Willy Moskowitz, barber-tattooer

Willy Moskowitz, barber-tattooer. Moskowitz family collection.

Willy Moskowitz: Bowery Barber-Tattoo Artist

Written and Researched by Carmen Forquer Nyssen

Original Bowery tattoo research, including history from the author’s interviews with Marvin Moskowitz and late tattoo artist Tony Polito, as well as, Doug Moskowitz’s recorded interviews with Ester (Moskowitz) Farber and Walter Moskowitz. Also, featuring previously unknown research & provenance on Reginald’ Marsh’s 1930s depictions of Bowery tattoo shops. This article has also been published in Tribal Publishing’s 2023 New York City Tattoo History anthology: In the Shadows: The People’s History of New York City Underground Tattooing.

Jewish immigrant William “Willy” Moskowitz opened the doors of his New York Bowery barbershop in the late 1920s at the onset of the Great Depression. His shop sat off Chatham Square and Chinatown under shadow of the Third Avenue elevated train, wedged amid flophouses, saloons, burlesque theatres, and gambling dens. In this gritty nether world, impoverished by the failed economy, down on their luck day laborers, drunken vagrants, and roughhousers coexisted alongside hardworking proprietors struggling to stay afloat. Among the latter were the tonsorial artists, the barbers like Willy, who remedied black eyes and shaved clean the faces of the gruff Bowery inhabitants. Partnering with the many barbers, nestled in corner cubbies of their shops, were the tattoo artists—exalted decorators of the skin eager to inscribe skulls, ships, and daggers on the same men. Although a decade would pass before Willy became a tattoo artist, the years of persevering on the Depression-worn Bowery, intermingling with tattoo artists inside and outside his barbershop, at last earned him the privilege of learning the age-old craft and the means for a better life.

11 Chatham Square, Charlie Wagner's tattoo shop and black eye repair

Charlie Wagner’s 11 Chatham Square tattoo shop Undated photograph. Getty Images.

Through his fateful journey, from poor Bowery barber to successful tattoo artist, Willy emerged as a pivotal figure in New York tattoo history. The Bowery had stood as New York’s tattooing hub since the days of Samuel F. O’Reilly, who patented the first electric tattoo machine in 1891. O’Reilly for years reigned as Chatham Square’s champion tattoo artist, needling a gamut of sailors, socialites, working men, and tattooed attractions. When he died on April 29, 1909, his protégé Charlie Wagner, inherited both his shop, a booth in Louis Alterisi’s 11 Chatham Square barbershop, and his title.

Over the next forty or so years, Wagner sat at the helm, tattooing thousands, operating a successful supply company, and imparting his knowledge to generations of tattoo artists. Willy Moskowitz and his family—in a lineage handed down from the legendary Charlie Wagner to Willy then his sons—have had the honor of upholding New York’s rich tradition of tattooing for over six decades.


Bowery Barbershop Beginnings

Willy’s New York beginnings echoes the story of many early twentieth century immigrants. In 1921, thirteen-year-old Willy, his mother, Zelda, and three siblings, emigrated from Russia to reunite with his father, Wolf—in America since the mid-1910s (Endnote 1). In Brooklyn, where they settled, he attended a few years of school, then began working odd jobs to support his family. In 1928, when he was nineteen, he married Frieda Brodsky, afterward making his home with her parents in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood. It was at this time, with the prospect of raising his own family, that he set his mind on learning a legitimate trade. Frieda’s brother, Benny, urged Willy to take up his profession as a barber. Heeding the advice, Willy enrolled in barber school and afterward opened for business on the Bowery—unaware the Great Depression was about to hit.

Setback from the start, Willy leased space in a grungy basement at No. 12 Bowery near the All Night Mission, joining a legion of businesses catering to the rugged Bowery men (Endnote 2). A strategic oversized, street level sign lured clientele downstairs to his dark, rat-infested lair. Halfway down the large panel, the promise of cheap 10¢ shaves and 25¢ haircuts beckoned from either side of an emblematic spread eagle and shield design. And stark lettering above touted yet another tonsorial tradition—“Electric Tattooing.”

Willy Moskowitz's No. 12 Bowery Barber-Tattoo Shop.

Willy Moskowitz’s No. 12 Bowery Barber-Tattoo Shop. Courtesy of New York Historical Society, Irving Browning Collection.

Early on, if not from the start, Willy supplemented income by renting out a tattoo booth in the back of his shop. Welsh born shipbuilder-tattoo artist, James Albert “Al” Neville, was letting the space by at least 1932. Neville, a typical Bowery denizen, had arrived in the United States in 1915 and supported his wife and three children laboring as a ship riveter for Robins Dry Dock in Brooklyn. But sometime before 1930, he was estranged from his family—possibly due to his alleged drug addiction—and forever after haunted tattoo shops and flophouses in Chatham Square.

According to a 1933 Aug 22 Journal Gazette (Mattoon, IL) article, Al Neville is tattooing an NRA ensignia on K. Marampus in this photo. Tattoo memorabilia collection of Carmen Nyssen.

Though Neville told Albert Parry, author of the seminal 1933 book Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art, that he only practiced tattooing “between wars and shipbuilding booms,” he was somewhat of a regular in Willy’s shop in the 1930s—along with his intermittent partner, Sailor Phil Duane, and Cupo, Willy’s tattooed-from-scalp-to-feet helper who swept up fallen hair and tended to other chores.

Even working six days a week with only Sundays off, Willy barely eked out a living. Yet the fortuitous connections he made on the Bowery significantly shaped his future livelihood. Not long after he established at No. 12 Bowery, leading tattoo artist Charlie Wagner moved into the No. 16 Bowery barbershop two doors away. He and partner Joe Van Hart had relocated there from 11 Chatham Square after tattoo artists Paul Dunbar and Ted Hazzard vacated in March of 1930 (Endnote 3).

