Showing posts with label Sunshine Hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sunshine Hotel. Show all posts

Friday, August 29, 2014

The Sunshine Hotel is shrinking on the Bowery

[Photo from July 2012 by Bobby Williams]

Catching up to this item from The Commercial Observer on Monday.

Owner Roseann Carone is downsizing the Sunshine Hotel space, converting the second and third floors of the SRO at 241 Bowery into commercial lofts. The space is adjacent to the New Museum and above Mathieu Palombino's Bowery Diner/Chez Jef on the ground-floor.

The Sunshine Hotel residents, which now number 30 to 40, occupy the complex's neighboring building at 239 Bowery near Stanton Street.

According to the Observer, the three-story 241 Bowery had 34 beds on the second floor and 52 beds on the third floor. The residents apparently had not been using the space that workers will be converting into office space. The Sunshine Hotel is one of the remaining Skid Row Bowery holdouts that has been on deathwatch the past 10 years.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Michael Dominic, director of 'Sunshine Hotel'

Repost: Q-and-A with Michael Dominic, director of 'Sunshine Hotel'

Given the recent news about the Sunshine Hotel downsizing its space to make way for commercial office tenants … we thought we'd replay this post that first appeared here on July 19, 2012.

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In 1999, filmmaker-photojournalist Michael Dominic set out to document the residents at the Sunshine Hotel, one of the few remaining flophouses on the Bowery. He wanted to know more about the men who had been living there, in four-by-six-foot cubicles topped by a ceiling made of chicken wire, with no particular place to go.

Dominic's ensuing documentary, "Sunshine Hotel," released in 2001, received a slew of festival awards and played on the Sundance Channel. The independently funded film was recently released on DVD for the first time. On this occasion, Dominic answered a few questions via email for us.

Have you been back to the hotel in recent years? Have you received any updates about the people who you featured in the film?

I pass by the hotel all the time but haven't been inside since 2002. But I have kept track of the changes to the hotel and the area. As far as I know, none of the residents that I knew are still living there. Many I know for a fact have died. The owners have stopped allowing new tenants and there are only a handful living in one section of the building now. [Updated: Dominic has learned that two of the men in the film, Bruce Davis and Tyrone, are still living at the hotel.]

The sister of one of my subjects in the film named Vic contacted me recently. He died in 2006, but she only found him again after nearly 50 years through my film. She and her brothers were able to gain some sort of closure after a very long time of believing he was a missing person. It was a moving experience.


For you, what are the most profound changes of the Bowery during which the film is set and the Bowery of today?

The Bowery is ever changing. Now it's on an upswing. On the ground floor of the Sunshine Hotel there is a new restaurant and an art gallery. It looks like they're planning another restaurant as well on the corner. As soon as the last of the tenants leave the Sunshine, I'm sure that they will convert the buildings into luxury housing.

When I shot Sunshine Hotel back in 1999, the Bowery was already what I thought of as gentrified. But now, looking back, that wasn't anything. Certain parts have been completely rebuilt and there's really nothing left of the old strip as far as the goings on. There are expensive restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings — and there isn't a single actual flophouse on the Bowery anymore.

Is that a bad thing? Times change and probably a long strip of drunken homeless men running through the center of the Lower East Side isn't the best idea. Still, when I look at the Whole Foods on the corner of Bowery and Houston, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.



The DVD release allows a new audience to experience the film. What would you like people to take away from "The Sunshine Hotel"?

People should remember what NYC was. They should remember it as something unique and beautiful, albeit seedy. We as a city have overdone it on clean-up. We have lost character. I hope that my film caught a little of the last of that era of New York, "when the Bowery was the Bowery."

[Nathan Smith, the hotel's manager]

Some 13 years later, what has stayed with you about making this film?

Nathan [Smith — the hotel's manager]. His friendship. He died 10 years ago, but rarely a day goes by that I don't think about him.

[Yesterday outside the Sunshine... photo by Bobby Williams]

You can buy the DVD here ... it's also available on Amazon. Dominic is now working on a documentary titled "Clean Hands," which chronicles the residents of La Chureca — Nicaragua’s largest, most dangerous garbage dump.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

[Updated] Q-and-A with Michael Dominic, director of 'Sunshine Hotel'


In 1999, filmmaker-photojournalist Michael Dominic set out to document the residents at the Sunshine Hotel, one of the few remaining flophouses on the Bowery. He wanted to know more about the men who had been living there, in four-by-six-foot cubicles topped by a ceiling made of chicken wire, with no particular place to go.

