On the second floor, the homeless sleep in cramped cubicles. On the floors directly above, at the new Bowery House hotel in New York, hipsters pay 10 times more for a 'flophouse aesthetic' ? designer versions of those same tiny roomsNew York's past and future jostle for position on the weed- and graffiti-strewn Bowery. A century after it became a byword for desperation, the wide boulevard on the city's Lower East Side is undergoing a transformation.The homeless shelters and soup kitchens are still doing a brisk trade but they have been joined by modelling agencies, style bars and sleek hotels.Homeless men and women file in to the Bowery Mission to be fed and showered. Across the street, at number 220, visitors from every corner of the globe check in at the front desk of the Bowery House hotel which opened with little fanfare in July.Built in the 1920s to accommodate 200 people, The Prince Hotel as it was called then, was one of dozens of flophouses which sprang up on New York's infamous Skid Row to give returning soldiers, down-and-outs and the down-on-their-luck a place to sleep.On the second floor of 220 Bowery, homeless men and women still pay around $10 a night to sleep in tiny stalls, barely big enough for a bed and topped with chicken wire (the walls of the cubicles fall five feet short of the ceiling, so they are not the most private of hotel rooms). The cubicles are six feet long by five feet wide. They line long, dark, narrow hallways. Along the corridor, doors have been ripped off the bathroom stalls.Directly above the homeless, on the third and fourth floors, aspiring actors, creatives and international tourists pay $62 to $129 a night to sleep in renovated designer versions of the tiny flophouse cubicles, complete with Ralph Lauren towels and Egyptian cotton sheets.Guests have a choice of private rooms or dormitories. Their shared bathrooms have marble sinks, heated floors and expensive toiletries.The developers of the Bowery House have made a feature of the "flophouse aesthetic", describing the hotel as "a living museum".The publicity material makes much of the fact that hotel guests sleep in the same beds as generations of the homeless before them. But, stresses the PR: "All the mattresses are custom-made and brand new.""This building and the Bowery are an important part of New York's history," says Italian co-owner Alessandro Zampedri, a former professional race car driver. "The area was full of vices like gambling, saloons, drugs and prostitution. As a result many people came here and never left."If the marketing spin verges on the tasteless, it hasn't deterred travellers lured by the promise of a cheap bed.The hotel guests and their homeless near-neighbours might encounter each other on the sidewalk below, but beyond that their lives rarely intersect in this handsome 1927 brick building. The only similarity between their accommodation is that even on the third and fourth floors, the guests have barely enough space to undress at night."The guys on the second floor keep themselves to themselves. They just live their lives," says Zampedri.One of the guest rooms has been named after a long-term flophouse resident, nicknamed "Charlie Peppers" due to his love of peppers. But no one on the hotel's staff has told Charlie, who can often be seen on the street.In the guest rooms, the chicken wire has been replaced by wooden latticework. Film posters and black and white photographs from the 1920s and 30s on the walls hark back to the Bowery's edgier days.More than 10 years ago, the new owner bought the flophouse and stopped taking new tenants. As the number of homeless guests dwindled, the owner moved them all on to the second floor, freeing up two floors of the building to be developed.It is a pattern replicated all along the Bowery, as flophouses are gutted or torn down and replaced by luxury offices and apartment buildings.The Bowery House hotel is reminiscent of The Jane, the former sailors' mission in the west village where tiny cabin rooms go for around $100 a night.Today, the remaining group of 10 homeless men at number 220 hang their underwear on the fire escape to dry and eye the upstairs guests suspiciously.Before gentrification, the long-term residents used to sunbathe on the roof. The new owners have installed a rooftop garden, complete with Italian designer furniture, reserved exclusively for hotel guests.Downstairs in the communal living room, hipsters and model types lounge around on Chesterfield couches, and play with their iPads. A young guy carrying a guitar wanders past the front desk.Occasionally a guest asks about the building's colourful past but most are simply delighted to have discovered that rarest of things in New York: a bargain."It's stylish, cheap, in a great location and spotlessly clean," raves one. Another complains that the rooms are cramped.Raising an eyebrow, Zampedri says, "You don't come to the Bowery House to hang out in your room."? 220 Bowery, New York, +1 212 837 2373, theboweryhouse.comNew YorkHotelsBudget travelUnited StatesNew YorkCity breaksShort breaksguardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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