1930 Mar 1 Billboard pg. 74
“Tattoo Studio to Let-Formerly Conducted by Paul Dunbar and Ted Hazzard Rent $60.00 per month. Barber Shop, 16 Bowery, New York City”

1930 May 10 Billboard pg. 50
“Combination Machines, Colors, Transformers. Wagner, now located 16 Bowery, New York.”

Within their two-year stay, Willy forged what became a lifelong friendship with Wagner. In this early period, Wagner put on Willy’s first and only tattoos—the words “True love to my baby Ester” next to a kewpie doll on his leg (His daughter Ester was born August 6, 1930), and “Love to my wife Frieda” with two hearts on his arm. Years later it was Wagner who taught him the ins-and-outs of tattooing.


Bottlenecked Bowery Tattooers

Quite probably, Willy knew the lot of needlers perched in nearby barbershops. Throughout the 1930s, even with the sunken economy, tattoo artists abounded on the two-block stretch between and just surrounding Mott and Pell Streets. Forming and dissolving partnerships, hopping from one rented tattoo booth to the next, were:

Al Neville (12 Bowery)
Phil Duane (12 Bowery)
Paul Dunbar (16 Bowery)
Edgar “Ted” Hazzard (16 and 42 Bowery)
Ace Harlyn (16 Bowery)
Millie Hull (16 and 22 Bowery)
Tommy Lee (16 and 22 Bowery)
Apache Harry (22 Bowery)
Stella & Deafy Grassman (19 Bowery)
Lou Mormon (13 Bowery, 151 Park Row)
Frank Graf (151 Park Row)
Lame Leroy (11 Chatham Sq.)
Bob Wicks (9 Chatham Sq.)
Andy Stuertz (9 Chatham Sq.)
Denver Ed Smith (9 and 11 Chatham Sq.)
Joe Van Hart (9, 11 and 16 Bowery)
Charlie Wagner (11 and 16 Bowery)
Owen Jensen (Unknown location)

The overcrowding was actually a concern for tattoo artists whose earnings were already strained. A May 11, 1931 Olean Times article about the Bowery’s decline reported Wagner’s frustration with the growing number of tattoo artists closing in on him, and specifically mentions an unnamed competitor across the street. This was likely Lou Morman at No. 13 Bowery, who in July, complained to a Morning Advocate interviewer that he only made $50 a week tattooing, and not $200 as he had before the Depression set in. Eventually, to combat competition, Wagner dramatically dropped his tattoo prices—from $2 and $5 a design to 25¢ for smaller pieces and 50¢ for larger pieces.

The barbers housing these tattoo artists experienced similar trials. Willy, at one of his lowest points, was taking in a meager $7 a week. As a young Bowery proprietor without clout, the greater disadvantage Willy—and therefore Al Neville and Phil Duane—contended with was subpar real estate. Unlike the more established barbers at ground level, he suffered the Depression in the same dank underground lair, relying on the shop’s larger-than-life sign to wrangle occasional customers.


Tattoo, Shave, Haircut

Ironically, Willy’s shop sign and his dismal set up is exactly what won the attention of Reginald Marsh, foremost among a host of artists documenting the Bowery’s gritty Depression Era. In the spring of 1932, Marsh commenced work on Tattoo and Haircut, a realist masterpiece painting and an accompanying etching, Tattoo, Shave, and Haircut, whose subject matter and title(s) were inspired by his firsthand Bowery studies. Of several barbershops with tattoo artists then—Wagner and Van Hart at No. 16 Bowery, Bob Wicks at 9 Chatham Square, Lame Leroy at 11 Chatham Square, and Neville and Duane at No. 12 Bowery—Willy’s shop, with its compelling advertising, most captivated Marsh’s artistic sensibilities.

In Tattoo, Shave, Haircut, the painted version, Willy’s shopfront sign—overshadowed by only the towering El train tracks—backdrops a crowd of loitering, downtrodden men too poor to heed the sign’s offerings. Poignantly capturing Willy’s predicament, the scene represents not only the hardships of the men, but also the neglected businesses they usually patronized (Endnote 4).

Willy Moskowitz's No. 12 Bowery Barber Tattoo Shop

Reginald Marsh’s ‘Tattoo and Haircut,’ 1932. Art Institute of Chicago (egg tempura on masonite). Click image for link. (My article link is under “Publication History on the museum’s website).

Although this satirical work has often been treated as a generic portrayal, the visual reference to Willy’s shop is unmistakable. The sign depicted in the painting Tattoo, Shave, Haircut, including the spread eagle design and the wording, is just slightly altered from the original sign photographed by Irving Browning; the sign’s line-up in front of the All Night Mission at 8 Bowery and Hong Hop Co. at No. 10 Bowery confirms the attribution.

“A Clean Towel to Every Customer”

Reginald Marsh's 1932 work Tattoo, Shave, Haircut compared with pre-1932 photo of Willy Moskowitz's No. 12 Bowery Barber-tattoo shop.

Reginald Marsh’s 1932 work Tattoo, Shave, Haircut compared with the c. 1930s photo of Willy Moskowitz’s No. 12 Bowery Barber-tattoo shop.

What’s more, entries in Marsh’s journal, outlining the work’s progression, indicate his hands-on involvement in capturing the full essence of the imagery, and input on the works’ titles, stemming from his Bowery visits. Over time, the title of the art pieces, as a body of work, evolved into the two separate ones for the painting and etching. On June 3, 1932, Marsh wrote, “1st preliminary drawings on “tattooing;”” on June 7th, “study & draw careful on “tattooing on the Bowery.”” By July, he had penciled-in “Tattoo-Shave-Haircut” in his art journal next to his etching notes describing his art materials and creative process. The addition of “shave” and “haircut” in the titles of the completed painting (Tattoo and Haircut) and etching (Tattoo, Shave, Haircut) was emphatically inspired by time spent on the Bowery and consulting tattoo artists, most specifically Willy Moskowitz, the only barber-tattooer. Marsh’s journal indicates he began walking the Bowery as early as April of 1932. On July 14th, notes specify, “Bowery after dinner. Tattoo shop. I watch a man tattooed.”

