Poet, author, and former beatnik Hettie Jones exalts the past but she doesn’t cling to it. Her acclaimed memoir How I Became Hettie Jones salutes the downtown bohemian scene that she was once entwined in. Through the doors of her home passed literary greats; among them Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Joel Oppenheimer. Her residence at 37 Cooper Square outlasted a marriage to controversial poet and philanderer LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka). Two children, a personal reinvention, and 48 years later Hettie Jones has now become the principal figure in an architectural squabble.

Her four-story tenement home has been entombed by the new Cooper Square Hotel, a 21-story glass and aluminum curtain-walled structure that has 146 guest rooms, a restaurant, and two bars. As Jones continues to reside on the third and fourth floors, above and below her the hotel carries about its business. Meanwhile, to the East and West, her neighbors emphatically condemn the architectural union. Since the project was greenlighted in 2006 blogs have been abuzz with criticism. The most creative protests are on display for lucky overnight guests—soiled laundry (hopefully artificially) hangs from clotheslines of adjacent apartment buildings.

While her Cooper Square neighbors bemoan a dwindling of 19th century tenement “charm,” Hettie has been remarkably optimistic. The distress and noise of construction as sleek glass got “hitched” to her vintage brick home could have easily ignited lunacy. Instead Hettie dismissed the inconvenience. “There’s something in me that’s always had great faith,” she says. “I believe that history should be preserved…they’ll take care of me.”

In New York, “history” has many layers, and Hettie’s neighbors have fixated on the wrong ones. The preservation of 37 Cooper Square is not about retaining an urban memento of century-old tenement living, but of eulogizing the Beat Generation of the 1950’s. Even when nearby residents get it right their memory is selective. “Where is the Bohemia, where is the opportunity for artistic people and alternative lifestyles?” laments one protestor. The answer is in books, music, and history, but not necessarily on this city street. Jazz cats, beatniks, and then hippies were replaced in the 1980’s by punks, hookers, and transvestites. College students and homeless came next. Today Cooper Square borders gentrified Bowery and East Village neighborhoods that cater to uptown clientele and the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. The most recent past life of the ground floor of 37 Cooper Square—now the hotel’s lounge—was a karaoke bar, the antithesis of artistic invention. Rebirth had been befalling the neighborhood before the hotel claimed its wedge of space.

Perhaps Hettie Jones is cognizant of a parallel to her own story. Her biracial marriage in 1958 was tearfully observed as a betrayal to her conservative family. More than 50 years ago a young Hettie was a cultural pioneer, and today her home pluckily (and somewhat awkwardly) mates with another controversial partner.

But her reward for tolerance is not without irony. In the footprint of the hotel just one other historic building was preserved, a mere hundred feet away is 35 Cooper Square. In 1962 when newlyweds Hettie and LeRoi Jones moved into their apartment, beat queen and kindred poet Diane DiPrima was moving into the next building. The Jones’ befriended her, published her first book, and then became linked forever when Diane gave birth to one of LeRoi’s children. Only in retrospect did Hettie Jones become aware of her clichéd role as dutiful wife to a womanizing artist. It is these two womens’ buildings—fittingly and mockingly—that are joined by a common towering presence.

The eccentric marriage of new building to old building was involuntary. Developers Gregory Peck and Matthew Moss claim that “there was no way we were going to tear it down,” referring to Hettie’s home. But the truth is they tried to. If either of the two earlier permit applications had been granted the glass hotel would have landed with a King Kong thud over the acreage. Instead the tower had to be surgically implanted into the available space by master architect Carlos Zapata. It would be naïve to believe that such a forced intrusion would be welcomed harmoniously.

Yet while tactless neighbors continue to harmonize in a chorus of misplaced nostalgia, hoteliers Peck and Moss make pitiful efforts to join in. The soiled laundry stunt elicited a hard-to-believe endorsement; “That’s the kind of thing people want to see,” stated Moss. When neighbors protested the outdoor bar area—presumably more raucous than the former do-it-yourself watering hole—they were offered new windows and air conditioners. But, of course, the endowments were denied with fanfare. Like pesky unpopular kids Peck and Moss just keep fishing for community approval—in November adding commissioned graffiti to the tower/tenement fusion. It’s a transparent and unsuccessful attempt to blend in, and just seems to be a lame violation of a captivating narrative.

The Cooper Square Hotel has kissed its bride in a somewhat cumbersome made-to-fit fashion, but like it or not the result is urban texture at its best. In another location the tower would not be so contentious. But in another location, without the forced synthesis of these particular tenements and the character of ornery neighbors the building would be just another bland assemblage of glass. Developers Peck and Moss deserve credit for embracing a future that includes the tenacious Jones, as it turns out they didn’t have to.

“If they’d offered me $3 million, I would’ve moved across the street,” says Hettie. “I’m not stupid.”