Welcome To Hell: Voorhies Home Gets A Makeover

Screw Red Hook and Real World, and screw Jersey Shore and their shore house. I think we just found our shooting location for Sheepshead Shore.

We received a number of e-mails and photos about this building at East 18th Street and Voorhies Avenue. Apparently, unhappy tenants got tired of airing their grievances to the landlord about the bed bugs, and now they’ve made it public. I’ve seen “Welcome to Hell” painted on the building several times over the years.

Does anyone know what the deal with this house is? I’ve heard it was a halfway house or some other sort of institutional housing, while others have told me it’s a boardinghouse for illegal immigrants. That’s a “For Rent” sign on the column, so that may nix the first idea, and – awful as it sounds – the grammar is a little too good to be done by ESL residents.

This has always been one of my favorite houses in Sheepshead Bay, if only for the big mystery it presents and its film noir grittiness. I mean, come on, can’t you just imagine the drama, the drugs, the sex, the murder that tiny, cold door?