The Sunshine Hotel [Audio CD]

David Isay (Author), Stacy Abramson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 1999

This is an audio portrait of one of the final vestiges of the Bowery, New York's notorious skid row. In the first half of the century, the mile-long Bowery's bars, missions and cheap hotels (or flophouses) were home to an estimated 35,000 down-and-out men each night. Today, only a handful of flophouses, virtually unchanged for half a century, are all that remain of this once teeming world. For several months in 1998, David Isay and Stacy Abramson had unprecedented 24-hour access to the Sunshine Hotel, one of the last of the no-frills establishments.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dave Isay is the founder of Sound Portraits Productions. Over the past twelve years his radio documentary and feature work has won almost every award in broadcasting including two Peabody Awards, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, and two Livingston Awards for young journalists. David has also received the Prix Italia (Europe's oldest and most distinguished broadcasting honor), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994) and most recently a MacArthur Fellowship (2000). He is the author (or co-author) of three books based on Sound Portraits radio stories: Holding On (W.W. Norton & Co., 1995); Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago (Scribner, 1997); and Flophouse (Random House, 2000). He is also an occasional contributor to the New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor to Contentville.com.

Radio producer Stacy Abramson has worked at Sound Portraits Productions since 1996. Her early production credits include the radio documentaries The Sunshine Hotel, A Letter to Butchie, and Charlie's Story. She has also produced The Jewish Giant, an audio portrait of Eddie Carmel, and Witness to an Execution, based on interviews with men and women who have witnessed or participated in numerous executions in Huntsville, Texas She recently co-authored Flophouse (Random House, 2000) with Dave Isay.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Sound Portraits Productions (March 9, 1999)
• ISBN-10: 1931173028
• ISBN-13: 978-1931173025
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,112,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a place you'd ever want to reside, May 7, 2011

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Citizen John (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sunshine Hotel (Audio CD)

This is an account of the Sunshine Hotel in New York where one could get a bed for ten dollars a night in 1999. The rooms were really compartmentalized units secured from each other by little walls that didn't reach the ceiling and topped with chicken wire.

You can see a lot of photos of this hotel on the Internet to get an idea how seedy it was. The address: 241 Bowery, on the Lower East Side in a notorious skid row. It was at times a dangerous place to hang around and was the last of the flop houses from the Bowery. This was a mile long stretch that gave 35,000 poor men a sleeping place during the depths of the Great Depression.

The interviewees gave surprisingly forthcoming and truthful testimonies about their lives. The author interviewed long-term residents of this hotel. All the men's stories were down-and-out and more than a bit depressing. There seemed to be no hope left in their lives. The Sunshine Hotel seemed to me a place without hope, filled with broken men living on the edge of existence.