nyt: Exhibit Offers a Peek Inside the Lives of Outsiders

...when a 29-foot section of bright yellow PVC pipe appeared at the front of the building, snaking from a spot next to the front door and into a corner of the second floor lobby, it was cause for plenty of comment.

'Nobody really knew what it was at first,' said Earl Simpson, 67, a resident. 'They thought it was some kind of weird periscope.'

They were right, sort of. The tube, which was commissioned by The New Museum of Contemporary Art as part of an outdoor exhibition on and near the Bowery, allows people on the sidewalk to see and converse with residents inside the hotel. Both parties, as viewed through the tube's mirrors, appear upside down. Voices that travel through the tube are muffled but audible. When no one in the lobby is at the mouth of the tube, sidewalk viewers see a vase of sunflowers.