Tattoo, Shave, Haircut, etching, 1932. By Reginald Marsh.


Bowery Barrage

Through an artist’s eye, Marsh had unwittingly preserved Willy’s place in history—both his role as a Bowery character and his destined career in tattooing. A good many future Marsh works illustrating the miseries of Bowery life—from the Depression era and its aftermath—also incorporate Willy’s shops. The relevant pieces include:

• Smokehounds (1934) and Stokey’s Bar (1940) depicting No. 12 Bowery

No. 6 Bowery (1944), All Night Mission (1947), and Bowery Drunks (1948) depicting Willy’s 1940s shop at No. 4 Bowery.

Marsh was not alone in finding artistic appeal in Willy’s shopfront. A 1941 wood engraving entitled No. 8 Bowery by Bernard Brussel-Smith shows his barbershop from the opposite side of the All Night Mission.

And Vanity Fair’s July 1934 pictorial, “New York Shops You Never See,” features a colorful, whimsical rendition of No. 12 Bowery by Polish artist Witold Gordon. As in Tattoo, Shave, Haircut, Gordon celebrates the shop’s impressive signage, then consisting of Willy’s familiar spread eagle sign alongside “Willie’s Barbe [sic] Shop” sidewalk stand and Al Neville’s just as flashy “Expert Tattooing” window display, complete with tattoo designs.

Left, Bernard Brussel-Smith American, Number 8 Bowery, 1941 (Click image for link). Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Hunter and Cathy Allen Collection. Right, Witold Gordon’s illustration of No. 12 Bowery in the July 1934 issue of Vanity Fair (from tattoo memorabilia collection of Carmen Nyssen).


Bowery Barbershop Tattooers

Despite Willy’s eye-catching, all-inclusive sign peddling shaves, haircuts, and tattoos, his resident tattoo artists conducted themselves independently. Phil Duane’s April 27, 1935 Billboard Magazine notice, “Tattooed Lady Care Sailor Phil,” lists No. 12 Bowery as his address, with no mention of Willy’s barbershop. In 1932, when Albert Parry visited Al Neville’s No. 12 Bowery tattoo booth and mentioned his experience in a New Yorker article, he didn’t acknowledge Neville’s partnership with Willy. He only generally noted that Neville’s cubicle was located inside a “tonsorial parlor.”

1932 Dec 24: The New Yorker Vol.8 Pg. 30, article by Albert Parry
“At 12 Bowery, in another tonsorial parlor, is the cubicle of Al Neville, former Welsh soldier and boat builder, who learned his art in India and practices it only between wars and shipbuilding booms”

In reality, the barber-tattoo artist alliance was not so much a partnership as it was a matter of convenience. At times, the bond was less than amicable. In September of 1938, when an Esquire Magazine interviewer questioned Eddie Xigues, a barber at No. 16 Bowery, about his on-site lady tattoo artist Millie Hull, he curtly replied that he paid no attention to her. Tensions stemmed, in part, from the lop-sided arrangement. Tattoo artists, merely subtenants unliable for the workplace, could suddenly move out or neglect obligations with little consequence. Such was the case with Willy’s tattoo artist tenants; they habitually skipped rent and no-showed shifts, a problem that worsened as years passed.


Charlie Wagner tattooing Joe Van Hart

Yellow Beak Press has newly released 11×14 posters of this c. 1930s image of Charlie Wagner tattooing Joe van Hart. Click image for link.

Wagner-Moskowitz Tattoo Lineage

Whenever Willy met with Charlie Wagner, he grumbled about his troubles with Neville and Duane; he was tired of excusing drunken sprees and tardiness to customers and, above all, losing rent money. As it was, his barbershop earnings were not enough to support his wife and three children. Ester (Moskowitz) Farber, Willy’s oldest child, in a 2012 interview, described how little they had; most families were on welfare, but her father was proud and refused any type of public assistance; there were times when they went without food and her mother boiled water on the stove to fool neighbors. Hearing about Willy’s plight, over and over again, finally moved Wagner to act. During one of their conversations in 1939, a decade after Willy set foot on the Bowery, Wagner surprised him by offering to teach him to tattoo.

Ester, then nine years old, recalled her father excitedly sharing the news; he was going to earn more money “making pictures on the human body.” Whether Wagner taught Willy as a gesture of friendship, or because he disliked Phil Duane, as one family story says, Wagner was an encouraging teacher. He supplied Willy with inks and machines and provided instructions on how to use them. Before long—in between shaves and haircuts—Willy was confidently inking daggers and ships on the arms and chests of the Bowery’s rough-and-tumble men.

Tax survey “162-57 M” [Block 162, Lot 57]. Photos were taken between 1939-1941. New York Municipal Archives

For the first few years, Neville and Duane likely shared the tattoo booth with Willy; according to Neville’sWorld War II Draft Registration, he was still tattooing at 12 Bowery in the early 1940s. But now that Willy was a proficient tattoo artist, and could fill in at any time, he did not count on them. By 1939-1941, his shopfront—as depicted in a tax survey photograph—no longer advertised Neville as the expert tattoo artist. A small placard simply read: “Tattoo Display Downstairs.”

