SoHo

LOCATION

Lower Manhattan. SoHo lies south of Houston Street (hence the name) and is bound by Broadway to the east and by Canal Street to the south. The only logical western boundary is the Hudson River, although many would tell you that "West SoHo" - the part of the neighborhood located west of Sixth Avenue (aka Avenue of the Americas) - is competely different in character. These purists are partially right - it is different - more industrialized and less crowded - but to us it's still SoHo.

APARTMENTS & REAL ESTATE

There are very few rental buildings in the area (i.e. buildings where mere mortals can rent an apartment), but they do exist - mostly on the western side of SoHo, along Sixth Avenue. Let's be clear - these apartments are not lofts, they are regular apartments, but at least they exist and allow a few hundred lucky less-than millionaires to live in the neighborhood, too.

Selected Rental Buildings:

• 145 Spring street (145 Spring street, SoHo) - The property has prime retail on grade and basement space The second floor is designed for commercial use....
• 163 Mulberry (163 Mulberry, SoHo) - Pre-war building.
• 170-176 Spring street (170-176 Spring street, SoHo) - Walk-up building
• LIRA Apartments (21 Spring street, SoHo)
• Sullivan Mews (97-119 Sullivan Street, SoHo) - The Mews is comprised of ten individual four- and five-story walk-up buildings.

See all SoHo Rental Apartment Buildings

Selected No-Fee Rental Listings:

• new! $2,495 1-Bedroom at 163 Mulberry (available June 1, 2008) posted 05/08/08.

See all SoHo No Fee Rental Apartments (1 total)

Condo Buildings:

• 139 Wooster (139 Wooster street, SoHo) - Two six-story buildings, each with a two-story penthouse.
• 40 Mercer street (40 Mercer street, SoHo)
• Soho Mews (311 West Broadway, SoHo) - Two buildings with a shared yard in the middle.

See all SoHo Condo Apartment Buildings

Co-op Buildings:

See some of the area's SoHo Co-op Apartment Buildings

POPULATION AND DEMOGRAPHICS

It is very difficult to put together a composite sketch of the typical SoHo dweller, but I'll try. First, over 90% of people you see in SoHo don't live there. They shop, they work or they go out, but live - no.

If we were to look at the crowd from a historical perspective, 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. A 1962 report on underutilized commercial zones in the city described SoHo as an enormous commercial slum. That was the starting point for gentrification. In the next 5-6 years plans for demolishing most of the neighborhood and building a highway here were actively discussed. Luckily, that never happened. 1970's saw a peak of artistic activity in the area. 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 seemed a ridiculously low price.

Subsequent transformations of SoHo is a classic tale of a gentrified neighborhood: the very same people who made it liveable and "cool" were forced out by the rising prices - unless these people were lucky to already own their lofts.

Today, much of the area is populated with Wall Streeters whose only distinguishing characteristic is that while they could have settled in million-dollar apartments, they chose million-dollar lofts instead. They are nice people and all but there's hardly anything "artistic" about them (again, apart from the taste for loft living).

Among "artistic" people, two categories have survived - those who made it big (famous actors, painters, musicians such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Lenny Kravitz and dozens of others) and those who squatted in the 1960's, negotiated a sweet deal and now own their lofts. In other words, almost no one under 35.

LATEST HEADLINES, NEWS & REVIEWS

• 02/Aug/2007: Moondance Diner Moving To.. Wyoming
• 04/Jun/2007: SoHo to Get a "Mini-Lipstick" Building
• 15/Nov/2006: Ultra-low Vacancy Rates in Manhattan in October
• 27/Dec/2005: Urban Glass House