The Bowery: Devil's Mile at the New Museum

The New Museum is presenting The Bowery: Devil's Mile from September 25, 2026 through January 31, 2027. The title points to the street where the museum itself sits: the Bowery, which runs through Manhattan's Lower East Side. The show places that thoroughfare at its center.

The Bowery carries one of the densest layers of history of any street in New York. It has been home to theaters, cheap lodging houses and music clubs, and CBGB, the venue long associated with American punk, stood along it. In recent years boutique hotels, new residential towers and galleries have changed its look considerably. The street is a place where rough edges and redevelopment overlap, and the nickname "Devil's Mile" captures some of that charged reputation.

The exhibition is held at the museum's building at 235 Bowery. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is devoted to contemporary art, and its current building opened in 2007. It was designed by the Japanese architecture firm SANAA, led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. The structure looks like a stack of white boxes shifted slightly off-axis, and it stands out against the surrounding streetscape. For Japanese visitors, it is a chance to see the work of Japanese architects up close in New York.

Because the subject of the show lies just outside the front door, the visit extends naturally onto the sidewalk. After seeing the exhibition, walking along the Bowery lets you compare what you saw inside with the street as it is today. Little Italy, Chinatown and the East Village are all nearby, so the museum fits easily into a half-day walking route.

With a run of about four months stretching into the start of winter, the exhibition is easy to fit into a Lower East Side itinerary.