On the 11th floor of the brand-new Sister City hotel on the Bowery is their outdoors lounge, the Last Light Bar. I'm not hip enough to know to go here within 2 weeks of opening—my old friend David Morrison built this hotel. The New Museum is dead ahead in this photo. These few blocks—Bowery, Rivington, Stanton—are among the last to get gentrified in the neighborhood. I certainly never imagined a fancy place like this could ever displace the brightly lit bars of yore. It always seemed awful to drink in a bar brighter than the day outside, but that was the norm on the Bowery 40 years ago.