“Tonsorial artist” took on a whole new meaning for Willy—the Bowery’s only barber-tattoo artist. As always, he offered haircuts, but hiked the price to 75¢. Additionally, like many Bowery barbers and a few tattoo artists, he provided “black eye removal,” a vital service for men faced with an angry wife or boss after a night of drunkenness and roughhousing. He placed a leech on the bruised area until it sucked ample blood from under the skin, then camouflaged any discoloration with women’s pancake make-up. Tattooing—which neatly rounded out Willy’s services—became the highpoint of his days. So enthusiastic was he about his new line of work that when a customer fell asleep during a shave, he often snuck away to put on a quick tattoo. Sometimes he ended up doing another tattoo, then another, and the forgotten customer woke up and unknowingly walked out with a half-shaved face.


Brotherly Bowery 

Once Willy started tattooing, he made several other changes. After ten years of commuting from Brownsville, he moved his family to Manhattan, closer to his shop. They resided in a four-story walk-up tenement at 36 Ludlow Street—just down the block from Millie Hull and her husband Tommy Lee at 85 Ludlow, and in walking distance from the Bowery (Endnote 5). This new living arrangement allowed Willy to spend longer hours tattooing and to take advantage of less official Bowery business.

12 and 16 Bowery tattoo shops.

1938 Photo of Bowery tattoo shops by Reginald Marsh. 16 Bowery in the foreground and 12 Bowery in the background. Museum of the city of New York.

Although the Depression had formally ended, the Bowery was still recovering from its effects. Many tattoo artists, especially those with families, had taken on additional jobs in order to make a living: Ralph Bayone moonlighted as a moving man and a merchant sailor; Phil Duane spent time aboard ships; and Ace Harlyn was a photographer for the Work’s Progress Administration.

Willy—too busy cutting hair and tattooing to escape his shop—found income opportunity in the drunken bums milling around the Bowery. He enlisted his wife, Frieda, to make runs of moonshine in their bathtub. Old drunks, such as “Pete-the-bum” and “Lenny-the-painter,” privy to the bootleg liquor, would check in at the shop. If a batch was ready, Willy sent them around the corner to his apartment, where either Frieda, or Ester if Frieda was out, filled a baby bottle for 35¢.

More than a barber, tattoo artist, or bootlegger, Willy was an all-around respected Bowery personality. In a diverse community trying to survive the era’s harsh realities, he was a friend. Day laborers, who traveled back and forth from the Catskill Mountains—and too often spent their pay getting drunk or feared getting robbed by crooked cops—entrusted him with their money for safekeeping. His family, though they preferred Brooklyn to Manhattan, also accepted the Bowery as an integral part of their lives. Ester (age 9) and brothers, Stan (age 7) and Walter (age 2), sometimes went to work with their father and marveled at his tattooing. Ester said, “We thought it was like unbelievable to see a human body being painted on and bleeding. It was a shock and a wonder at the same time.” Other times, the youngsters kept busy playing with the Chinese children in Chatham Square amongst the bums and drunks littering the streets. Even as a child, Ester sensed an unusual solidarity on the Bowery, “Everybody got along. It was so nice. Nobody had anything but got along. Even the drunks were nice to us.”

Willy Moskowitz's friend, magician and tattoo artist "Sailor Lew,"

Willy Moskowitz’s friend, magician and tattoo artist “Sailor Lew,” who ran a shop in Garfield, NJ (Not to be confused with Lew Alberts). Moskowitz family collection.


Moving up on the Bowery

After a year or so, Willy’s extra time spent on the Bowery paid off. He started making more money and moved his family back to Brownsville. Between the increased income and certain business associations he had fostered, he finally secured a better location—prime street level real estate. Around 1941-1942, he moved up from the dark No. 12 Bowery den to No. 4 Bowery.

Willy Moskowitz's No 4 Bowery barber-tattoo shop.

Willy Moskowitz’s No. 4 Bowery barber-tattoo shop. Bowery Under 3rd Ave L. Old NYC Photos

Oliffe’s Drug Store, a historical establishment on city tour stops, was on one side at No. 6 Bowery. Millie Hull’s tiny tattoo studio at No. 2 ½ Bowery stood on the other side, next to the Harbor Inn Grill. Millie, according to an interview with Willy’s son Stan in Mike McCabe’s New York City Tattoo book, was a real Bowery broad, a drinker. As evidenced in a 1941 Brooklyn Eagle report, it was not beyond her to bomb liquor bottles at police squad cars and have herself—or her friend Phil Duane—carted off to jail. Millie’s antics aside, the shop was a huge improvement over the old place. It was 80 feet long and roomy enough for 10 barber stations.

For the tattooing area in the back—pictured in a scene from the 1949 film The Tattooed Stranger—Charlie Wagner came to Willy’s rescue again by building a sturdy bench and private booth with all the necessary accommodations for his tattoo equipment and tattoo flash sheets.

Scenes From The Tattooed Stranger

Willy Moskowitz's tattoo booth made by Charlie Wagner

Willy Moskowitz tattoo booth scene in the Tattooed Stranger film. Click image for Youtube video link.

Scenes from Willy Moskowitz's Tattoo Flash

Right, scene from The Tattooed Stranger film depicting tattoo flash in Willy Moskowitz’s shop. Left, 1946 film clip of Willy’s shop depicting same sheet of flash

Left, scene from The Tattooed Stranger depicting front of Willy Moskowitz’s No. 4 Bowery tattoo shop front. Right, Photo of No. 4 Bowery shop front.

Left, scene from The Tattooed Stranger depicting front of Willy Moskowitz’s No. 4 Bowery tattoo shop front. Right, Photo of No. 4 Bowery shop front.

Like No. 12 Bowery, Willy’s new tattoo shop grabbed the attention of artists. One colorful, remarkably detailed, illustration by prominent commercial artist, Milton Wolsky, appears in the April 4, 1953 issue of Collier’s Magazine (below). Although the fictional account accompanying it portrays tattoo artists in an unflattering light, the image provides a vivid visual of Willy’s shop front—from the “Tattooing” sign atop the barber pole to the tattoo flash and curious “Welcome Stranger” plaque in the window. (The lattermost sign, also seen in earlier photographs of Wagner’s shop, was possibly acquired when Wagner died that January).

