Sylvie Epstein, Oliver Niu, Monami Nagai, Meredith Kol-Balfour
George Skoularikos immigrated to the United States from Greece in the mid-1960s. As with many immigrants, misfortune soon found him. George lost his job at a restaurant, was evicted from his apartment, and faced a slew of mental and physical problems. In 1980, George moved to an avenue in downtown Manhattan called the Bowery, specifically a flophouse called The Stevenson, where one could stay for a few dollars a day in small rooms containing not more than a bed and a closet. To many New Yorkers like George, unmoored by the winds of misfortune, the flophouses of the Bowery offered a small respite, serving as home for thousands of men with no place to go.[1]
By 2004, George still lived in The Stevenson as its only remaining resident, refusing his landlord’s demands for his departure, but everything else around had changed. The Bowery had been redeveloped and gentrified, becoming the desirable home for professional workers. The once notorious avenue was now full of hip nightlife, bars, and restaurants. The neighborhood that had housed over fifteen thousand men like George and a hundred single occupancy hotels now only had a handful of each.
This episode investigates housing on the Bowery, from its history as the “skid row” of New York City to its eventual transformation into the desirable destination it is today. Behind the backdrop of urban processes like gentrification, criminalization, and housing insecurity, the Bowery’s rapid change presents an extreme case study showing the impact of urban revitalization.
For people like George, life on the Bowery was rough. In an interview, one Bowery resident compared living in a Bowery hotel to a chicken coop, engaged in a daily battle with thieves, bed bugs, and rats.[2] Though some of the Bowery’s residents were able to pay for these accommodations with a small pension, disability payments, or veteran benefits, over a third relied on the city welfare department’s daily distribution of food and bed tickets.[3]
While city residents in the early half of the twentieth century had shown mostly apathy but also some compassion to the plight of Bowery residents, by the 1960s, these attitudes were changing. The city’s politicians and news media began pushing a negative portrayal of the “Bowery Bum,” depicting the neighborhood’s residents as increasingly drunk and dangerous to civil society.[4] In response, the city implemented a series of laws and regulations targeted at “cleaning up” the Bowery’s residents and reforming the flophouse system. The most famous of these initiatives, Operation Bowery, began in 1961 and had the “detoxification” of the “Bowery Bums” as its top priority.[5] Other laws made regulations and codes around single-occupancy room hotels much stricter, directly shutting down many flophouses.[6]
The culmination of these efforts occurred during the city’s 1970s and 80s neoliberal revolution. As the city opened its doors to real estate developers and speculators through favorable tax abatements, investment in the Bowery and other “dilapidated” areas of New York City suddenly became profitable, encouraging the development of the high-end Bowery we have today.[7]
There are few places where the winds of change have affected neighborhoods as drastically as the Bowery. Over four decades, George had become one of thousands to the lone reminder of a bygone era and way of life. In our attempt to understand the Bowery’s past, his life story and refusal to be displaced represents the last stand against a force that had changed the urban landscape around him.
“Special thanks to Casey Neill. Listen to “Stevenson Hotel” here.
“Eastside” by pingnews, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
“Spy on Fire” by Disaster of Music, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License
[1] Dan Barry, “About New York; Last in Flophouse, Alone with Bowery Ghosts,” The New York Times (The New York Times, June 26, 2004), https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/nyregion/about-new-york-last-in-flophouse-alone-with-bowery-ghosts.html.
[2] “25 Cents a Wine-O: Interviews by Leonard Russell on the Bowery,” 1962, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-dv1cj88q16.
[3] James Beecher Peters, “Alternatives to Skid Row” (dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967).
[4] “First Annual Report of the Manhattan Bowery Project,” Vera Institute of Justice, March 1969, https://www.vera.org/publications/first-annual-report-of-the-manhattan-bowery-project.
[5] “Center for Derelicts to be Built by City,” New York Times (1923-), Oct 14, 1965, http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/center-derelicts-be-built-city/docview/117028080/se-2?accountid=10226.
[6] Jonathan M. Soffer, Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
[7] Soffer, Ed Koch.
Works Cited
“25 Cents a Wine-O: Interviews by Leonard Russell on the Bowery.” The Walter J. Brown Media
Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia. American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), 1962. http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-dv1cj88q16.
Barry, Dan. “About New York; Last in Flophouse, Alone with Bowery Ghosts.” The New York
Times. The New York Times, June 26, 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/nyregion/about-new-york-last-in-flophouse-alone-with-bowery-ghosts.html.
Bigart, Homer. “Grim Problems of the Bowery Complicate Clean-Up Drive.” New York Times
(1923-), Nov 20, 1961.
Featured Image Credit: Håkan Svensson Xauxa, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
Burnham, David. “Derelict Arrests Show An Increase: Move Is In Line With New Law On
Drunkenness.” New York Times (1923-), Nov 24, 1968. http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/historical-newspapers/derelict-arrests-show-increase/docview/118453178/se-2?accountid=10226.
“Center For Derelicts To Be Built By City.” New York Times (1923-), Oct 14, 1965.
Ennis, Thomas. “Bowery Hotel Where Derelicts Slept being Converted to Artist Studios.” New
York Times (1923-), Aug 06, 1967. http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/historical-newspapers/bowery-hotel-where-derelicts-slept-being/docview/117808466/se-2?accountid=10226.
Fetherston, Drew. “CITY & CO. A Bowery Institution Hits the Skids.” Newsday, Nov 12, 1990,
Combined editions. http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/newspapers/city-co-bowery-institution-hits-skids-lean-times/docview/278323721/se-2?accountid=10226.
“First Annual Report of the Manhattan Bowery Project.” Vera Institute of Justice, March 1969.
Goodwin, Michael. “The Region: Cheap Residential Hotels: Endangered Species in N.Y. A Case
History.” New York Times (1923-), Jan 27, 1980. http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/historical-newspapers/region/docview/121232422/se-2?accountid=10226.
“History of Homelessness in NYC.” Homelessness Affordable Housing NYC. Accessed May 8,
2022. https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/affordablehousingnyc/homelessness-in-nyc/.
“‘Immovable Obstacle’ in the Way of a New Bowery.” New York Times (1923-), Jan 21, 1962.
Pace, Eric. “Mayor Expedites Alcoholic Center.” New York Times (1923-), Jun 04, 1966.
“Pantechnicon; Robert Thomsen.” WGBH. American Archive of Public
Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), 1975. http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-54kkwwdc.
Peters, James Beecher. “Alternatives to Skid Row.” Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1967. https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/71088/25919558-MIT.pdf?sequence=2.
Soffer, Jonathan M. Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2012.
“The Williams: Single Room Occupancy Housing Rights in New York City.” CityLand, August
5, 2014. https://www.citylandnyc.org/the-williams-single-room-occupancy-housing-rights-in-new-york-city/.
Wallach, Alan. “Bowery: Home of the Self-Condemned: The Bowery: Dark Street in Bright
Sunlight.” Newsday (1940-), Feb 22, 1961, Nassau ed. http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/historical-newspapers/bowery-home-self-condemned/docview/898969810/se-2?accountid=10226.
Weinraub, Bernard. “Police Here Halt Derelict Arrests: Court Rules Intoxication Is No Cause For
Disorderly Conduct Seizure.” New York Times (1923-), Jul 29, 1966. http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/historical-newspapers/police-here-halt-derelict-arrests/docview/117006326/se-2?accountid=10226.
“Why Are So Many People Homeless?” Coalition For The Homeless. Accessed May 8, 2022. https://www.coalition
