The Last SRO Holdout A modern-day Peter Pan in ablack Stetson and Hawaiian shirts, Henry Ball iswhat happens when a 16-year-old runaway’s dreamscrash-land into middle age Manhattan. For $285.25 amonth (rent-controlled, naturally), he’s turned hissingle-room kingdom into a surreal museum ofchildhood dreams deferred: model trains whistle pastplastic waterfalls while memories of his colorfulpast—pimp, women’s wrestling promoter, fast-foodfranchise savant—collect like dust on the miniaturetracks.Diabetes and decades of dollar menu dinners havetaken their toll, but Henry’s childlike wonderremains untouched. In a building full ofgentrification targets, he stands out like a neonorchid in his ever-present cowboy hat and tropicalshirts, a walking contradiction who once ranprostitutes but now spends hours creating perfectminiature worlds. The Raths, seeing past hiseccentric facade, make him an unlikely addition totheir family circle—his presence at their daughters’birthday parties as reliable as his rent paymentsare not.When finally offered $52,000 to surrender his SROparadise, Henry does what any responsible adultwould do: blows $10,000 on the model train set ofhis teenage dreams. In a city where everything’s forsale, he proves some people can’t be bought—they canonly be relocated to a bigger playroom.
