For all the glitz, glamour, starchitecture and HELL YESITUDE the New Museum has brought to the Bowery 2.0, its direct neighbors are still evocative of the Bowery of old. On the north side of the building, practically touching the museum's metallic mesh, is the notorious flophouse the Sunshine Hotel. To the south, one of those slightly run-down multi-story affairs that has been a restaurant supply company for who knows how long. But no stone on the Bowery will be left unturned by those with a dash of class, and so while the Sunshine is locked up in litigation until it can be leveled, the New Museum has swooped in on its other buddy. The Times reports the museum purchased 231 Bowery for $16.6 million, the culmination of six months of negotiations and a move perhaps necessary to protect the view from its rockin' Sky Room event space. The museum will install a new ground-floor tenant and use the other floors for offices and storage in the short term. Eventually, the building could be run as a separate institution, or used for expanded museum programming. Or maybe razed for a luxury hotel? The Bowery could use more of those.
· New Museum Buys Adjacent Building [NYT]
· Curbed's New Museum coverage [Curbed]
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