The last Bowery flophouse

Joseph Papin, various Bowery flophouse hotel signs, circa 1957. The rest of the drawings in this post are circa 1957 unless noted.

The stretch of road known as the Bowery is about one mile long, from Chatham Square to Cooper Square. The Bowery is no longer skid row. Some of the buildings on the Bowery remain, it is the men that peopled the buildings and the streets who are no longer there. A good many of the buildings have become protected as historic buildings; the four or five men remaining in the Whitehouse Hotel are the last men in the last flophouse in NYC.

The following excerpts of text are from an article entitled, “Sir Shadow, Maestro of the Last of the Bowery Flophouses” by Alex Vadukul, New York Times, Dec. 28, 2018 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/nyregion/sir-shadow-maestro-of-the-last-of-the-bowery-flophouses.html). (Note that the article is largely about artist Sir Shadow whose work can be seen at https://sirshadow.com/ I am including the parts of the story that primarily address the Whitehouse Hotel but I recommend reading the rest of the article, which is excellent.) The article begins:

“There’s a ghostly old flophouse on the Bowery. Rowdy brunch crowds stumble past its stained-glass windows and locked double doors. It’s lonesome but not empty.

“Radiators hiss in its cracked tile floor lobby. Dusty, unused keys hang behind a reception desk. Dark halls are lined with hundreds of boarding rooms empty except for worn mattresses. A few of these cubicles are occupied, stuffed with clothes and belongings. Steam rises from a shower stall. Light flickers behind doors. And a lullaby can be heard through the building when a 70-year-old poet and artist who calls himself Sir Shadow draws at night.

“Sir Shadow is one of six men who are the final residents of the Whitehouse Hotel. [Later in the article: “Sir Shadow and his fellow holdouts are in their 60s and 70s: Wayne, Roland, Rob, Bobby, and Charles (there’s also Louis, but he’s in the hospital and I’m told he’s not coming back).”]

“The crumbling four-story building is one of the last of the cheap single-room-occupancy hotels that lined the Bowery a century ago alongside brothels and saloons and defined the area as a symbol of urban despair. While rooms across the street at the Bowery Hotel cost around $400 a night, the men pay no more than $8.50 for their cramped cubicles, though they pretty much have the run of the place. …

“Lodging houses like the Whitehouse Hotel, which sits at 340 Bowery and opened in 1916, were all over New York’s Skid Row. Dozens of these establishments date back nearly to the Civil War. The Alabama Hotel, the Grand Windsor Hotel, the Providence Hotel — their cell-like stalls had chicken wire rather than ceilings, and they cost pennies per night. They became the primitive dwellings of desperate men who gradually saw no benefits to ever checking out.

“In the 1990s, change came to the Bowery, and most of the old flops were developed into restaurants and hotels. But the men clinging on in the remaining hotels were protected by housing laws that gave them the rights of permanent residents. Eviction became a complicated procedure, and real-estate developers have had to contend with these holdouts ever since.”

Flophouses were plagued with issues but were significantly better than the alternative for many who simply slept on the street.

I searched to see if I could find out what was going on with the Whitehouse Hotel today and found three articles on EV Grieve (evgrieve.com) starting on August 22, 2022 when “a ‘retail opportunity’ [banner] at the former Whitehouse Hotel on the Bowery” was noted [https://evgrieve.com/2022/08/a-retail-opportunity-at-former.html]. This article was followed by a second on December 13, 2022, noting the “renovations underway at the former Whitehouse Hotel on the Bowery.” This second article states:

“Ahead of the renovations, the residents were moved to space at 338 Bowery… where the tenants can access their small room via security…” [https://evgrieve.com/2022/12/renovations-underway-at-former.html]

A third article, published on October 23, 2023, entitled “A ’boutique micro hotel’ is in the works for this former Bowery flophouse” [https://evgrieve.com/2023/10/a-boutique-micro-hotel-is-in-works-for.html] provides an update:

“The former Whitehouse Hotel, the last [of the] flophouses on the Bowery, will see a new life as a ’boutique micro hotel’ for solo travelers.

“This information comes via a new listing at Meridian Retail Leasing for the space at 340 Bowery between Great Jones and Bond. Here are hotel details per a PDF about the ground-floor space being pitched for retail or restaurant use:

“338-340 Bowery will undergo a full renovation repositioning itself into an 182-key modern boutique micro hotel inspired by European Luxury train sleeper cabins. The hotel will focus on creating a hub for solo travelers to connect while providing a beautiful, affordable and exceptional experience … The Bowery Boutique Hotel will have a target demographic of adventurous, curious, global travelers ages 25-40 seeking a shared experience and appreciation for design and culture. The social profile will consist of design-focused and brand-aware young professionals who align their values with the NoHo culture.”

The article continues:

“There is a lot of history with the Whitehouse, a four-story building that has served as a single-room occupancy hotel dating to 1899.

“As we understand, a handful of residents remain here, and their presence has reportedly hindered any new building plans through the years. We hadn’t heard anything about the building since late 2018, when Alex Vadukul profiled the artist Sir Shadow, who was one of the six remaining residents of the Whitehouse, in a feature at The New York Times.

“As Vadukul noted: ‘A few residents have died, and buyouts have lured away others. The men who remain in the flophouse have refused these deals. The Whitehouse Hotel’s future appears to now hinge on a grim but simple waiting game. (Sources tell us that Sir Shadow no longer lives at this address.)”

The flophouses may be a thing of the past, but the homeless are not. The drawing below reads:

“Port Authority – Homeless people waiting.”

Joseph Papin started working at the Daily News in 1969. This drawing was done on a Daily News envelope that he would have been carrying with him on his way home from work on the bus. It was most likely done sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, some 20-30 years after his drawings on the Bowery.