SoHo

LOCATION

Lower Manhattan. SoHo lies south of Houston Street (hence the name) and is bound by Lafayette Street to the east, by Canal Street to the south and by the Hudson River to the west.

SUB-DIVISIONS

The area west of Sixth Avenue is often called "West SoHo" and differs significantly in character from the rest of the neighborhood. West SoHo is still (partially) industrialized and doesn't have as many stores and boutiques as the rest of SoHo.

APARTMENTS & REAL ESTATE

As for the rest of SoHo, it consists mostly of magnificent loft buildings, typically with a commerical ground floor and between two and four floors of lofts apartments (often undivided floor-throughs) above.

Given the scarcity of empty lots and the landmark status of most loft buildings, new construction is rare. But with SoHo representing one of the most desirable neighborhoods for real estate developers, the occasional condo project does get realized (one of the recent examples is Jean Nouvel's 40 Mercer Street).

Selected Rental Buildings

• 137 Thompson Street (SoHo)
  A pre-war low-rise walk-up building.
• 188 Sixth Avenue (SoHo)
  A pre-war low-rise walk-up building.
• 190 Sixth Avenue (SoHo)
  A walk-up building.
• 192 Sixth Avenue (SoHo)
  A walk-up building.
• 26 Grand Street (SoHo)
  A low-rise walk-up building.

See all SoHo Rental Apartment Buildings (14 buildings)

Condo & Co-op Buildings

• 139 Wooster Street (SoHo)
  Two six-story buildings, each with a two-story penthouse, connected by a landscaped lobby garden.
• 40 Mercer Street (SoHo)
  A new luxury condo building.
• Soho Mews (311 West Broadway, SoHo)
  Two-building project measuring 175,000 s/f that consists of a 9-story structure facing West Broadway and an 8-story one facing Wooster Street. A shared yard is between them.

See all SoHo Condo Apartment Buildings (7 buildings)

• 2 Charlton Street (SoHo)
  A post-war mid-rise doorman elevator building.
• 57 Thompson Street (SoHo)
  A pre-war low-rise elevator building.

See our list of SoHo Co-op Apartment Buildings

DEMOGRAPHICS

Today, SoHo is basically inhabited by the rich. Most industrial buildings were converted to condos and co-ops with the corresponding price tags (seven figures is the norm). That's not always been the case (read the "History" section for an overview of the changes in the area's demograhics).

HISTORICAL NOTES

People inhabiting SoHo in the 60's, 70's and 80's were artists attracted by large and vacant industrial spaces (good for hanging your paintings, you know). They squatted in empty buildings and since in the 60's pretty much all buildings here were empty, they gradually filled the neighborhood. This was in violation of the zoning code in effect.

In the end, many artists were granted the right to stay by negotiating a deal with the city and the landlords whereby they bought out their illegally occupied spaces for what very soon would seem an absurdly low price. This was done under the "Artists in Residence" program.

In the early 1970's SoHo was designated a historic district and gentrification began in earnest.

The 1970's and 1980's saw the peak of artistic activity in the area. Most of the city's modern art galleries were located in SoHo during those decades. Some have hired world-famous architects to design their interiors.

But the late 1980's and the 1990's brought so many retailers to the area that the whole neighborhood started resembling a gigantic open-air shopping mall. Art galleries have started to move out (mostly to Chelsea and, to a lesser extent and somewhat later, to Williamsburg).

It'd be fair to say that the era of commercialisation of SoHo continues today. All real estate projects that get realized in SoHo are of luxury variety and low-cost establishments (stores and restaurants) have all but disappeared.