When putting together the pieces of New York’s tattoo history, the Bowery is what anchors the story. The Bowery is New York City’s oldest thoroughfare and the city’s first entertainment district. In the early 20th century, tattoo artists lined the street, sometimes tucked in the backs of barber shops under the shadow of the elevated train. As the Bowery morphed from country lane to theater district to gangland to skid row, eventually making its way into its present gentrified state, tattooing came ashore in New York, brought by sailors, the first to visit the cultures that practiced the art. The Bowery was the scene for tattooing’s adaptation of the electric tattoo machine, with Bowery artists scoring the first patents for the earliest machines in the United States. Tattooing grew up with the Bowery from its rough-and-tumble roots into an art form that’s now an accepted and celebrated part of pop culture.
Read More
Daredevil Tattoos on the Red Carpet!
Whoopi Goldberg’s tattoo caused a commotion on the red carpet at the Oscars. Michelle Myles tattooed Whoopi a little over 10 years ago at her loft in Soho. Whoopi sent her driver over to pick up Michelle with her equipment and a massage table. She said she liked dragons, and surprised Michelle when she went for such a good sized dragon tattoo going over her shoulder onto her chest. Michelle never really got a good picture of the tattoo. It's hard to get a good picture of a fresh tattoo, there's always a glare when the tattoo is still shiny and irritated and this was before camera phones made taking pictures so easy. Back then it was common to shoot a whole roll of film and be lucky to get one decent tattoo shot.
Michelle stated, “ I still remember when I got my first visible tattoos done on my arms. I got a black panther on my forearm from Mike Perfetto in Brooklyn. This was about 1993 and you didn't see many women with big tattoos back then. Girls didn't get tattoos, let alone get tattoos on their arms. I remember waking up with that panther and all I thought was, "Wow, I'll never be one of those girls who can wear a fancy dress." Not that I was ever a fancy dress kind of girl but I knew I had crossed a line and could never go back. Of course about a week later I got something done on my other arm to compliment the panther. I never would have thought that over 20 years later one of my tattoos would make it to the red carpet, fancy dress and all.”
Tattooed by Martin Hildebrandt. This image is from an original cabinet card in the Daredevil Museum collection.
New York's First Professional Tattooer
Martin Hildebrandt was listed as tattooing in New York City as early as 1859. He tattooed the first "tattooed ladies" that exhibited on the Bowery and opened the first permanent place of business for tattooing in the United States.
Read More