Have you ever heard about a place well-known for its extraordinary fashionable boutiques and art galleries? There is one NYC neighborhood, located in the lower part of Manhattan that suits the description perfectly well. Let’s hear a story about Soho – one of the most famous New York City areas. A neighborhood with interesting history, and great shifts. Here are the top 5 amazing facts about Soho, NYC.
1. How it got its name
There are many Manhattan neighborhoods with interesting names, and stories about how they got them. When it comes to Soho, or sometimes written as SoHo, the story starts somewhere back in 1962. It was created by Chester Rapkin, a leading urban planner of the time. He was also a writer of the study called The South Houston Industrial Area, and he fought to find the best solution for the practical problems that the metropolitan area dealt with. The very name Soho stands for “the area being south of Houston Street”. What’s more one of the first mentions of this neighborhood appeared in The New York Times. They defined the Soho’s boundaries as extending exactly from Houston to Chanal Streets. Later on, this description changed, and now most of the sources would define its east-west boundary as Crosby Street to Sixth Avenue.
The name of the neighborhood is sometimes mistaken for the very popular area in the West End of London bearing the same name.
2. The not so popular neighborhood- one of the 5 amazing facts about Soho, NYC
Nowadays, the Soho neighborhood is definitely a place most people would like to move to. The area is used to newcomers, and if you decide to come to Soho for good, skilled people can help you out to conduct the move. Local movers in the neighborhood of Soho offer excellent services.
However, the fortune of the area was not so great in the past. In fact, it altered from time to time. Soho started as a kind of farmland intended for the liberated slaves during the colonial period. Ever since then, it preserved the characteristic rural character, and apart from the manufacture, the area could not boast with some serious development. However, this fact changed after the Common Council decided to drain the area’s problematic pond, which was a source of serious pollution. Soho again became a popular place for living in, and people kept coming.
Then in the 19th century, yet another shift happened. The Soho neighborhood started to commercialize and it soon became the new entertainment and shopping center of New York. This fact did not please people belonging to the Soho’s middle-class, and they started to move away considerably. However, the real estate market started to flourish again in the period of the 1880s and 1890s, with plenty of manufacturers moving their businesses to the area. But, this trend didn’t last for long. As soon as the coming of the 1950s, they considered Soho nothing else than an industrial wasteland.
3. Another great shift
As the end of the 20th century was coming, however, the fortune of this interesting neighborhood was about to alter one more time. And, it is exactly this amazing fact that the neighborhood is able to cope with these changes that make its story so interesting.
It all started when artists started to interest in the spacious upper floors and lofts of the Manhattan buildings. These spaces soon became very popular, because they offered to artists a great amount of natural light and, what’s even more important, they came with pretty low rents. Although these were not initially meant to serve residential purposes, the number of incoming artists was growing, and so was their persistence to reside in their working place. That is why the city was basically persuaded to accept this idea. From then on all the artists who were living in their workspace got permission to stay that way. However, this counted only for the artists certified by the Department of Cultural Affairs.
Nowadays, all the newcomers who are trying to get to know the area, and bled into the neighborhood and its community, will be able to take a look at these famous loft spaces that enchanted the 1970s artists.
4. The gentrification
Then, in the 1980s a number of affluent residents started coming to Soho to stay. The process of gentrification began. However, despite the fact how some people perceive it, these affluent newcomers did not make the artists leave their lofts and move away. What’s more, we can say that it was exactly the coming of these visual artists that opened the gates to the gentrification that happened later on.
Today, Soho is a neighborhood that is famous for its boutiques with fashionable clothes, as well as for its amazing architecture and art galleries. Tourists and people who come to live in New York City, don’t miss the chance to come by this neighborhood and experience its special spirit. However, although throughout its history its living spaces usually came at low costs, nowadays, the real estate in Soho is one of the most expensive ones in the states.
5. The collection of the cast-iron architecture
If with the help of Simplify Valet Storage & Moving, you come to live in Soho, chances are high that you will be residing in one of the buildings that are made with cast iron. That is a construction material that became popular during the time of the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to its cheap prices and easy and quick building process, it remained popular for a long time. In fact, in Soho, you will find the biggest number of original cast-iron buildings. Their facades in most cases date from the period from 1840 to 1880, and they really represent a unique landmark.
If you liked these 5 amazing facts about Soho, NYC, then there is nothing more you should wait for. Just start your new journey and meet this place in person.