SOHO. SHOPPING, ARTISTS & CAST-IRON ARCHITECTURE

Today, The Grandma has visited SoHo in Lower Manhattan to visit some of the most influential artists of the city.

SoHo is a neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. 

Since the 20th century it has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and has also been known for its variety of shops ranging from trendy upscale boutiques to national and international chain store outlets. The area's history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socioeconomic, cultural, political, and architectural developments.

The name SoHo derives from the area being South of Houston Street, and was coined in 1962 by Chester Rapkin, an urban planner and author of The South Houston Industrial Area study, also known as the Rapkin Report. The name also recalls Soho, an area in London's West End.

Almost all of SoHo is included in the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District, which was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973, extended in 2010, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

It consists of 26 blocks and approximately 500 buildings, many of them incorporating cast-iron architectural elements. Many side streets in the district are paved with Belgian blocks.

SoHo is part of Manhattan Community District 2 and its primary ZIP Codes are 10012 and 10013. It is patrolled by the 1st and 5th Precincts of the New York City Police Department.

Because of the nature of neighbourhoods in New York City, different sources will often give different boundaries for each one. In the case of SoHo, all sources appear to agree that the northern boundary is Houston Street, and the southern boundary is Canal Street, but the location of the eastern and western boundaries is disputed.

More information: SoHo Memory

In 1974, shortly after SoHo first came into existence, The New York Times described the boundaries as stretching from Houston to Canal Streets between West Broadway and Lafayette Street.

The map at the Community Board 2 profile page on New York City's official website has SOHO written near Broadway in the space roughly equidistant between Houston Street and Canal Street.

The SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District is contained within the zoned SoHo neighborhood. 

Originally ending in the west at the eastern side of West Broadway and to the east at the western side of Crosby Street, the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District was expanded in 2010 to cover most of West Broadway and to extend east to Lafayette and Centre Streets. The boundary lines are not straight, and some block-fronts on West Broadway and Lafayette are excluded from the District.

SoHo boasts the greatest collection of cast-iron architecture in the world. 

Approximately 250 cast-iron buildings stand in New York City, and the majority are in SoHo. Cast iron was initially used as a decorative front over a pre-existing building. With the addition of modern, decorative facades, older industrial buildings were able to attract new commercial clients. Most of these facades were constructed during the period from 1840 to 1880. In addition to revitalizing older structures, buildings in SoHo were later designed to feature the cast iron.

More information: The Bowery Boys

After the abandonment of the highway scheme, the city was left with a large number of historic buildings that were unattractive for the kinds of manufacturing and commerce that survived in the city in the 1970s. The upper floors of many of these buildings had been built as commercial Manhattan lofts, which provided large, unobstructed spaces for manufacturing and other industrial uses.

These spaces attracted artists who valued them for their large areas, large windows admitting natural light and low rents. Most of these spaces were also used illegally as living space, despite being neither zoned nor equipped for residential use. This widespread zoning violation was ignored for a long period of time, as the artist-occupants were using space for which there was little demand due to the city's poor economy at the time, and would have lain dormant or been abandoned otherwise.

In 2005, the construction of residential buildings on empty lots in the historic district was permitted. Nevertheless, with no enforcement of the new zoning laws by the city, beginning in the 1980s, in a way that would later apply elsewhere, the neighbourhood began to draw more affluent residents. Due to rent protection and stability afforded by the 1982 Loft Law, in addition to the fact that many of the artists owned their co-ops, many of the original pioneering artists remained despite the popular misconception that gentrification forced them to flee.

More information: Coldwell Banker Warburg

 Out of all the neighborhoods in Manhattan,
Soho in particular had the charged atmosphere of a movie set,
populated with passersby who looked
like extras from Central Casting,
so perfectly did they fit into this environment.
There was the feeling of everything being not quite real,
or too perfectly cliched to actually be true,
and it began to rain in a fine,
misty drizzle from a black patent leather sky.

Candace Bushnell