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"The Alabama Hotel, the Comet, and the Uncle Sam House," he said, in a declamatory voice, "the Dandy, the Defender, the Niagara, the Owl, the Victoria House and the Grand Windsor Hotel, the Houston, the Mascot, the Palace, the Progress, the Palma House and the White House Hotel, the Newport, the Crystal, the Lion and the Marathon. All flophouses. All on the Bowery. Each and all my home, sweet home."

— Joseph Mitchell, quoting the Bowery's Eddie Guest in "Mazie," New Yorker, 1940

In the early years of this century, dozens of flophouses lined the Bowery, housing an estimated 25,000 men a night. At the time, the street reigned as the world's most infamous skid row. Jammed with barber schools and bars, cheap hotels and missions, the Bowery was a Mecca for men with nowhere else to go.

Today, all of the barber schools are gone (Al's, the last rummy bar on the Bowery, closed in 1993), and only a handful of old-time flops still remain: the Palace, the Grand, the Prince, the Whitehouse, the Andrews, the Providence, and the Sunshine Hotel. These hotels offer the cheapest housing possible -- prison cell-sized cubicles, four-by-six feet and only seven feet high (residents call them "chicken coops" or "pigeon cages"), with just a bed, a locker, a bare dangling bulb, and a chicken-wire ceiling -- for as little as five dollars a night. Most of the flops have been in the same families for generations.

For years I'd wanted to make a radio documentary about these mysterious old hotels, only a few blocks from my office in the East Village. In the summer of 1997, Associate Producer Stacy Abramson became interested in the topic and began researching the story, visiting the flops and meeting residents. She soon enlisted the help of Charles Geter, a 25-year resident of the Palace Hotel, who became our advisor and guide as we journeyed into this world. We've long believed in the importance of collaborating with members of the communities we document. Charlie's friendship alone has made this project a worthwhile and unforgettable experience for all.

We spent several months, on and off, trying to record in the flops but with little success. Hotel owners were wary of letting reporters into the hotels, mostly because of the variety of shady goings-on inside. Residents were equally unenthusiastic about participating in the project. Eventually, a few of the owners and tenants came around, won over by our persistence and a grudging interest in the history of the hotels (we'd gathered dozens of articles and every possible archival photo of the Bowery, which we'd hand out to anyone who'd ask). But we still weren't getting the total access, complete trust, and full participation necessary for creating the audio portrait I'd hoped to produce.

One morning in early January 1998, we ventured once again into the Sunshine Hotel. This time, we were greeted by desk-clerk/manager/longtime-resident Nathan Smith. It was love at first sight. Nate is one of the world's great characters -- a brilliant storyteller, a father figure and caretaker for the down-and-out, a keen Bowery historian, and an all-around amazing human being. We shared some of our past work with him. He convinced the owners of the Sunshine to grant us complete access to the hotel, and he let the residents know that we had his blessing. The Sunshine opened up to us completely.

We were immediately welcomed into the isolated, self-contained society which occupies this ancient men-only hotel (opened in 1922 and virtually unchanged since). Most of the hotel's staff live on the premises. Some of the hotel's 125 residents go for weeks without leaving their cubicles, relying on the hotel's "runner" to bring them food and to cash their government checks. There are old men dumped by their families, drug addicts, ex-cons, psychiatric patients, Bowery old-timers. It's a chaotic, bizarre, depressing, and fascinating place. We spent about two months at the flop, day and night (no, we never actually slept in the hotel). It was an amazing and deeply moving experience.

In all, we rolled about 70 hours of tape (for the interested techies, the bulk of the program was recorded in digital stereo on a Sony TCD-D10 Pro II DAT with a Neuman RSM190 microphone, with some interviews recorded in digital mono on a Sony TCD-D8 DAT with a Neuman KMR81 microphone), which was edited down in March and April 1998 at Sound Portraits in New York (using Pro Tools 882 on a Power Mac 8100/80). From early on in the editing process, it was clear that Nathan Smith was born to narrate this program. He signed-on eagerly. Nate and I developed the script during the early summer of 1998. Nate endured more than 10 hours of recording sessions in our grueling hot, air-conditionerless studio like a true professional.

Flophouses are a haven for loners, the cubicles occupied by fiercely independent, private men. I'm grateful that the residents of the Sunshine Hotel chose to open their lives up to us. I hope that they are as proud of this program as I am.

Dave Isay
New York City
August 1998

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