Willie Moskowitz came to the Lower East Side in 1918, a Yiddish-speaking immigrant from Russia, and made a living as a barber.[1] His friend Charlie Wagner taught him to tattoo, and he opened a tattoo room in the basement of a Bowery building that still had a barbershop upstairs.[1][3] Where, exactly, is recorded in more than one way: NYC Tourism places the work at 12 Bowery in the 1930s; a 2003 Forward family history places the shop at No. 4 Bowery, beneath the old Chatham Square elevated station.[2][1] This page keeps both addresses, each with its source, and follows his sons from 52 Bowery to Long Island after the 1961 ban.
Quick facts
- Born
- Russia; exact date not found in the sources used here
- Died
- 1961
- Known as
- Willie (William) Moskowitz
- Shops
- A tattoo room in the basement of a Bowery building with a barbershop upstairs. NYC Tourism places the work at 12 Bowery in the 1930s; the Forward places the shop at No. 4 Bowery, beneath the old Chatham Square El. Sons Stanley and Walter later worked at 52 Bowery
- Teacher
- Charlie Wagner, a friend
- Family
- Sons Stanley (“Bowery Stan”) and Walter; son-in-law Stanley “Flatbush Stan” Farber; grandson Marvin
From a barber’s chair to a basement room
The fullest account of the family is Gabrielle Birkner’s 2003 report in the Forward, built on interviews with Willie’s sons and grandson.[1] Willie arrived in 1918. He cut hair, and he learned tattooing from Wagner, already the established man at 11 Chatham Square.[1] The 2016 historical marker at that corner names Willie among Wagner’s students and notes work with Al Neville.[3]
The start date of the tattoo room is not a single figure. NYC Tourism describes Moskowitz work on the Bowery in the 1930s.[2] The Forward, writing in 2003, says he opened the basement room “sixty years ago,” which would be about 1943.[1] We give both, rather than average them.
12 Bowery and No. 4 Bowery
The family’s Bowery geography comes in two carefully attributed pieces, and this page does not pick a winner.
NYC Tourism’s timeline places the Moskowitz work at 12 Bowery.[2] The Forward places Willie’s shop at No. 4 Bowery, under the Chatham Square El station.[1] Those are different building numbers, a short walk apart, and they may describe different years, a move, or a disagreement in later memory. Until a directory listing or a lease settles it, both belong on the page.
What the accounts share is the arrangement: a barbershop above, tattooing below, in the same working landscape as Wagner’s room inside a barbershop at 11 Chatham Square. Prices on the block were low. NYC Tourism describes 10- and 25-cent work in connection with the Moskowitz brothers, and later writers have mentioned a “Bowery Ink” color line.[2]
Sons Stanley and Walter later tattooed at 52 Bowery.[1] Walter, the Forward reported, studied at a Brooklyn yeshiva by day and learned the family trade by night.[1]
1961, Long Island and a family’s words
Willie died in 1961, the same year the Board of Health banned tattooing in New York City.[1] His sons inherited the business at a moment when the Bowery shops were being forced to close. They left Manhattan and opened S & W Tattooing in Amityville, on Long Island, a shop they later sold in 2000.[1] Grandson Marvin went on to tattoo at Pat’s Tattoos in East Northport.[1] The Tattoo History Atlas also names a son-in-law, Stanley “Flatbush Stan” Farber.[5]
The 2003 interviews are frank about the work. “Tattooing is grueling work, like digging ditches,” Marvin told the Forward.[1] Walter said, “I worked 10 hours a day, six days a week for 50 years.”[1] Those sentences, more than any later romance of the Bowery, describe what the family actually did with Wagner’s teaching.
A 1950 RKO film, The Tattooed Stranger, includes a sequence in a Bowery barbershop tattoo room. The clip is easy to find, and it is often placed next to this family’s name. The film is evidence of how such a room looked and worked. This page does not treat the footage as a documented view of Willie’s own shop.
NYC Tattoo Shop is at 141 Canal St, a short walk from the old Chatham Square numbers. The history here belongs to New York. We’re proud to work nearby.
Photo gallery
From the NYC Tattoo Shop History Digital Archive.
