[HN Gopher] The Last Men's Hotel in Chicago
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The Last Men's Hotel in Chicago
Author : kgwgk
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-04-18 12:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (newrepublic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newrepublic.com)
| bsanr2 wrote:
| "Like his friend and like his son, Mike strongly believes in
| caring for what and who are already here. In every one of the
| many conversations we have from May 2020 to February 2021, he
| shares with me, in his quiet, passionate voice, his vision:
| shuttered schools across the south and west sides remodeled,
| their doors opening like petals for women and children fleeing
| violent homes or for other Chicagoans in need of shelter while
| they wait for housing vouchers to come through, classrooms
| converted to dormitories, cafeterias serving whoever needs to
| eat."
|
| It should be noted that this is unlikely to happen,
| unfortunately.
|
| https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/school-closures-and-gentri...
| https://prospect.org/education/gentrification-school-closing...
|
| Like Campus 805 in Huntsville, Alabama, they're much more likely
| to be torn down or redeveloped into a play-space for new
| transplants. Any sort of public service runs directly counter to
| the purpose of shutting down those schools in the first place.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I would like to see America build more of these.
|
| Even lightening building codes, and zoning requirements (allow
| for very small rooms). If the Infrasctructure bill promised more
| of this type of housing I would be thrilled. I'd be happy with a
| few public restrooms strategically placed around cities, but I
| guess I'm the only one that needs easy access to a bathroom!
|
| 1. It's obvious homlessness is just getting worse. I just heard
| the head of the Federal Reserve comment on the increasing size of
| the homeless encampment mext to his office.
|
| 2. We need building codes that encourage small simple housing
| units.
|
| 3. I like the hotel doesn't have a list of rules. I feel giving
| people some control over their lives is very important. I like
| there are no mandatory religious meetings, or curfews. Treat a
| man like a thinking adult, and you might be suprised with the
| result?
|
| 4. Yes--I understand this place is in disrepair, but why couldn't
| we built simple housing? I sometimes think authorities make
| projects more complicated because they secretly don't want
| anything built, especially for the poor.
|
| 5. Oh yea, America needs more people like thus guy:
|
| "Wesley Duran, a porter at the hotel. "I try to give everyone
| respect, treat people fairly here. There's too much hatred in the
| world for me to go that way. We've gotta be nicer to one
| another."
| perardi wrote:
| Ugh, I hate to pull this out, by: NIMBY-ism.
|
| To a first approximation nobody wants an SRO on their back
| yard. Me? I am just fine with it, I have lived near SROs for
| _years_. But...oh whatever, I'll be blunt: Karen doesn't want a
| giant building full of itinerant men on her block, and she is
| going to fight _tooth and nail_ to prevent such a thing.
| caturopath wrote:
| A big part of the missing SROs are the lack of ones that
| don't target itinerant men, such as are found in much of the
| world. The accommodations aren't the problem, the perception
| is -- plenty of medium- and high-income people in low-density
| areas participate in house shares.
|
| But since SROs are illegal almost everywhere in the US, the
| few that have stuck in our memory are the ones for folks who
| didn't have any other real choice, rather than the ones that
| were simply the best choice.
|
| I'm not sure how perception might shift. If I were to
| spitball, steps might include finding catchy names that
| combine student housing, nursing homes, and general-audience
| SROs and finding a couple flagship projects where luxury
| towers have high-floor SROs geared toward minimalist
| tech/finance bros and rich people in need of a crash pad.
| bmarquez wrote:
| I was about to comment the exact same thing.
|
| There needs to be SRO's catered to non-poor people just
| needing a place to crash while exploring a city,
| minimalists, etc.
|
| Outside America the hostel/guesthouse scene worked well for
| me as a longer term traveler, I even met others doing the
| "digital nomad" thing and fairly well-off people so there
| isn't a stigma like in America. When I mention the concept
| of hostels (even private room ones) to less-traveled
| Americans, some rolled their eyes and made comments about
| personal safety, poverty, and "not having your own big
| space."
| caturopath wrote:
| This isn't the only place where this happens in urbanism,
| of course.