Dominic's ensuing documentary, "Sunshine Hotel," released in 2001, received a slew of festival awards and played on the Sundance Channel. The independently funded film was recently released on DVD for the first time. On this occasion, Dominic answered a few questions via email for us.

Have you been back to the hotel in recent years? Have you received any updates about the people who you featured in the film?

I pass by the hotel all the time but haven't been inside since 2002. But I have kept track of the changes to the hotel and the area. As far as I know, none of the residents that I knew are still living there. Many I know for a fact have died. The owners have stopped allowing new tenants and there are only a handful living in one section of the building now. [Updated: Dominic has learned that two of the men in the film, Bruce Davis and Tyrone, are still living at the hotel.]

The sister of one of my subjects in the film named Vic contacted me recently. He died in 2006, but she only found him again after nearly 50 years through my film. She and her brothers were able to gain some sort of closure after a very long time of believing he was a missing person. It was a moving experience.


For you, what are the most profound changes of the Bowery during which the film is set and the Bowery of today?

The Bowery is ever changing. Now it's on an upswing. On the ground floor of the Sunshine Hotel there is a new restaurant and an art gallery. It looks like they're planning another restaurant as well on the corner. As soon as the last of the tenants leave the Sunshine, I'm sure that they will convert the buildings into luxury housing.

When I shot Sunshine Hotel back in 1999, the Bowery was already what I thought of as gentrified. But now, looking back, that wasn't anything. Certain parts have been completely rebuilt and there's really nothing left of the old strip as far as the goings on. There are expensive restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings — and there isn't a single actual flophouse on the Bowery anymore.

Is that a bad thing? Times change and probably a long strip of drunken homeless men running through the center of the Lower East Side isn't the best idea. Still, when I look at the Whole Foods on the corner of Bowery and Houston, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.



The DVD release allows a new audience to experience the film. What would you like people to take away from "The Sunshine Hotel"?

People should remember what NYC was. They should remember it as something unique and beautiful, albeit seedy. We as a city have overdone it on clean-up. We have lost character. I hope that my film caught a little of the last of that era of New York, "when the Bowery was the Bowery."

[Nathan Smith, the hotel's manager]

Some 13 years later, what has stayed with you about making this film?

Nathan [Smith — the hotel's manager]. His friendship. He died 10 years ago, but rarely a day goes by that I don't think about him.

[Yesterday outside the Sunshine... photo by Bobby Williams]

You can buy the DVD here ... it's also available on Amazon. Dominic is now working on a documentary titled "Clean Hands," which chronicles the residents of La Chureca — Nicaragua’s largest, most dangerous garbage dump.

Monday, June 20, 2011

[Updated] A look inside the Bowery Diner

We've been following the news of the forthcoming Bowery Diner at BoweryBoogie and The Lo-Down... You can go there for all the details.

In any event, this steakhouse-diner hybrid in the groundfloor of the Sunshine Hotel is expected to open this summer, according to the plywood message. Late Friday afternoon, we took a look inside the new restaurant from Motorino's Mathieu Palombino ...


And yes — they received a full liquor license from CB3.

Updated: Folks from the Bowery Diner told us that it's now a diner without the steakhouse elements reported on earlier...

Thursday, October 21, 2010

A slice of Sunshine for rent on the Bowery

BoweryBoogie is keeping tabs on 245 Bowery at Stanton Street, soon to be home to a tapas eatery possibly, regrettably, named "SRO." (Speaking of BoweryBoogie, he has more details on this site today too.)

Meanwhile, the space at 241 Bowery that formerly housed part of the Bari empire is on the market... The Sunshine Hotel — one of the remaining Skid Row Bowery holdouts — hangs on upstairs...



It's a massive space — 5,000 square feet...and the number on the "for rent" sign is for "A Consolidated Auctioneers & Liquidators Incorporated," listed at 240 Bowery, home of the other Bari stores across the way...



And so the old Bowery remains on the clock. But how much time has the Bowery of Olde have left? And what will go into this big space? The Marc Jacobs Bowery Flagship?