The Bowery: for centuries it has been one of New York City's major arteries, in every sense of the word: a gritty and vital counterpoint to the theaters of Broadway and the mansions of Fifth Avenue. Traditionally a rowdy avenue of nickel museums and burlesque shows, by the beginning of the 20th century it had become America's most famous 'skid row', lined with flop houses, missions, and bars. Only a few decades ago, these flophouses served as a nightly refuge for 25, 000 men on the fringes of society: the poor, the wretched, the overwhelmed; some scoundrels, but more of them decent men whose luck had simply failed them. Today only a handful of the old flophouses remain, the rest having been swept away in an implacably rising tide of affluence. These flophouses are the last vestiges of a different time and a different city, and the Sunshine is one of them. At the Sunshine Hotel, nothing has changed in seventy or eighty years. The men still sleep in a warren of 4' x 6' cubicles called ...