|
| One such issue is busses. People with a choice will
| gladly ride trains and streetcars, but busses are
| stigmatized.
|
| It turns out that if you design a bus line a certain way,
| busses are every bit as good a transportation system as
| light rail up to a pretty high throughput, and often
| cheaper (always cheaper upfront). But even places with
| really good Bus Rapid Transit lines, folks don't want to
| get on a bus to get them where they're going faster.
|
| This is HN, I suspect many of us have taken company
| busses. I've known tons of people making over 500k/yr who
| took a bus to work in the US. And that was a bus that
| gets stuck in traffic! People not wanting to take a bus
| is not fundamental to the mode, it's a perception thing.
|
| In much of the world, there's no stigma, and everyone
| will gladly take a bus if that's the best way to get
| where they're going.
| gwright wrote:
| I know I'm working from incomplete data and confirmation
| bias, but it seems to me that those who fight against
| permanent facilities also seem to be against taking action
| against ad-hoc encampments. This just one of an almost
| endless set of contradictions I see in discussions of public
| policy these days.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I'm fair certain Karen is leading the charge to shut down
| ad-hoc encampments as well. Let's be honest, we have a lot
| of Karens in the US, and they're well known for not liking
| things like tent cities.
| [deleted]
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| The conclusion we can draw from this is that "people" (in
| quotes because, as you say, this is an incomplete data set)
| don't want to solve the problem of homelessness, they
| simply want to remove the visible signs of it in their
| local area. Make them go somewhere else, as it were.
|
| To be fair, this is not necessarily one person holding a
| contradictory position, but the only realistic outcome of a
| process where people can't agree on a solution; several
| groups agree the encampments are a problem, but if they
| can't agree on a solution than the only action taken is
| removing the encampments.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Lol. Only on HN.
|
| I got rid of an SRO in my neighborhood. It was a shitshow...
| drug deals, issues with open containers and prostitution, car
| break ins, etc.
|
| There are NIMBY assholes. But there are people who just want
| to live their life peaceably. Something like an SRO can turn
| from OK to a nightmare with a change in management or
| ownership. Nobody in their right mind wants one nearby.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| If you want to use gendered raced insults go for it but if
| you would prefer to be more accurate and inclusive you could
| use NIMBY, middle class homeowner or environmentalist.
| bombcar wrote:
| So let's be realistic and admit these buildings do NOT have
| to be built in residential areas with Karens abounding. The
| perfect is the enemy of the good here; let them be wedged
| into industrial areas or other "not as desirable" parts of
| town.
|
| Trying to pretend that the "bad part of town" can be removed
| if we just figure out the magic steps is part of the problem.
| andrew_v4 wrote:
| Not sure I completely agree, but I definitely do think this
| kind of project can be derailed by proponents who want to
| be uncompromising about it and don't think it's acceptable
| to compromise in something like location because its harder
| to get built where people don't want it.
|
| An example people probably won't like is those mixed income
| buildings (can't remember where now) that had separate
| entrances for the subsidized units. It's definitely not
| egalitarian in some sense, but if it allows more subsidized
| housing to be built for people that need it, is it really
| better just to not do it?
| perardi wrote:
| Mm, yes, this is closer.
|
| You see this with other goods too, notably cars. Creating
| a car that meets all contemporary safety standards is
| hugely expensive.
|
| Is that safety a net good? Yes. Does it have societal
| costs? You betcha.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| It was NYC. (Manhattan.) And they didn't have separate
| entrances for _subsidized_ units, they had separate
| entrances for wealthy penthouse owners who really did
| have greater security concerns than the run of the mill
| residents living on lower floors. People who can afford a
| 20 to 50 million dollar penthouse do think long and hard
| about security.
|
| But the masses simply ignored the service provision
| aspect and screamed "Why do you guys have a poor people
| door!?!?!"
| oh_sigh wrote:
| It is more expensive to build a separate entrance for
| certain classes, not less expensive.
|
| And those kind of affordable housing schemes are a joke
| from a social perspective. Yes, it's great if you win the
| lottery. But it doesn't do much for the 99.998% of people
| who don't win the lottery.
| nitrogen wrote:
| It's probably still a net win to build separate entrances
| if they would lose significantly more money on decreased
| value of the non-subsidized units than the separate
| entrances would cost.
| perardi wrote:
| So how are we dealing with transit?
|
| We are going to build giant housing projects (with what
| capital or grants) and then create mass transit to them?
|
| How's that ended up working so far?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Based on SF, it appears that any such attempt will fail on
| the grounds that you are attempting to put these people
| "out of sight, out of mind".