Tattoo memorabilia collection of Carmen Nyssen.

Left, 'Welcome Stranger' sign in Charlie Wagner's tattoo shop window. Right, 'Welcome Stranger' sign in illustration of Willy Moskowitz's tattoo shop window.

Left, ‘Welcome Stranger’ sign in Charlie Wagner’s tattoo shop window. Right, ‘Welcome Stranger’ sign in illustration of Willy Moskowitz’s tattoo shop window.


1946 Willy Moskwoitz tattooing at No. 4 Bowery

1946 Willy Moskwoitz tattooing 16-year-old Nick Votta at No. 4 Bowery

Tattoo Business Boom

The upgrade to No. 4 Bowery was timed perfectly with one of the biggest business booms in tattooing’s history. On December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor marked the United States’ involvement in World War II—with it came a mass enlistment of soldiers and sailors eager to pledge their allegiance with patriotic emblems stamped on their arms and chests. Although Willy had registered for the draft a year prior, on October 16, 1940, in anticipation of the war, he was rejected because of an old trigger finger injury. At the ready in his new studio now visible to passersby, he had a competing chance against the other tattoo artists, who were flourishing tattooing eagles and flags on war bound servicemen.

“Business has been a hundred times better since the war,” Charlie Wagner told a New York Sun interviewer in June of 1942. “I’ve had 500 to 1,000 soldiers and sailors since the war started.” The same article reported the fine business of Sailor Phil [Duane] and Al Neville (at an unspecified location) as well as the 150 tattoo machines Bill Jones of 19 Bowery had recently sold. Willy experienced the same good fortune as his cohorts etching the hides of Uncle Sam’s military men. Around this time, Ester noticed something had changed in her family’s financial circumstances. She recalls her mother buying several luxury items, including an elegant new dining room set and secretary desk—for show only.

1940s Bowery Tattoo Artists:
Ralph Bayone (basement in Chatham Square barbershop)
Ace Harlyn (Possibly with Millie Hull)
Harry Loryea (2 Bowery)
Dick Hyland (possibly 11 Chatham and 19 Bowery)
Bill Jones (19 Bowery)
Charlie Wagner (11 Chatham)
Ed Smith (3 Chatham Sq., 9 Chatham Sq.)
Millie Hull (2 ½ Bowery)
Tommy Lee (2 ½ Bowery)
Phil Duane (2 ½ Bowery, 12 Bowery)
Al Neville (12 Bowery)

Within a few years of including tattoo work in his repertoire, Willy’s days of poverty ended. Now a successful multi-business owner, he provided for his family without difficulty, and because of his unique niche offering a variety of services, he continued building rapport with a mix of Bowery people. The associations were a boon during the war when the government rationed food and other household necessities. While most families had a limit on such products, Willy’s Bowery friends supplied him with an unending reserve of ration stamps for butcher and grocery items.


Willy Moskowitz tattoo

$6.00 Willy Moskowitz tattoo done during WWII

Bowery Tattooers Depart

As the war progressed and tattooing became the top money-maker, Willy concentrated less and less on the barbershop services. With the hordes of servicemen patronizing the shop, he had more work than he could handle. Surprisingly, although the war years were quite profitable, competition had waned. Many tattoo artists had sought opportunity elsewhere, weary of the grunge and grime of the Bowery.

At the height of the war, Al Neville and Denver Ed Smith trekked to Norfolk, Virginia, where they tattooed sailors stationed at the nearby naval base for a couple years; afterwards Neville worked briefly in San Francisco. By 1944, Phil Duane had established a tattoo studio at 134 Bridge Street in Brooklyn. Another good friend of Willy’s, Ace Harlyn, headed to New Jersey then Jacksonville, North Carolina after the newly built marine base, Camp Le Juene, opened. Ace invited Willy to join him, but he was unwilling to leave his family.

Frieda and Willy Moskowitz, 1947

Frieda and Willy Moskowitz, 1947. Moskowitz family collection.

At the war’s end, in 1945, few tattoo artists remained and the numbers kept dwindling. On May 29, 1946, Al Neville died of an alleged drug-related affliction—just five days after Life Magazine published an article describing his new tattoo machine business. Following him two months later, on August 15, was Millie Hull—found dead in the bathroom of the Gladworth Restaurant overdosed on pills. On November 24, Frank Graf, who divided his time between the Bowery and Coney Island, also died. (All these well-known Bowery tattoo artists left the world unceremoniously. Local newspapers failed to report the deaths of Neville and Graf and an article about Millie’s death said Bowery tattoo artists knew nothing of her next of kin).


Passing the Torch

The loss of Bowery tattoo artists converged with another major turning point in Willy’s business. As his children came of age, tattooing, which had brought the family so much prosperity, begin to draw their interest. One by one—beginning in the mid-1940s and spanning the next decade—Willy handed down his ‘inherited’ livelihood to his sons and his son-in-law. Their initiation into the trade filled a void left by long gone tattoo artists and ultimately positioned the Moskowitz family at the crux of Bowery tattooing.

Stan Moskowitz, at No. 4 Bowery tattoo shop.

Stan Moskowitz, age 22, at No. 4 Bowery tattoo shop. Moskowitz family collection.

Stan Moskowitz

The first son in line was Stan, the oldest, who expressed an enthusiasm for tattooing in 1944 when he was twelve-years-old. Under his father’s guidance, he carefully inked his first tattoo—a flower on his father’s leg—as their tattoo artist friend, Bill Jones (aka Jonesy), from across the street looked on. The work was likely executed with one of Jonesy’s famous tattoo machines, a staple for the Moskowitzs (a 1946 news clip shows Willy at work with a “squareback” model). Jonesy, an ace machinist, built machines for Wagner’s supply business, and used Willy’s spacious tattoo studio as a workshop. He was a fixture there throughout Stan’s training and assisted with lessons whenever he was around.

