High End Retailers And Upscale Hotels Transform New York's Bowery

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 17: A stairwell to a building is covered in graffiti along the Bowery, a famed Manhattan street that runs approximately one mile from within Chinatown up to Fourth Street on June 17, 2014 in New York City. While as recent as 1999 there were still 200 shelters and flophouses on the Bowery housing thousands of homeless and substance abusing individuals, the area has been rapidly changing into a destination for the young and wealthy. Restaurants, boutiques and celebrity studded hotels have become more frequent along the once gritty street. The Salvation Army Chinatown Shelter recently sold for $30 million to developers who will build an Ace Hotel with a luxury boutique condo complex. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)