Angry Bob gets angry.

On it’s final night of operation (at least as the unique and wonderfully dingy place it has been for the past ten years) the Bowery Poetry Club on Bowery and 1st Street, a long-time haven for the starving artists of lower Manhattan, expressed its perfect weirdness in more ways than one.

As an elderly man headed from the bar, drink in hand, donning nothing but his birthday suit and a "What are you looking at?" expression, the people scattered around the venue were unfazed.

We turned to the couple next to us – a petite woman with a pixie cut and a man in a fedora – and blurted, “Is that guy always just naked? And no one cares?”

“He’s just around,” said the guy nonchalantly. He gave a half-eye-roll, half-smirk and continued, “There’s a lot of crazy stuff here.”

Oh, we could tell.

First open for business in 2002, the BPC (or BoPo as it is fondly known among regulars) has served more than its initial purpose of a café/bar/small performance venue over the years.

“This place has been my home. I consider it my home because of the people who are here,” said Mr. Symphonics Shawn Randall, who has been frequenting and performing at the club for nine years.

Owner Bob Holmanwas absent from the farewell event. Puppeteer and former employee of the club Kaylie Cummins told The Observer that he was in Wales pursuing a project. How important can this be if the owner isn’t at his own club’s final night? we wondered.

“No, we understand,” Ms. Cummins assured us, “Bob has projects. You know, we all have other projects, other places…" She trailed off with a dazed look, only to once again lock eyes with us and say, more assuredly than ever, “But this is home.”

The evening's host Sean T. Hanratty addressed the audience with the classic, “How’s everyone doing tonight?” An audience member shouted, “Clinically depressed!”

The feeling was unanimous among attendees.

“Now I’m gonna have to go back to the Port Authority men’s room and hang out there,” said club’s legendary and vulgarly outspoken performer, Angry Bob, in his farewell address.

The club is not closing, but it is undergoing renovations and will reopen in the fall under the same owner as a higher-end restaurant and jazz venue.

“Once again, money has trumped art,” Angry Bob seethed.

Ms. Cummins explained that Holman plans to rent the club out to Duane Park, a burlesque jazz club in TriBeCa, two nights a week, and to the Bowery Arts and Science LTD, a non-profit organization that produces the club’s programs, for another two nights.

She, as well as the more than seventy people in attendance last night, only hope that Mr. Holman will continue to host the same gigs that the club has seen for the past ten years the other nights of the week. Only time will tell.

Attendees surmised that the conglomerate of poets who call the BPC home will most likely move to places like the Nuyorican Poets Café, The Moth, 45 Bleecker St., or just “hit the street mic.”

The club’s legacy will no doubt live on, as artists such as Moonshine and the Giggle Fits, Fiona Apple, and Taylor Mali have graced the stage over the years.

Although the fate of the club hangs in abeyance, employees noted that they support and love Mr. Holman in his endeavors.

“It’ll be very different,” one former employee told us. “There will definitely be no more naked people walking around.”

That’s one thing we’re not too upset about.

Ukuleles in McCarren Park
Name: Rick Bruner
Age: 47
Occupation: Market research
What are New York ukulele players like?
"A lot of us know each other here. It's a small community. We're an unpretentious group as far as musicians go."
How do you choose what songs to play?
"The mark of a great song is if it can be covered on a ukulele."

Percussion in Soho Square
Name: Mika Godbole
Age: 32
Occupation: Musician (percussionist)
Is it hard to keep time in the experimental piece you’re playing today, Frederic Rzewski's “Les Moutons de Panurge”?
“It looks easy, but it’s harder than you think. You really have to concentrate, and when you’re in the moment, you’re like, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god.’ The instructions are that if you get lost to stay lost. So you hear people zooming by you, and you’re like, ‘Wait I’m not with them, but I’m with them. But wait. Wait. No!’ You’re trying to catch up, but you can’t. So it’s this really cool experience. It’s my first time. So I guess I’m like a ‘Mouton’ virgin.”

Guitars in Union Square
Name: Damon Shelton
Age: 31
Occupation: Audio engineer; has been playing guitar for almost three years
How do you feel when you play guitar?
"Playing guitar is relaxing. I mean, it's time consuming, but in a good way. It's mainly relaxing. As you can see, music is the universal language. Look at all of the different people here. You don't even have to speak English to enjoy it."

Guitars in Union Square
Name: Irina Hernandez
Age: 16
Occupation: Student; guitar player in a band called Silentium (as of four days ago!)
Why did you choose to pick up the guitar?
"I love everything about guitar, especially the creativity you can exude. I wanna be the next Jason Becker [a metal guitarist], but more than that I just want everyone to play music. It brings a feeling in you that you can't feel anywhere else."

Bagpipes in Herald Square
Name: Don Ross
Affiliation: Performs with his group, the New York Scottish, and has been playing the bagpipes for 20 years
What’s it like to be in a bagpipe band?
“It’s fun. We have a variety of Scottish and Irish tunes and a few other kinds of tunes."
How are you coping with this weather?
“I’m just letting the breeze blow up my kilt.”

Ani Taj Niemann of the Dance Cartel.

Last night, we were swept underground into the cave-like Liberty Hall, the chic club venue in the basement of the Ace Hotel, for the first of three performances by choreographer and performer Ani Taj Neimann’s company, The Dance Cartel. The show is called OntheFloor—a fitting name for a participatory dance experience that considers performing on a stage snobby and passé.

An eclectic crowd trickled in to the show’s pre-party, somewhat cautiously handling their drinks and scanning the room to see if anyone else was as eager to break it down to the DJ’s nostalgic 90s mix as they were.

Ms. Neimann herded the antsy spectators into a small room and flipped open an iPad, claiming that this was the way in which she was going to revolutionize live dance.

“Are we seriously going to watch this whole thing on an iPad? This is weird,” said an annoyed guy behind us.

Soon, the dancers emerged in Cirque du Soleil-style mesh leotards and brightly colored stockings. The crowd stood somewhat tense as the vulgar lyrics of Azealia Banks blared through the cramped space.

The show’s mission was to make dance more accessible to the audience, and that it did. Within minutes, the formerly tense crowd resembled rowdy teenagers at a concert, whooping and yelling as the dancers passed between us.

Most of the music was grounded in Latin-style beats, which Neimann told us she had picked up on a research trip to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. Some pieces were overtly sexual, including women dancing “up on that pole” as instructed by the lyrics to the accompanying song, Akon’s “I Wanna F*** You.” Others were just downright strange (one dancer stopped to paint her nails mid-performance while another fed Doritos to the crowd)—but none were modest or boring.

The MC yelled, “What the hell is going on?” We were wondering the same. During the three “breaks,” the dancers would simply push the crowd together, urging everyone to join in.

As “Teach Me How to Dougie” came on, a notorious favorite among bat mitzvah attendees, the crowd transformed into no more than a group of horny teenagers, grabbing the nearest person and pulling them in close. Nobody in the crowd was simply standing by—everyone was captivated and followed suit.

“I love this—what a release,” one audience member told The Observer as climbed over a couch to the dance floor.

By the performance’s end, Ms. Neimann was still lively and jovial, bouncing around the party still in her costume.

As for the man who made the comment about the iPad, he remained among the last on the dance floor.