of a Style
By Mike McCabe
New York City Tattoo, long known for its direct, straight-forward
style expressing sentiments of loyalty and love, had its origins in an
area where the pre-Civil War Bowery (which was called "The Thief's Highway")
terminated on the southern end of the island of Manhattan. This area was
known as Chatham Square. Deep-water sailors as well as street-bred rough
and tumblers frequented what soon became the most widely recognized and
respected tattoo center in the world. (Photo Left: Stanly Moscowitz recieves
the lifetime achievement "Love Thy Neighbor" Award at Crazy
Philidelphia Eddie's Body Art Festival 1999.)
Long before Samuel O'Reilly set up shop in Chatham Square with his "Electric
Engraving Pen", tattooing had a distinct presence in New York. Any sailor
at the time who wandered a few blocks down South Street from the docks
would have found himself in the middle of a run-down, overcrowded tenement
area where the population often exceeded 15,000 people per square mile.
These were rough streets controlled by the likes of Patsy Conroy and the
Daybreak Boys. If the same sailor made it back to his ship with his teeth
and purse intact, he thought himself lucky.
The center of this world was Chatham Square. People congregated there,
among the flophouses, gin mills, dime museums and burlesque theaters,
looking for entertainment. Sailors caroused away their shore leave in
the beer halls and cathouses there. Confidence men and "cut purses" fleeced
inexperienced seamen, many of whom drowned their sorrows in the bitter-sweet
smoke of the opium dens along Doyers and Pell Streets.
There were a lot of tattoos. Everything from personal amulets to gang
markings and protective charms, but especially patriotic Columbias proclaiming
allegiance to the nation. New York City police inspector Thomas Byrnes
reported in the mid-19th century that most of the downtown underworld
characters sported extensive hand-done tattoos.
(Photo left-right: Lyle Tuttle, Walter Moscowitz, Stanley Moscowitz, Don
Ed Hardy, Eddie Funk.) Most tattooers of the day were transient and the
art was unorganized. Before tattoo machines, most people either tattooed
themselves or had it done by friends or cohorts. Sailors passed the long
hours aboard ship "pricking" designs into their own skin or that of their
mates. The designs were a mix of patriotic and protective images and it
was common practice to mix gunpowder into the ink, thinking it possessed
magical powers of longevity. The seamen of that day were the most experienced
with tattoos because they traveled so extensively. They saw the dragons
of the China Station, the Christian charms of the Mediterranean and the
highly detailed designs of Edo and Yokohama. Sailors bearing these exotic
designs, passed through the port of New York everyday, greatly influencing
and broadening the very concept of "tattoo" itself.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, thousands of men from New York, too
poor to buy their way out of the draft were conscripted into the Union
Army. Thousands of these same men were tattooed on the battlefields. Martin
Hildebrandt, one of the first American tattooers of record, was a migrant
battlefield tattooer. Being indifferent to politics, he ran back and forth
from the Confederate and Union sides, setting up shop wherever the trade
was best.
The demand for patriotic designs grew tremendously during that war. Tattoos
of major battles, complete with the locations of key exchanges, were very
popular. Like the orldly mariners of the time, tattooed soldiers returning
home from the battlefields made an impression on the tattoo scene in New
York City.
Tattooing was revolutionized by Samuel O'Reilly's invention of the electric
tattoo machine during the last decade of the 19th century. The time required
to complete a design went from hours to minutes, moving the art away from
personally conceived, hand picked designs towards established flash with
its distinctly different feel.
The years ahead would see vast improvements in O'Reilly's machine, plus
the establishment of numerous tattoo equipment manufacturing companies,
which worked to standardize the industry.
During the time that O'Reilly was setting up shop in Chatham Square, legions
of new recruits were shipping out for battle in the Spanish-American War.
His machine made the art fast and profitable. As a result he was flooded
with business, often grossing over $100.00 a day, a fortune in the 1890's
in America. It wasn't long before a host of people started getting into
the act.
During the first decade of the 20th century, a percentage of the transient
tattooers who had been traveling around the United States began to settle
down. Many of them came to New York, which had always been a tattoo town.
