Flophouse Madonna, The White House, Bowery, NYC, 1998

The four-story White House was opened in 1917 by Euzebius (“Zeb”) Ghelardi and remained in the family until Zeb’s grandson, Mike Ghelardi, sold it in 1998. For most of its history, the hotel was whites-only--it’s rumored that the flop got its name that way. One of the few flops with a lobby on the ground floor, the White House is the safest and most genial of all the hotels on the Bowery today. It is also the most expensive, charging fifteen dollars a night for a cubicle. About two hundred men sleep in the White House each night.