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It's not like Karen doesn't have a point. I live in Ballard
| and our property crime rate has skyrocketed ever since the
| homeless camps took over a few parks. One camp over in the
| U district is even famous for hosting a bicycle chop shop
| where components are stripped from stolen bikes, which the
| SPD won't do anything about. Not wanting drug needles and
| smashed car windows in your backyard really isn't
| unreasonable.
|
| There are no easy solutions to these problems, at anyrate.
| We will all have to make a few trade offs, but they have to
| be more reasonable than dumping all of the problem in a few
| places.
| stopwithslurs wrote:
| Can you people stop using my mother's name as a slur that
| means obnoxious white woman? I'm used to this bigotry on
| Reddit but why is it ok here? I'm so sick of it.
| Dig1t wrote:
| I do agree with you, it would be super frowned upon to go
| around doing the same thing with common names of other
| ethnicities. I don't think its right that we're okay with
| low-key disparaging one race but not another. At one
| point in time I think people would have considered that
| to be racist, but I guess that's not a thing anymore.
| sarakayakomzin wrote:
| would you like to speak to a manager?
| baron816 wrote:
| It's not just NIMBY-ism, and NIMBY-ism isn't what drove these
| away. What it is is pretty much the minimum mage--housing has
| to meet a minimum threshold in quality or else it can't
| exist. Never mind that people might still be willing to live
| there and are able to make their own decisions. And some
| people might not have other options.
|
| To many, this seems like exploitation. They'd rather have
| people living on the street than have a business make money
| off of them.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Bingo.
|
| And it's not even the exploitation. Believe it or not, it's
| the fact that there is no one to hold liable if things go
| wrong. At root, it's about on which head does liability
| rest. You don't meet code, firefighters rush in, and the
| staircase collapses. Who do the cops and the firefighters
| go after? If it's the owner of the SRO, then no real estate
| investor will build one. (At least, not one that isn't up
| to code.) You can try to loosen the code, but the
| firefighters are only going to allow you to cut so much
| before their unions have your picture up on billboards
| around town as the big, bad, slumlord pushing for
| substandard housing.
|
| Owning a lot of real estate is not a picnic, and you learn
| a lot of things you never knew before about how local
| politics work.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| My dad ran section 8 programs for a decade or more. They
| meet higher code standards than many suburbia "luxury"
| apartments.
|
| Slumlords who don't maintain buildings to code are bottom
| of the barrel renting to a very limited and desperate
| clientele. Encouraging that is nuts.
|
| The notion that evil firefighter unions are making real
| estate expensive by advocating for codes that put them
| out of business is probably the most ill-informed comment
| I've read in some time. Absurd. Getting rid of balloon
| frames and cocklofts raised construction costs... but
| saved thousands of lives.
| maxerickson wrote:
| My small town has turned down apartment buildings for reasons
| like 'preserving the character of a run down building built
| after 1970' and 'not wanting to have apartments near a planned
| business hotel'.
|
| The people opposing the projects absolutely don't want them
| built. For the one, there was also a discussion of having more
| poor people in the area that is a few hundred feet from the
| poorest census block in the county.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I live in a hundred year old SRO in a blighted downtown area.
| It's how I got back into housing after years of homelessness.
|
| I wanted to be an urban planner before life got in the way, so
| I see all the things wrong in my downtown and have some idea of
| what broke and why.
|
| So one of my online projects is a website called Project: SRO
| trying to put together info about where things went wrong and
| how we could course correct.
