SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street",As in, for example, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as the Wall, and has also been known for its variety of shops ranging from trendy upscale boutiques to national and international chain store locations. The area's history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socioeconomic, cultural, political, and architectural developments.SoHo, New York – Mixed Use, Density and the Power of Myth Barr, Alistair – Architect
The name "SoHo" derives from the area being "South of Houston Street", and was coined in 1962 by Chester Rapkin,Hevesi, Dennis. "Obituary: Chester Rapkin, 82, Urban Planning Theorist" The New York Times (February 3, 2001) an urban planner and author of The South Houston Industrial Area study,Rapkin, Chester. The South Houston Industrial Area (Prepared for the City of New York, City Planning Commission, Department of City Planning, 1963) 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.Soho Cast-Iron Historic District , National Park Service, n.d. Accessed March 26, 2011. It consists of 26 blocks and approximately 500 buildings, and many of them incorporating cast-iron architectural elements. Many side streets in the district are paved with Belgian blocks.Koppel, Niko. "Restoring New York Streets to Their Bumpier Pasts" The New York Times (July 18, 2010)
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.
Geography
Boundaries Because of the nature of neighborhoods 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.
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"Shulman, Wendy (November 24, 1974) "SoHo a 'Victim of its Own Success'" The New York Times – a definition it continued to hold to in 2016Jacobsen, Aileen (April 27, 2016) "SoHo: Chic Stores and Cobblestones" The New York Times – but The Encyclopedia of New York City reports that SoHo is bounded by Crosby Street on the east, and Sixth Avenue to the west.Gold, Joyce. "SoHo" in , pp.1202-03 These are the same boundaries shown by Google Maps."Soho, Manhattan" Google Maps". Accessed: April 15, 2017 However, the AIA Guide to New York City gives the western boundary of SoHo north of Broome Street as being West Broadway, and New York magazine gives the eastern boundary as Lafayette Street and the western boundary as the Hudson River.Staff "Neighborhood Profile: SoHo" New York. Accessed: April 15, 2017
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."Community Portal: Manhattan Community District 2" nyc.gov. Accessed: April 18, 2017Community Board No. 2, Manhattan, New York City. 2014. Accessed April 5, 2019.
In the 1990s, real estate agents began giving an adjacent neighborhood below West Houston Street various appellations, with no general agreement on whether it should be called (or included as part of) West SoHo, Hudson Square or the South Village.Wilson, Clare. "Living in: West SoHo; Eschewing a Name and Becoming an Address". The New York Times (August 15, 2004) The AIA Guide calls that neighborhood "An intersection of brick and glass, searching for an identity", and refers to the western section of it as "The Glass Box District". Unlike Hudson Square, the South Village has traditionally appeared on maps of Community District 2, centered near the intersection of Houston Street and Avenue of the Americas.Let Your Voice Be Heard: A Guide to Manhattan's Community Boards, map, June 3, 2006. The more recent map of Community District 2 contains both the South Village and Hudson Square, with the latter written in the area below Houston Street, between Hudson Street and the Hudson River.
Historic District 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.New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission "SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District Extension Map" Designation Report, p.1
History
Early years During the colonial period, the land that is now SoHo was part of a grant of farmland given to freed slaves of the Dutch West Indies Company, and the site of the first free Black settlement on Manhattan island.Designation Report, p. 4 This land was acquired in the 1660s by Augustine Hermann, and then passed to his brother-in-law, Nicholas Bayard. The estate was confiscated by the state as a result of Bayard's part in Leisler's Rebellion, but was returned to him after the sentence was annulled.Designation Report, p.5
In the 18th century natural barriers – streams and hills – impeded the growth of the city northward into the Bayard estate, and the area maintained its rural character. During the American Revolution, the area was the location of numerous fortifications, redoubts and breastworks. After the war, Bayard, who had suffered financially because of it, was forced to mortgage some of the property, which was divided up into lots, but even then there was very little development in the area, aside from some manufacturing at Broadway and Canal Street.
Serious development of the area did not begin until the Common Council, answering the complaints of landowners in the area, drained the Collect Pond, which had once been an important source of fresh water for the island, but which had become polluted and rank and a breeding ground for mosquitoes. A canal was built to drain the pond into the Hudson, and the canal and pond were both later filled in using earth from nearby Bayard's Hill. Once Broadway was paved and sidewalks were built there and along Canal Street, more people began to make their homes there, joining earlier arrivals such as James Fenimore Cooper.
Commerce, entertainment, and decline By the mid-19th century, the early Federal- and Greek Revival-style homes were replaced by more-solid structures of masonry and cast iron, and along Broadway, large marble-skinned commercial establishments began to open, such as Lord & Taylor, Arnold Constable & Company and Tiffany & Company, as well as grand hotels such as the St. Nicholas and the Metropolitan.Designation Report. p.6 Theatres followed in their wake, and Broadway between Canal and Houston Streets became a lively theater and shopping district and the entertainment center of New York; as usual with such areas, it was home to many brothels as well, and the side streets off of Broadway became the city's red-light district. As this change in character drove out the middle-class, their place was taken by small manufacturing concerns, including cabinet-makers and the lumberyards that supplied them, brass and copper firms, makers of china and glassware, locksmiths, snuff manufacturers and book publishers.Designation Report, p.7
This dramatic shift in the nature of the neighborhood continued to drive out residents, and between 1860 and 1865 the Eighth Ward, which included the SoHo area, lost 25% of its population. After the Civil War and the Panic of 1873, in the 1880s and 1890s, large manufacturers began to move into the area, especially textile firms, and the area became the mercantile and wholesale dry-goods trade center of the city, and was the subject of significant real-estate speculation. This phase came to an end by the close of the 19th century, and as the center of the city continued to move uptown, the quality of the area declined.Designation Report, p.8
After World War II, the textile industry largely moved to the South, leaving many large buildings in the district unoccupied. In some buildings they were replaced by warehouses and printing plants, and other buildings were torn down to be replaced by gas stations, auto repair shops and parking lots and garages.Betts, Mary Beth (ed.) "SoHo – Cast-Iron Historic District Extension Designation Report" , New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (May 11, 2010) pp.5–6 By the 1950s, the area had become known as Hell's Hundred Acres, an industrial wasteland, full of sweatshops and small factories in the daytime, but empty at night. It would not be until the 1960s, when artists began to be interested in the tall ceilings and many windows of the empty manufacturing lofts, that the character of the neighborhood began to change again.
Cast-iron architecture
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.
An American architectural innovation, cast iron was cheaper to use for facades than materials such as stone or brick. Molds of ornamentation, prefabricated in foundries, were used interchangeably for many buildings, and a broken piece could be easily recast. The buildings could be erected quickly; some were built in four months. Despite the brief construction period, the quality of the cast-iron designs was not sacrificed. Bronze had previously been the metal most frequently used for architectural detail. Architects found that the relatively inexpensive cast iron could provide intricately designed patterns. Classical French and Italian architectural designs were often used as models for these facades. Because stone was the material associated with architectural masterpieces, cast iron, painted in neutral tints such as beige, was used to simulate stone.
There was a profusion of cast iron foundries in New York, including Badger's Architectural Iron Works, James L. Jackson's Iron Works, and Cornell Iron Works.
Since the iron was pliable and easily molded, sumptuously curved window frames were created, and the strength of the metal allowed these frames considerable height. The once-somber, gas-lit interiors of the industrial district were flooded with sunlight through the enlarged windows. The strength of cast iron permitted high ceilings with sleek supporting columns, and interiors became expansive and functional.