In 1954, he left the family business, the Beaunit Mills-American Rayon Corporation, in order to make films in accordance with his ideals.

As he needed experience, he looked around for a subject and was struck by the plight of the men on the Bowery, and he determined that a portrayal of their daily lives on the streets and in the bars of the New York City neighborhood would make a strong film.

In 2008, On the Bowery was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Its principal characters are Ray Salyer, a railroad worker who has just arrived on the Bowery after railroad work, and two older men: Gorman Hendricks, a longtime Bowery resident, and Frank Matthews, who collects rags and cardboard on a pushcart and dreams of escaping to the South Seas.

After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Rogosin worked first as a chemical engineer and earned enough to finance his first feature.

Writer Mark Sufrin, who collaborated with Rogosin on the film, said the idea "was to extract a simple story from the Bowery itself.

"[1] Rogosin got to know the street and the men intimately, befriending Ray Salyer as he was seeking day labor, and was delighted to find that his personal story was the one the filmmakers wanted to tell.

[1] While researching the film he met Sufrin and cinematographer Dick Bagley, who was recently part of the crew of Sydney Myers' The Quiet One.

Cast members were arrested and returned to the street with shaves and haircuts, making it hard to match new material with what was filmed.

[2] Distribution was extremely difficult because of the downbeat subject matter and a dismissive review by influential New York Times critic Bosley Crowther.