|
| http://projectsro.blogspot.com/
| viklove wrote:
| With the bar on the top and the uncloseable bar on the bottom,
| this site was too claustrophobic for me to commit to reading the
| whole article.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button
| breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be
| interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then
| friendly feedback might be helpful._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| tyingq wrote:
| They named the div at the bottom nicely, such that
| $('.paywall').remove() in the js console removes it.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Wow, I used to walk by this all the time (I lived in the South
| Loop and worked in the Loop). I never realized it was the last
| one. It's the one noticeably dodgier block in the area.
| robbyking wrote:
| I assume that's why it's been allowed to stay open, not vice-
| versa.
| snypher wrote:
| For what reasons would you say it was dodgier?
| cozzyd wrote:
| Not OP, but I wouldn't say it's dodgier, but rather that it
| feels like a time capsule from the past: https://www.google.c
| om/maps/@41.8760356,-87.630659,3a,75y,34...
|
| It doesn't help that it's across the street from a prison (ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Correctional_Cent...
| ) .
|
| (edit, looks like OldHand2018 said basically the same thing I
| did!).
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I would get harassed on that block far more often despite it
| being considerably less dense than just a bit farther north
| (business) or south (residential). Maybe "dodgy" isn't the
| right word. You can also have a look around for yourself--the
| buildings on either side of this block are quite a bit nicer
| (although that on it's own isn't a good proxy for dodginess):
| https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8761663,-87.630677,3a,75y,31.
| ..
| perardi wrote:
| I suppose this is the last men's hotel, as in, literally for men-
| only, in Chicago.
|
| But there are still single-room occupancy buildings, or SROs,
| around. They are largely clustered in Uptown. I would link to
| them, but, perhaps unsurprisingly: not much of a web presence.
|
| And let me tell you, as one of those gentrifying tech folks
| living in the new or refurbished developments in Uptown and
| Edgewater: there are some nice folks there. One of them gave me a
| clicker randomly to help me train my dog. Walk by these buildings
| every day, they always compliment my dog.
| perardi wrote:
| And this is an excuse to link to this really thorough
| documentation of the architecture and history of Uptown, which
| has had a wild history.
|
| https://chicagoflaneur.com/2020/04/24/portrait-of-chicago-up...
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Where are some of these SROs at? Are they along Sheridan north
| of Montrose? That seems to be where things are the most dodgy
| (which isn't to say they aren't nice people, only that you
| notice the stark contrast when you cross Montrose on Sheridan
| or Hazel).
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| This block of Chicago is really interesting. It's like going back
| in time to when American cities were far seedier places than they
| are now.
|
| It survives in part because the neighbor across the street is the
| Metropolitan Correctional Center [1] (an architectural
| masterpiece that was ruined by painting it about 10 years ago).
| The other reason it survives is that many buildings are owned in
| full by people that just aren't interested in huge piles of
| money. When they pass away, their children will surely cash out
| and another skyscraper will rise.
|
| There are quite a few hole-in-the-wall lunch places along this
| block. My favorite was a fried chicken place with some homemade
| (?) hot sauce. Around the corner is a fantastic old-school pizza
| place and I think the guy who runs it owns most of the buildings.
|
| [1] https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/ccc/index.jsp
| pkkim wrote:
| Also the site of Chicago's first Chinatown.
| https://chicagodetours.com/forgotten-chinatown-chicago/
| chitowneats wrote:
| I worked at this intersection for half a decade. Your analysis
| is spot on. As for the chicken, you must be referring to
| Chicken Planet: http://www.chickenplanetchicago.com/
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| I had to look it up because I knew it by location and not
| name. It was Mickey's, not Chicken Planet.
|
| The pizza place is Boni Vino and the lunch crowd is floor
| traders and guys with thick Chicago accents. Full bar at
| lunch.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Chicken Planet is great but it's not fried, and the hot sauce
| is wanting
| kgwgk wrote:
| I visited Chicago years ago and that prison is one of the I
| remember. I wondered if the place in the article was in that
| area but I was too lazy to check... Thanks!
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(page generated 2021-04-19 23:01 UTC)