$3 Willy Moskowitz tattoo

$3 Willy Moskowitz tattoo

By 1946, Stan and Willy were making history as the first Bowery father and son tattoo team. Together they built up a solid business, handling a higher volume of customers—more plentiful than ever without the overwhelming competition. They also gradually raised tattoo prices—in the range of $1 to $8—offsetting stagnant depression-era standards. This met some resistance among customers accustomed to 25¢ and 50¢ Charlie Wagner tattoos.

Wagner, who according to an April 25, 1945 Brooklyn Eagle was putting on “as many as 50 tattoos a day,” saw no reason to raise his prices. Having fallen into the same habits as the Bowery drunks since the Depression, he was content earning enough to bed down in flophouses and buy cheap booze. Because of Wagner’s set ways, the father and son duo sometimes spent as much time fending off ruffians challenging the cost of a tattoo as they did tattooing. Too often in their shop loud groans elicited by gut punches and bloodied noses preceded the buzzing of a tattoo machine.

Stan by himself made history as the sole teenage tattoo artist on the Bowery—but he was not out of place. Most local boys his age held full-time jobs; many caroused the Bowery and visited tattoo shops, where they boasted their manhood by having an anchor or skull emblazoned on their arms. In fact, the tattooing of teenage boys was such a regular occurrence on the Bowery most people were unaware or had ‘forgotten’ it was illegal—even tattoo artists.

1946 MONTAGE tattoo artists working in shop / New York. Getty Images.

1946 MONTAGE tattoo artists working in shop / New York. Getty Images. Click image for video link.

In September of 1946, Willy’s sign, which now read “Shaves, Haircuts, Tattooing Our Specialty,” intrigued fourteen-year-old Bobby Zazza, who was strolling the Bowery with friends; he marched into the shop and had Willy tattoo a dagger-pierced-through-a-heart overlaid with the word “Mother” on his shoulder. Unfortunately, the person Bobby hoped to impress, his mother, was not pleased. Hoping for retribution, she reported the incident to police, who discovered it was indeed an offence. As outlined by a 1930 New York State law (statute 3011 483-c), “A person who marks the body of a child under the age of sixteen years, with indelible ink or pigments by means of tattooing, is guilty of a misdemeanor.” By December, when Willy was tried for the misdeed, the public had become well-aware of the law. Less than two months later Charlie Wagner was convicted of the same crime, but was released because of his advanced age. Reactionary incidences like these, while they caused temporary upstirs, hardly changed unwritten Bowery laws. During the course of these cases, Stan, a fourteen-year-old boy not of legal age to be tattooed, was tattooing and earning a living in his father’s shop.

New York tattoo artist Stanley Farber.

Tattoo Artist Stanley Farber.

Stanley Farber

As the decade came to a close, Willy introduced another relative to tattooing—Stanley Farber, his daughter Ester’s husband, recently discharged from the Air Force. Insisting Stanley make his living as a tattoo artist, Willy recruited his friend Dick Hyland (real name Bernard Wrottenberg) as a practice board. Hyland, the “human autograph” who had 1,500 people’s names tattooed all over his body, at one time was a star exhibitor at Ripley’s New York “Believe It or Not Odditorium.” He was a drinker, however, and by the 1940s his sideshow career had faded. In the 1940s, he possibly tattooed a while. But after an arrest for stabbing a man with scissors in front of 11 Chatham Square, his usual occupation turned to loitering on the Bowery and in Willy’s shop. Luckily, Hyland had some free skin on his body. With instructions from Willy, Stanley etched Hyland with designs from the shop’s flash sheets until he was competent in his tattooing. Although he started at No. 4 Bowery, he ultimately branched out on his own. By July of 1950, as reported in Billboard Magazine, he had set up in Rocco Castellano’s Coney Island arcade.

Teenage tattooer Walter Moskowitz

Walter Moskowitz, age 17, at No. 4 Bowery tattoo shop.

Walter Moskowitz

The last to join the Moskowitz tattoo dynasty was Walter, Willy’s youngest son. According to family stories, in the beginning Walter split his time between Yeshiva, where he studied the Talmud and Torah by day, and hanging out at the tattoo shop at night. His initial education consisted of watching his father and brother set up machines, mix inks, and engrave the skin of the rowdy Bowery crowd. The year he turned sixteen, however, he committed fully to a life of tattooing. That summer he spent six days a week in the shop, learning all aspects of the craft—next to a young Huck Spaulding who was also bringing his skills up to par in Willy’s shop. As did his brother and brother-in-law, he practiced his tattooing on a live sketch board. The willing participant was an employee from the saloon next door named Little Eddy, who Walter rewarded with a 35¢ pint of Sneaky Pete each time he tried his hand at a small skull, bird, or heart. Before the year was over, he had proudly claimed his spot as a full-fledged tattoo artist alongside his father and brother, and was earning enough to support a new bride and a baby on the way. As fate would have it, this first child was Marvin Moskowitz, the only one of Willy’s grandchildren to continue the family business.

Straight away Walter learned the most important code of Bowery tattooing—the tattooer sets the rules not the customer. One particular day, not long after he had joined the family trade, Walter’s resolve was tested by aspiring sixteen-year-old tattoo artist Eddie Funk, who happened into No. 4 Bowery and had him tattoo a bluebird on each side of his chest.  In his memoirs, The Life and Times of Crazy Philadelphia Eddie Volume I, Eddie recalled how the birds turned out a little differently from each other, and when he questioned it, Walter smacked him on the head and informed him that one bird was female and the other male. When Eddie balked next at the doubled price ($5.00, not the $2.50 noted on the flash sheet), Walter smacked his head again and clarified that the price was $2.50 per bird, not for the pair. Though Walter held firm and was a quick wit, for reassurance Stan entered the tattoo area holding a hammer and straight razor, which instantly ended Eddie’s nit-picking. In that first meeting the Moskowitzs not only earned Eddie’s respect, but kindled what became a lifelong friendship.

