I've spent much of the last year getting to know a guy named Alex. The other day, however, he broke it off with me, giving me the same old sorry excuse that he needed to see other people.

I've heard that line before. I thought we had an agreement that he would stick around a little longer. After all, he was being paid well enough to do what he does best here, and he made a lot more than the regular Joe in the Bronx. I should have seen it coming. Furthermore, his manager packed up his bags, too, and is heading for L.A. Their friend, Don, looks like he's getting out of Dodge with them. I worry others will follow as well.

I loved Alex. I spent many week nights and weekends with him, and the colonel liked him enough to take me to see him on my birthday. Alex's parent company named a new guy to take Joe's place, and his name is Joe, too, and strangely he looks a little bit like Alex. The new Joe seems OK, but he's not my real daddy, and it will be a while before I get comfortable with him.

Awakening in a state of melancholy, I naturally headed for The Bowery to walk off the whole thing. Everyone now knows to go to The Bowery to cry in public.

So beginning at Cooper Square I walked south along the Bowery today, looking for meaning in an Alex-less New York.

Tonight, I plan to join the throngs along 6th Avenue to contact the nocturnal spirit world for guidance, and of course, will alert you of any special messages from the beyond.

Images: October 31, 2007. WOTBA

 

The Bowery 2007 Walk: Upscaling the Flophouse

The Bowery's northern blocks, from Cooper Square south toward the Kenmare-Delancey intersection, embrace the majority of the area's new construction. The most controversial new building, the Cooper Square Hotel, looms out of scale on 3rd Avenue, just yards before the Bowery technically begins.

I've passed through the area many times, and I often see people standing across the street from the hotel looking like they want to tear it down with their bare hands. I talked to one guy the other day who wanted some affirmation that the building was "ugly." I've seen design professionals waving their arms and shaking their heads. The hotel will market itself as "downtown luxury." There's no stopping it now.

Farther to the south, The Bowery Hotel at 335 Bowery, in business for several months now, strikes me and many others as a successful design. Handsome on the interior as well as exterior, the hotel builds upon and improves a pre-existing structure, expanding windows and opening terraces. The interior design blends old school ambience and modern comfort into something that can be appropriately described, for once, as casual elegance. Don't get too excited, however, unless you have over $500 to spend per night.

Another promising addition to the Bowery hotel "scene" will be the "green" hotel planned for 250 Bowery. Based on the renderings at their website, Flank Architects look like they understand the concept of scale. The perforated Corten steel exterior skin may play off the New Museum's aluminum mesh. Perhaps now all the Bowery buildings should wear metallic veils.

Other than visiting the New Museum of Contemporary Art, guests of these hotels will not likely hang out on the overly-wide Bowery and bargain shop for industrial Hobart mixers. They'll be out and about in the adjoining NoLita, a neighborhood that can only be described as precious, and on nearby streets of the Lower East Side. You can believe, though, that the pressure is on for many of the older existing Bowery businesses to leave.

The area does have some nice and affordable places to stay. Check out the Off SoHo Suites Hotel on Rivington, or the SoHotel, just off the Bowery on Broome.

Images: at top, the unfinished Cooper Square Hotel; below, The Bowery Hotel

 The Bowery 2007 Walk: Chinatown

You may remember that scene in the infamous final episode of The Sopranos when one of the guys walks out of a Little Italy restaurant and then the camera pulls back with a wide shot of the street to show Chinese businesses closing in on the old neighborhood. If you didn't see it, never mind.

When I walk south along the tenuous and uncertain blocks of the northern Bowery these days, I get a feeling that everything is up in the air, unsettled. No one building, either built or under construction, makes a definitive statement. It IS like the current state of the New York Yankees, one that has finished the season but will try to be different next year. That was the point I was trying to make in a post the other day. Anxiety and uncertainty, along with too many choices, leads to a depressing state of affairs.

When I reach the transition of the northern Bowery to the owned and operated Chinese blocks to the south, I immediately feel better. First of all, we have colors - reds, greens, pinks, merlots, and what have you, vivid background awning colors advertising with clear and large signs, in English and Chinese, the lighting shops, hotels, bakeries, social associations, and more. No more subtlety, no more understated lack of assurance. The individual businesses are filled in, for the most part, providing a sense of unity.

Note: The Bowery 2007 Walk is now complete.