Yet another boutique hotel has broken ground on Pike Street and, as BoweryBoogie points out, this is the tenth inn to be added to the Orchard-Pike Hotel corridor in recent years. Orchard Street leads the neighborhood trend with seven mostly stalled attempts at small scale hotels, but Pike is certainly keeping the momentum going. The latest enterprise is a planned seven-story structure at 154 Madison Street, a former Chinese auto-repair shop and car lot. At this pace, soon all of the streets between Houston and East Broadway will be lit by the marquees of one-off hotels operated by adventurous hoteliers and the flickering signs of budget hotels crammed into narrow lots. All of this leads us to think that someday, when interest in the Tenement Museum's subject is waning, the operators can retool it as the Lower East Side Boutique Hotel Museum.
Unlike those un-photogenic people and hovels Jacob Riis photographed in "How The Other Half Lives," the Boutique Hotel Museum will feature the lodgings of a smaller percentage, who spent several hundred dollars a night to sleep not very high above Lower East Side streets crowded with noisy bar patrons. Visitors will view period hotel rooms from the early 21st century after being shown upstairs by a costumed "concierge" and see how earlier travelers got by with primitive amenities. The lifespan of the museum would be relatively brief, however, as tourists looking to experience a truly authentic boutique hotel museum experience will turn their attentions to future Brooklyn.
· Allen/Pike Street Corridor to Receive Another Hotel [BoweryBoogie]
· LES Tenement Museum [tenement.org]
· Checking In [Curbed]