Recently departed tattoo legend Thom DeVita got his first tattoo from Willy Moskowitz in 1950

Recently departed tattoo legend Thom DeVita got his first tattoo from Willy Moskowitz in 1950. Click to see New York Times obituary. Rest in Peace.


Willy, Stan, and Walter Moskowitz, with friend Dick Hyland.

Willy, Stan, and Walter Moskowitz, with friend Dick Hyland. Mid-to-late 1950s.

Moskowitz Tattoo Dynasty

When Willy Moskowitz started out during the Depression, he probably never imagined arriving at this point with his two sons by his side. After decades of determination and diligence, his business was center stage, signifying a new era on the Bowery tattoo scene. As a trio, the Moskowitzs secured a stronghold on business. They prospered tattooing classic designs—snakes, ships, daggers, eagles, anchors—on a non-stop flow of customers, churning out at least 40 to 50 people a day. Stan and Walter, who eventually took control of the shop, kept pace with a seamless streamlined production.

“From hour to hour, they would go and go,” recalled late New York tattoo artist Tony Polito, who witnessed the hustle as a kid in the mid-1950s. “They went in early and got the machines running…not at 100%…not at 200%…but 300%. Then they banged out tattoos all day. Easy stuff to apply. Attractive pieces.”

Dealing with the rough Bowery customers required more than work ethic or technique for the Moskowitzs who operated under the old-school rule “never pass up business.” Their open-door policy meant accepting customers whether they were drunk, complaining about prices, angling for a fight, or all of the above.

Many days there was so much riff-raff coming into the shop the scene became a full-blown massacre—peen hammers to the head, teeth knocked out on the floor, and blood strewn across the tattoo flash on the wall. “You fight your way in and fight your way out and tattoo a guy in between” is how Walter described a work day. Tony Polito remembered it similarly, “Stan and Walter fought with one arm,” he said, “and tattooed with the other.” Because of their no-nonsense approach, the hard-hitting, hardworking brothers came to be known as “The Bowery Boys.”


Bygone Bowery Tattooing

The rest of the Moskowitz story unfolds as dramatically as it began. Ironically, the initiation of Willy’s last son, Walter, coincided with the death of Charlie Wagner, longstanding king of Bowery tattoo artists who first brought Willy into the trade. Just as coincidentally, it was Willy and Stan who identified Wagner’s body at the Coroner’s office—after he was found dead in his apartment on New Year’s Day 1953 and police were unable to locate relatives. According to Keith Wagner, grandson of Wagner’s brother Stephen, the family only learned of the death by happenstance weeks later when Stephen went into the City for a visit. Tattoo folklore says Wagner’s belongings had been thrown out by then, and he was buried in the City’s Potter’s Field. Like so many tattoo artists before, Wagner, a Bowery icon, departed life almost anonymously—no glowing tribute in newspapers or even an obituary (Endnote 6). Yet his sadly overlooked death foreshadowed a profound unraveling of events.

Two years later, on May 12, 1955, the city tore down the El train tracks, which for so long had sheltered the peculiar customs and rituals of the world below. As if spirited away by this sacrilege, tattoo artists followed close behind. At the decade’s finish, not one remained on the time-honored stretch between Mott and Pell Streets. In 1959, Jonesy is listed in the Hartford, Connecticut city directory; he had moved there permanently, partnering with Nick Picaro in the tattoo machine business after an argument with Dick Hyland. A couple years prior, Willy Moskowitz, who was ill, had retired from both barbering and tattooing. Stan and Walter, the lone Bowery tattoo artists, no longer required barbershop accommodations and relocated to a smaller space at No. 52 Bowery—removed from their heritage in the Bowery’s heart at Chatham Square.

Stan and Walter Moskowitz's No. 52 Bowery tattoo shop

Stan and Walter Moskowitz’s No. 52 Bowery tattoo shop


New York City Tattoo Ban

In the wake of these circumstances and other happenings, the Moskowitz brothers sensed impending trouble for tattoo artists. In 1959, they started tattooing a couple days a week in a rented backroom in Farmingdale, Long Island, preparing for the inevitable blow. It came a few years later, in 1961, closing the final chapter in Bowery tattoo history. In November of 1961, ten months after their father Willy Moskowitz died, the New York City Board of Health announced the closure of tattoo shops due to an outbreak of hepatitis they blamed on tattoo artists. The situation quickly escalated into a push for a permanent ban, prompting incensed tattoo artists throughout the city to pull together and protect their livelihood.

Stanley Farber, who was then set up on Flatbush Street in Brooklyn—where he had variously employed Tony Polito, Tony “The Pirate” Cambria, and Jack Dracula—submitted a petition later pursued by Stan and Walter. Eventually, tattoo artists “Coney Island” Freddie Grossman and Eddie Funk filed a lawsuit against the Board of Health. Because of their efforts, in 1963, the ban was overturned and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the verdict was appealed. In 1966, the final legal decision resulted in a ban that lasted until 1997.

