you know it, on the corner of Bowery and Spring, or maybe you don’t recall the exact address and only know that its downtown… or maybe you only know it if you saw…. let me jog your memory …

you know it now right? but it wasn’t until very recently that the public outside of the real estate business knew it as “190 Bowery”

This building has quite a history and appears to be adding to it in the past week.  It was constructed in 1898 to be a German bank, had a few other owners until photographer Jay Maisel bought it in 1966 to use as his art studio on the first floor and eventually as a home for himself, his wife and daughter on the upper floors of this 6 story building.

Ironically, a few months ago, my husband and I were pondering what the inside of this building must look like, wonder who owned it and who would actually buy it because it must be rat infested and possible house a squatter or 2.

Maisel decided to sell his residence and to the benefit of the public, new owner and developer Aby Rosen has worked with curator Vito Schnabel to open the doors to 190 to display some works of art on the first floor of this bank turned residence.

I had the opportunity to go in, however, we are only privy to the first floor, the studio section of this mansion and was slightly disappointed that we were sanctioned off from seeing Maisel’s multi-room mansion.  You can, however, see the living quarters in this video.  http://www.6sqft.com/new-video-of-190-bowery-gives-us-a-peek-at-how-photographer-jay-maisel-lived/

In the meantime, check out some of the photos I took in the attempt to capture the beauty that was maintained all of these years

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updated 6/16/16

Curbed is reporting that all but one of the infamous graffiti artist Sean Griffin’s tags will be removed from 190 Bowery – his original – his name

http://ny.curbed.com/2016/6/16/11955792/190-bowery-germania-bank-graffiti-removal-nekst