Feast your eyes on iconic tattooed ladies, vintage flash sheets, and 19th-century electric tattoo machines at the Daredevil Tattoo Museum. This hidden gem is dedicated to increasing knowledge and appreciation of tattoo history, and its location in the Big Apple couldn’t be better. After all, New York City is considered the birthplace of modern tattooing. Since the museum is part of the Daredevil Tattoo Shop, you can select a vintage design off the walls and get a permanent souvenir of your visit. Seriously, what’s cooler than getting inked in a museum?
About Daredevil Tattoo Museum & Shop
Daredevil Tattoo Shop opened its doors in 1997, when New York City legalized tattooing after a 36-year ban. Owned by Michelle Myles and Brad Fink, the shop is located on the border of Chinatown and the Lower East Side. This location is prime real estate for the history of tattooing, because it’s a stone’s throw away from the Bowery and Chatham Square, the historic hubs of NYC tattoo artists.
The museum is part of the nonprofit organization NYC Tattoo History and is inside the tattoo shop.
The Collection
The Daredevil Tattoo Museum began with co-owner Brad Fink’s personal collection of antique tattoo memorabilia, which he gathered over 30 years. The collection has since grown thanks to new acquisitions and donations.
So, what can you see at the Daredevil Tattoo Museum? First of all, the walls are covered with vintage tattoo flash and original artworks by famous tattoo artists. American Traditional tattoos are everywhere, with iconic eagles, panthers, and pinup girls as far as the eye can see. I went down memory lane with these, showing my husband which tats graced my dad’s arms when he was still with us.
The museum also has amazing photographs of tattooed ladies and men from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Framed ephemera, like vintage signs and newspaper articles, hang on the walls. Perhaps the coolest part of the collection is the 19th-century tattoo machines.
Inspired by Thomas Edison’s 1876 electric perforating pen, Samuel O’Reilly invented the first electric rotary tattoo machine in 1891. And guess what…the Daredevil Tattoo Museum has an Edison electric pen. Hell yeah.
While Daredevil Tattoo Museum also has artwork by tattoo artists from around the country, like Bert Grimm, Sailor Jerry, and August Coleman, it largely focuses on New York City.
Brief History of NYC Tattooing
Good ole NYC—specifically the Bowery—is the birthplace of modern tattooing. Martin Hildebrandt, the first professional tattoo artist, plied his trade at Oak Street in the mid-19th century.1 The city directory lists him as early as 1859, although he started tattooing in 1846, when he was a sailor on the ship United States. He tattooed scores of soldiers during the Civil War, and these tattoos later identified them when they died or became wounded. Hildebrandt also inked many a “tattooed lady,” who exhibited themselves at dime museums reminiscent of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. After a lifetime of tattooing, our OG Hildebrandt had a rough end, dying in a NYC insane asylum in 1890.
Since the 19th century, the Bowery and Chatham Square had been tattoo havens. Legendary artists like Samuel O’Reilly, Charlie Wagner, and Millie Hull (an absolute badass) worked in the neighborhood, often in barbershops or under the elevated train. The Bowery was a unique place. It’s where you went to have fun, drink to high heaven, brawl, and get tattooed.
By 1961, however, the NYC Health Department banned tattooing. For 36 years, tattooing was illegal in Gotham. Despite this, tattooing lived on and went underground. In reality, the city didn’t enforce the ban, and since it was a health department violation, it didn’t have serious penalties. Tattooing finally became legal in NYC again in 1997, which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t that long ago.
Visiting the Daredevil Tattoo Museum
If tattoo history fascinates you, visit the Daredevil Tattoo Museum. It’s located at 141 Division Street, New York. Since it’s in the tattoo shop, you can visit during regular business hours, which are every day from 12–8 PM. There’s no admission fee to browse the museum.
NYC Tattoo History Walking Tour
I highly suggest doing Michelle Myles’ NYC Tattoo History walking tour. Michelle has a hefty resume as co-owner of Daredevil Tattoo, licensed NYC tour guide, tattoo artist, and tattoo historian. I went on her tour, and she’s incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. While you get a history of modern tattooing, you also get NYC history.
The tours are usually on Fridays, meet at 11 AM, and run for about 2 hours. The tour begins in the Daredevil Tattoo Museum, where Michelle gives you a deep dive into NYC tattoo history by discussing the artifacts and memorabilia on display. Then, you walk to the Lower East Side, where Michelle discusses immigration and gangland history. Gangs of New York, baby!
In fact, after Michelle’s tour, I rewatched this movie because it’s so epic.
After the Lower East Side, Michelle takes you to Chatham Square and the Bowery to see where NYC’s first tattooers worked.
To book a tour with Michelle, head over to Airbnb Experiences.
Support Daredevil Tattoo Museum & Shop
To learn more about the Museum or to get a tattoo at the shop, visit their website.
You can also purchase Michelle’s Bowery Tattoo History Maps and book, Liberty the Tattooed Lady. The latter is an exhibition catalog for a 2024 show about Lady Liberty tattoos at the City Reliquary Museum.
If you’d like to discover more of NYC’s hidden gems, subscribe to my newsletter. As a native New Yorker, I share my knowledge of the ins and outs of the Big Apple.
Footnotes
- There is no Oak Street in Lower Manhattan today. It was razed in the 1940s, but it was a few blocks from Chatham Square. ↩︎
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