Stan and Walter Moskowitz in their Long Island Tattoo Shop

Stan and Walter Moskowitz in their Long Island Tattoo Shop

Throughout the trial and appeals process the ban remained in place; only doctors could legally tattoo. In the interim years before the verdict, the City’s tattoo artists had dispersed, either quitting the trade altogether, relocating, or working underground. Stanley Farber, who was deeply affected by the outcome, briefly operated a shop in Hoboken, New Jersey before taking up a new occupation. Stan and Walter tattooed underground in New York City with Tony D’Anessa, and also operated a shop on Great Neck Road in Long Island a couple nights a week. In 1963, disheartened by the state of tattooing, they almost left for Chicago with their friend Eddie Funk (later known as Philadelphia Eddie)—but New York held their loyalties.

As it turns out, Stan and Walter made the right decision. Suffolk County, where they opened their last shop, S&W Tattoo, in Amityville at 137 Sunrise Highway, was a more profitable venture. However, they continued fighting to preserve New York tattoo tradition. Although tattooing was legal here, Stan and Walter met with extreme prejudice from locals, assaulted by complaints and false accusations and even a police raid. Taking the lead of their tenacious father, who forged ahead with heart and persevered through the worst, they faithfully upheld their legacy, earning an honest living and carrying the torch for New York tattooing nearly forty more years.

To note: This Willy Moskowitz: Bowery Barber-Tattoo Artist feature has been published in Tribal Publishing’s 2023 New York City Tattoo History anthology: In the Shadows: The People’s History of New York City Underground Tattooing.


Endnotes:

1-As noted on passenger manifests and naturalization records, the Moskowitz family was originally from Nova Vyzha, now a village in the north west part of Ukraine near its border with Poland. Before and after the Moskowitz’s immigrated, political warfare had changed the national boundaries of the region several times, with Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire battling to rule the region. According to Ester Moskowitz Farber, her family fled the war-torn area for the United States, while other relatives fled east and settled near the Mongolian border.

2-According to family information, Willy Moskowitz moved into No. 12 Bowery barber-tattoo Shop around 1928, shortly after marrying. Daughter Ester Moskowitz Farber states that her father had definitely encountered Charlie Wagner in the course of his work by at least 1930, when he had Wagner tattoo a design on him memorializing her birth. The New York Historical Society image of Willy’s shop in the Irving Browning Collection supports that Willy had established at No. 12 Bowery by the turn of the 1930s decade, as the Hong Hop noodle company was established at that time at No. 10 Bowery, and is depicted in the photo at No. 10 Bowery. The All Night Mission was at 8 Bowery.

1931-32: Hong Hop was established at No. 10 Bowery around 1931 or 1932
http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2004/2004-51766.html

3-Joe Van Hart and Charlie Wagner started tattooing at 16 Bowery sometime between March 1930 and May 1930. Wagner remained there until just before December of 1932 then returned to 11 Chatham Sq. Joe Van Hart stayed at 16 Bowery for a period of time afterward. According to author Albert Parry, the two of them had a falling out.

Encyclopedia For the Art and History of Tattooing by Henk Schiffmacher
pg 463 Charlie Wagner Business Card “The World’s Most Popular Tattooing Studio Prof. Charles Wagner and Joe Van Hart now located in barber shop 16 Bowery New York City: Telephone Worth 8051. Hours 10am-11pm closed Sundays’

1931 Mar 14 Billboard pg. 48
“3 Machines Six Dollars, Complete. Wagner, 16 Bowery, New York au22”

1932 Sep 3 Billboard pg. 30
“Cheapest Machines-German. Pelican, Vermillion Transformers, Wagner 16 Bowery, New York City”

1932 Dec 24: The New Yorker Vol 8. Pg. 30
“…Charlie Wagner may be seen on the sidewalk before his studio at 11 Chatham Square in an active effort to pull in customers …”

1932 Dec 24: The New Yorker Vol 8. Pg. 30
“At 16 Bowery is Sailor Joe Van hart, until lately in partnership with Professor Wagner, and at 42 Bowery is Professor Ted Hazzard, who helps things along by painting small signs for the hasheries and haberdashers of the neighborhood, which he does moodily.”

1933: Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art by Albert Parry pg. 53
“At 16 Bowery us Sailor Joe Van Hart, former partner of Charlie Wagner. They now hate each other poisonously.”

4-Nancy Finley in her essay Reginald Marsh’s Sketchbook #4: An Artist At the New York Library incorrectly identifies the barber shop in Marsh’s Tattoo, Shave, Haircut as No. 16 Bowery, also a barber-tattoo shop. It’s clear from the supporting evidence she presented that she was unaware that there was another barber-tattoo shop located several doors away at No. 12 Bowery. Finlay’s essay also notes that she could not find evidence of the All Night Mission. According to The World Almanac & Book of Facts series, the All Night Mission was located at No. 8 Bowery by at least 1930. As noted above, Hop Hong noodle company at No. 10 Bowery, next door to Willy’s shop, was established c. 1931-32.

5-It’s unclear whether Tommy Lee and Millie Hull were actually married or a common law couple. An April 25, 1937 Plain Dealer newspaper article reported that she wasn’t married, but wore a wedding ring “for moral support.” However, the two are listed in the 1940 Federal Census together as husband and wife. Additionally, an August 16, 1946 New York Times article about her death states that police found a bank book on her person under the name “Mildred Lee.”

6-As noted, the Moskowitz’s were connected with Charlie Wagner and may have acquired his “Welcome Stranger” sign after his death, and possibly other items. Stories about Wagner’s death, however, survive mainly through passed on family and tattoo tradition. For all Charlie Wagner’s renown, his death went virtually unnoticed by the media. In regards to documentation of his death date, Tattoo Archive notes about the “International Tattoo Club” state: “In was in that newsletter that the death of Charlie Wagner on January 1, 1953 and of Percy Waters in December, 1952 was announced.” See Endnote 1 on the Buzzworthy Tattoo History Charlie Wagner biography for further details.


Related Buzzworthy Tattoo History Research Articles:

Dick Hyland: The Human Autograph

Charlie Wagner, King of Bowery Tattooers