The Next Bowery Hotel

I follow a few New York blogs, some religiously (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, and EV Grieve). I like them because they're informative about changes going on in my Bowery backyard. This latest one has me extra bummed out: The Salvation Army building on East 3rd Street is going to be turned into a new, strange looking 74-room boutique hotel. Or to rephrase, the third hotel within a three block radius. More evening traffic. More red velvet ropes lining up models with cellphones glued to their ears. Another pricey restaurant.

I have let my curmudgeon out to play in this post, griping about How the Neighborhood is Changing-- but it's happening at such a rapid fire speed that I have trouble keeping up with it. As soon as one restaurant opens, it seems like it's papered up, only to welcome in the next failure. It's sad, really. For crying out loud, my new neighbor is John Legend, who bought a floor of the ugly new high rise (see above) that has blocked our lovely view of the ornate cornices on Bond Street. Can we retain even a speck of our neighborhood's historical grit? Or will the little that remains take on a strange Disneyland quality?