t’s a story New Yorkers are familiar with: a low-cost neighborhood becomes a cultural hotbed as artists and bohemians move there in droves. Before you know it, ultra-hip galleries, clubs, and boutique hotels are erected on every corner. A little more time passes, and the neighborhood has come full circle as its property values now soar, displacing the original owners and the struggling artists.

It’s happened to Greenwich Village, it’s happened to SoHo, and it’s in the process of happening to the Meatpacking District. But until recently, Bowery has managed to avoid gentrification, or more precisely, gentrification has avoided the Bowery.

With the recent opening of the Bowery hotel, though, the Bowery may finally face the inevitable upscale-development that it has somehow avoided until now. The new boutique hotel is 15 floors of hip; as the hotel has developed the online blogging community has enveloped the former “Tower of Bowery” in a giant halo of buzz that has only increased since its opening.

Bowery Street, which runs from Chatham Square, at the southern edge of Chinatown, up to Cooper Square, in the East Village, has been considered New York’s skid row ever since the Depression. Despite close vicinity to the East Village, Little Italy, and NoHo, the street has traditionally been home to homeless shelters, flophouses, and methadone clinics. Probably the closest it has come to development until recently has been the legendary punk club CBGB’s, but the punk scene actually thrived on the gruffness and seediness of the area.