The Bowery is a lively neighbourhood in New York, thanks to a close-knit community. For a hotel that’s about citizens of the world, it made sense to highlight the citizens of the Bowery — and so KesselsKramer teamed up with photographer Christelle de Castro to honour the locals on the new 22-floor hotel: “Welcome to all citizens of the world and all citizens of the Bowery.”
“My family has been there since 1910. Place was a dump. It was a dump! My father, RIP, said the Bowery was a thermometer, a register of what went on in the economy. People came to the Bowery to buy. Everyone would buy something. If I didn’t sell them something, someone else would.” – Brian Faerman, cash register store owner.
“My friends and I once wanted to just randomly buy kids ice-cream just because it was a hot day. They thought we were rap stars.” – Richard Sharp (Rico), construction/rap act/graphic designer. Trying to be a superstar.
“I lived for many years on Bowery and Lafayette. The memory I like is walking with John Michael Basquiat. He was high and giving out $20 bills to the homeless… that day he handed out 50 bills. To see their faces was a delight.” – Amos Poe, filmmaker.
I was planning a bike ride, but then saw it was drizzling, so I carried Hasse outside — underneath an umbrella — to go get a coffee. Yet the rain was so heavy we just hid underneath the canopy in front of a supermarket to see some of the chaos unfold. I’ll miss these streets […]
Be skeptical of sweeping stories about China, regardless of how good or bad they portray things. The technological advancements mentioned in the news may be even more profound in reality, but not as widespread as shown. The GDP growth has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but real wealth is mostly concentrated in coastal […]
There are so many ways to define Shanghai, yet a few popular icons do a lot of the talking. As the international metropolis and a symbol of China’s rising economic power, there’s the Lujiazui (陆家嘴) skyline — with the Oriental Pearl Tower (东方明珠) and high offices of Chinese and multinational corporations. There’s the Maglev train […]
Day 2876 in Shanghai and I’m walking with Hasse on Dongdaming Road (东大名路) in the Hongkou district. In 2018, I lived next to this road; here I registered my first Chinese bank account, bought my first baozi in a FamilyMart, and it’s here that I photographed so many random things because Shanghai was all new […]