For years, "canvasbacks" had been displayed in the dime museums along
the Bowery.
The usual set-up for a tattooer at the time was to rent a space in the
back of a barber shop, putting the flash in the window up front. With
a war on, New York was full of ships and sailors. The fast, colorful tattoo
work of the town soon became the favorite of the fleets, setting a standard
for the rest of the world.
Tattooing really took off in New York City with the 20th century. The
invention of the tattoo machine that halved the time and allowed for radically
different work, back to back wars, and a tattoo fashion fad initiated
by the "Uptown Aristocracy" all combined to keep the tattooers of Chatham
Square very busy.
Then as now, every artist attempted to separate himself from the crowd
with specialties ranging from the pragmatic to the eccentric. One tattooer
who elevated himself above the rest was Charlie Wagner, a former waterfront
watchman who became O'Reilly's apprentice. Wagner gave himself the title
of "Professor", and after O'Reilly's death in 1908, became recognized
as the premier tattoo artist in New York City.
At the time, all the competing artists boasted of cheaper prices, novel
designs, better colors or secret removal techniques, the more bizarre
of which called for the use of mother's milk. As a side-line, Chatham
Square tattooers called themselves "Black Eye Specialists" and cosmetically
corrected blackened eyes with a smear of white ink. For a while tattooers
were imported from exotic Japan.
Wagner was able to climb to the top of this heap, partly because of his
gift of gab, and partly because of the exposure he received by tattooing
a few celebrities of the time such as famous side-show performer May Artoria
among others.
Refusing to use stencils, Wagner only worked freehand. He considered the
majority of his competition to be mere "jaggers", and may have been correct
in his thinking. For while names like Adam Ogent, Joe Vanhart, Lew Alberts
and Millie Hull stand out, no one achieved Wagner's fame or notoriety.
The expansion of popular culture in America that accompanied the cultural
growth of the 20th century had a dramatic influence on tattooing. Long
a religious country, America had also been at war four times in just 56
years and the combined influence worked to keep both patriotic and religious
flash a popular request.
Life in the first few decades of the 20th century saw the development
of new standards people used to define themselves. These new notions of
"self" extended far beyond the traditional boundaries of "God and Country".
In order to keep pace with this new complexity, tattooing had to change
and adapt, and it did.
New York tattooers became very adaptable. They had to be. Changing styles
and trends hit New York long before the rest of the country. New flash
developed reflecting the tempo of the times: comic strip characters like
Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, Lindbergh's crossing, stars and starlets
of the silver screen and phrases that were popularized in the press all
worked their way into the changing vocabulary. Cosmetic tattooing had
its origins during this time period, with many artists offering specialties
such as moles and beauty marks, rosy cheeks and red lips. As a result,
tattooers in Chatham Square stayed busy right up until the Crash of '29.
With the Depression, everything began to die. Merchant shipping started
to dry up and with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, it wasn't long before
Chatham Square saw breadlines instead of lines of customers eagerly waiting
for a tattoo. The beer halls and burlesque theaters that had catered to
the tattooing crowd began to close up. Many tattooers packed it in and
moved on. Those who stayed dropped their prices considerably. The forecast
was gloomy.
It took the Second World War to revitalize the trade, although it never
returned to its former glory. By this time most of the trade had moved
to Coney Island where a few tattooers from the Bowery had summered through
the years. With the extension of the subway system in the '20's, Coney
Island blossomed into a playground of popular entertainment known the
world over. Each summer saw millions of people escaping the steaming streets
of Manhattan and Brooklyn for only a nickel subway ride.
Coney Island and then the Madison Square Garden district soon became the
new centers of tattoo in New York City. A section near the boardwalk in
Coney Island even earned the nickname "Tattoo Alley" where well known
artists like Brooklyn Blackie worked on servicemen and civilians alike.
The rowdy days of the Thief's Highway were gone for good. Chatham Square
was changing into Chinatown and various reform groups were trying to clean
up the Lower East Side. Only a few memories were left in the tattoos of
the old men milling around and chatting in the barber shops and newsstands.
© Tattoos.com 2005
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