Avalon Bowery Place
The Avalon Bowery place is part of a Lower East Side mega development initiative by the Avalon real estate development company. The gigantic contemporary glass and steel edifice, along with its sister building across Houston, The Avalon Chrystie, consumes essentially an entire city block. The building is part of a recent program to turn the once decrepit Bowery into a luxury row. The building itself contains hundreds of luxury rental condominium apartments, and thousands of square feet of retail space at the base. An apartment in the complex is accompanied by a whole host of amenities, including a roof terrace and a swanky gym. The Avalon Bowery replaced a collection of flophouses and tenement buildings that gave the Bowery its seedy charm. Long ago, on the site of the Avalon Bowery stood McGurk’s Suicide Hall, the toughest bar in town. The torn down building also served as a flophouse, artists’ studios, and a brothel.
Before it was closed and the building was torn down, McGurk’s used to be the roughest and toughest bar in New York. A favorite watering hole among prostitutes and criminals, it earned the nickname “McGurk’s Suicide Hall” because many of the patrons went there to commit suicide.
photo by 
photo by 