If I did one of those "stories to watch" features at the beginning of the year, then the White House,
the last of the neighborhood's SROs at 338 Bowery, would be on that list. There's a long history at this four-story building erected in 1916 that's
now serving as a hostel as well as a permanent home for a handful of low-income residents...
The building’s owner, Metro Sixteen, is affiliated with the hotel developer Sam Chang.
Their plans: demolish the White House and replace it with a nine-story hotel. Because we
really need another luxury hotel around here. (For more read
this article in
The Villager... or
this piece from the
Times from last May.) As the
Times reported, after Metro's purchase in 2007, the building was included in an extension of the NoHo Historic District, putting a damper on the developer’s plans.
Per the
Times:
Metro Sixteen has applied to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for permission to develop the site, asking to be considered under the commission’s hardship provision. The city has not yet ruled on the request. But if it is granted, the developer could demolish the hotel and rebuild on the site, effectively bulldozing one of the last remnants of the Bowery’s flophouse past.
Here's a shot by Spencer Platt via Getty Images from 2002...it's of Don, one of the White House's permanent residents...wonder if Don is still around, and if anyone has had to open those instructions on the wall behind him...
Last September, a sidewalk shed went up for,
according to permits, "emergency repairs."
The sidewalk shed remains today...
...butting up against the brand-new Subway next door. (Perhaps it was the Subway manager
who complained in December that he/she could not put up a business sign because of the sidewalk shed...)
Imagine if could be easy/convenient to say the emergency repairs weren't enough -- and the building has to be razed. As BoweryBoogie has reported, other parcels of this stretch are now primed for demolition,
including 185-191 Bowery.
Let's hope that this address can be preserved/refurbished. There has to be a better alternative than just simply
tearing a building down and putting up a luxury glass box.Meanwhile,
a "partial vacate" order exists at the White House...
Back to that
Times piece...
Some tenants ... resent the fact that the White House is regarded as a repository of "human interest" stories. At the same time, the convenient concentration of so much human frailty has transformed the hotel into a living museum of sad stories.
It will be another sad story the day the White House goes.
[Top photo
via Curbed]
