Halloween Parade NYC 2009

The Luxury Hotel and the Homeless Shelter: Two Sides of Life in the East Village

The Bowery Hotel opened in 2007 on the Bowery, an avenue historically known as New York City’s ”skid row.” The rooms range from $425 to $1200 a night and have been home to A-list celebrities and socialites alike. The hotel is a symbol of the gentrification of the East Village.
Although The Bowery Hotel received a positive review in The New York Times travel section, one of the “cons” listed was “questionable neighbors.”
The “questionable neighbors” are the residents of Project Renewal, an all-male homeless shelter located directly next door to the luxury hotel.
“It’s strange bedfellows,” said Wayne Pete, a janitor at Project Renewal. “But that’s the pulse of the city. We all have to learn to co-exist. We have mosques next door to Jewish synagogues, blacks next to whites, poor people next to rich people.”
The shelter did not affect first-time Bowery Hotel guest Sarah Katz, 29, of San Diego, in the least. In fact she was completely unaware that it was even there. And even after learning of its existence, she claimed to feel no less safe than she did before.
“There’s a lot of service people at the hotel,” she said. “And they make you feel safe. Besides, I expect that in New York City you will find everything on every corner. It’s part of the culture of the city.”
Anthony, 26, a resident of the East Village, has been a doorman at the Bowery Hotel for two and a half years. He says that Katz is not alone in her ignorance of Project Renewal because many guests do not notice it, and even those who do, never express concern to him.
“A lot of people who stay here are in the entertainment industry,” he said. “So they’re in their own world and not concerned with who’s next door.”
But co-existing is not always easy. And for the residents of the East Village, this may present more of a problem than for the hotel guests, who are only in the neighborhood temporarily.
“Two years ago there was a surge of homeless people in the neighborhood and they were really prevalent on my block,” said Simone Frasier, 34, a five year resident of the East Village. “They would pass out in my vestibule and I don’t want that because it’s my home and I paid a lot of money for it. I want to feel safe there.”
Residents of Project Renewal are aware of how they are perceived by their neighbors.
“There’s a lot of residents in the neighborhood who are paying so much money to live here and they don’t want the shelter here,” said a resident of Project Renewal known as “Lover Boy.”
According to Cooper Square Community Housing Specialist, Brandon Kielbasa, the gentrification of the East Village has caused an increase in homelessness in the area.
“We have seen more people coming in for emergency housing because the gentrification is removing affordable housing every day” he said.
Kielbasa is exposed to the tensions of the neighborhood from both sides of the fence. He spends a lot of time fielding phone calls from unhappy tenants, such as Frasier, claiming that homeless people are sleeping in the vestibules of their buildings and making them feel unsafe.
But Frasier feels tremendous guilt at the dwindling resources available to the homeless in her neighborhood. She recently learned that the Salvation Army around the corner from her apartment, which also served as a group home, is closing and re-opening as a trendy sushi restaurant. She struggles with how things that benefit her often hurt those less fortunate in her neighborhood.
“It’s an inner conflict because it makes you feel really selfish,” she said. “The value of my property is going to increase while the value of these peoples’ lives is going to decrease.”
Frasier walks by the Bowery Hotel and Project Renewal nearly every morning on her way to work. She is always struck by the bizarre juxtaposition of the two.
“It makes me wonder how people can walk by and see this luxury hotel right next door to a place where people have nothing, absolutely nothing,” she said. “How is that okay? I think about it every time I walk by, and I walk by all the time.”
Although Anthony insists that guests are not warned about Project Renewal because there have never been any safety issues resulting from it’s being there, he acknowledges that sometimes guests do notice their neighbors.
“The guests that notice it know that there are people a lot less fortunate then them next door,” he said. “But they still don’t know exactly what the building is.”
Many residents of the East Village are not bothered by the homeless shelter in their neighborhood at all. In fact, many believe it is important that it remain in its place because it represents the history of the neighborhood.
“Traditionally, this is a place where poor people come,” Kielbasa said. There’s a socialization to homelessness here. The East Village has a reputation for being on the fringes of society. Even the police are more lenient than in other areas of the city.”
Karen McWharten, 52, vice president of the co-op board at 99 East 4th Street and a 12 year resident of the East Village, agrees.
“The homeless shelter is a part of the neighborhood,” she said. “I think it’s appropriate that there would be one here. It’s part of the history.”
Hubie, 55, of Harlem, has been living at Project Renewal for ten days. He lost his job two weeks ago and has been unable to find affordable housing any where in the city. He believes the guests at The Bowery Hotel are afraid that they will get robbed by residents at the shelter and acknowledges that sometimes they do.
Anthony remembers one specific incident when a hotel guest forgot his cell phone outside and it was picked up by one of the shelter’s residents a minute later.
“The guy never got his phone back, but his attitude was like ‘well, I left it there.’”
Pete insists that the some of the feelings of discomfort go both ways.
“During the day, everyone acts like nice citizens,” he said. “But come around here at night and you’ll see what really goes on. The people in the hotel are drunk by, what time is happy hour? 5 o’clock? And they’re crazy. So the drunk people at the hotel are afraid of the people at the shelter, and the people at the shelter are afraid of the drunk people at the hotel.”
Carlos Cooper, 40, has been in the shelter system in New York City for years. He likes Project Renewal on East 3rd Street and Bowery because he thinks the Residents Assistants and case workers really care about homeless people. However he does feel that at times, his next door neighbors are condescending.
“You get a lot of people next door that spend a lot of money to stay at the hotel and they don’t want us here,” he said. “They think we’re low-lives, but we’re human beings. We’re just trying to get on our feet.”
However, Cooper has had some positive interactions with the Bowery Hotel guests as well.
“I’ve sat outside and smoked a cigarette with Cameron Diaz, Lindsay Lohan, and Keanu Reeves,” he said. “Cameron Diaz, she’s a beautiful person.”