Finding Patina in Soho
I went window shopping with Dianne in Soho. We strolled pass the rows of buildings uniformly painted in a shiny cream color, glistening like jewelry. We saw lingerie displayed sparsely in the window spaces where metalworkers once rolled out their fabrications in the brief era of cast iron architecture.
On Greene Street we saw something unexpected. The next handful of buildings were vacant and worn out. One of them was hidden behind a cocoon of netting and scaffolding. The others had a hundred years weathering.
We had taken our time weaving in and out of the cobblestoned streets. I had little doubt these were the last collection of neglected cast iron buildings in Soho. It was like finding a pair of Levi’s torn and stained from cattle roundups untouched in a turn-of-the-century trunk.
Soho—the name was coined during the district’s revival in the 1970s—was a nineteenth century manufacturing district. New York’s era of prefabricated building materials began with metal products used as façades. Buildings adorned with art nouveau scrolling and Greek temple columns demonstrated how cheap fabrications could replicate any craftsmanship or style.
Prefabrication techniques steadily moved on to change almost everything about the built environment. The muscular era of concrete and steel arrived and never really left. Builders built grandiose projects that pierced the sky: the Flatiron, Woolworth, Chrysler, and Empire State—all took a turn as world’s tallest building.
By the post-World War II years, manufacturing changed. The old district south of Houson was a relic before its time. It didn’t have the floor space, parking lots, or truck access found across the river. Property values fell as the long-term manufacturing tenants moved out. The neighborhood of buildings dressed up in metal ornamentation sunk into disrepair. From the number of fire calls, the Fire Department took to referring to it as Hell’s Hundred Acres.
In the Robert Moses era of the 1950s, urban planners favored only one approach for dealing with these kind of changes that were happening to little old New York: fund a bloated public works project to do the double duty of obliterating the problem away. Plans were drawn up for the old neighborhood to be razed and ten lanes of expressway cut through to be connected to Long Island and New Jersey.
Yet Soho survived. In the 1960s, communities were learning to join together. In Soho they did it with the zeal of a community under siege. Greenwich Village resident Jane Jacobs, who understood the importance of the attachments people make to a place, saw a cause which gave practical expression to ideas in her The Life and Death of American Cities. She became the leader to save Soho. Once, she led a march inside a meeting room during city proceedings. The voice of the community was not to be ignored.
The expressway plans were finally scrapped in the 1970s.
By this time the small neighborhood had been around for two important urban movements. The first was when it was built as a collection of innovative demonstration models ushering in the new age of prefabrication. The second was when it became the rallying cause for community planning. Big gains were made for unwieldy public processes by Jacobs and her crowd, and the undemocratic practices of managerial planning took a heavyweight beating.
Soho was soon zoned as a historic district, a risky idea for the old manufacturing district. This approach was known to turn around New York’s residential neighborhoods, where a homeowner could restore a dilapidated brownstone with the comfortable knowledge that the neighbors would not be issued permits for cheap vinyl siding. The risk in Soho was, unlike residential areas, its historic uses were all but over and done with. For a historic district to work, tenants were needed for the manufacturing spaces.
Meanwhile, quietly at first, the veteran neighborhood of buildings incubated another urban movement. The lofts with open floors and sunlit windows were custom fits for artists. Doubled up and used as mixed work and living spaces, rents were even affordable to this struggling class. Greenwich Village was becoming too pricy anyway. Artists moved into the vacant buildings.
Things moved quietly at first because the work-living arrangement wasn’t legal. Zoning rules didn’t allow people to live in spaces built for manufacturing. But, in the spirit of community planning, changes can be made. The artist pioneers and the gallery owners that supported them were recognized as forging a new urban model. In the upcoming years, other cities would turn to the experiences of Soho for the solution to the depleted manufacturing districts in their own urban cores.
Relationships among the newcomers grew close from working and living in a tight urban space and the art scene got hot. Artists sent new art pieces down the old elevator lifts to the galleries below, and yuppie investors took the short cab ride to the galleries after a big day on Wall Street—of which there were many—to pay bloated prices for freshly painted pieces.
Sensing his opportunity, the unknown Jean-Michel Basquiat introduced himself to Andy Warhol at an outside table in Soho, selling him a print for one dollar. In his artwork, Basquiat, like his personality, would pry open opportunities from his own mix of experiences and abilities. Seven years later, Basquiat overdosed on heroin a millionaire 500 times over.
In Soho, contemporary art was spectacularly marketed as never before. In narrow streets and mixed-use buildings, people tapped into a wellspring of creativity and entrepreneurship. Once more this small neighborhood saw the power of the spirit of public association.
When the frenetic art scene bubble was over, its artists and hanger-ons moved on. “Neo-expressionism” and other catchy marketing faded from use. Today, galleries and boutiques are posh and homes in loft spaces are precious. Soho has stepped into the gentrified phase of whispering money.
Of course, on that day on Greene Street I took a long hard look when Dianne and I unexpectedly came across the last collection of neglected cast iron buildings.
The cast iron, left alone to age, seemed peculiarly defiant to the battery of time’s brutalizing forces. It didn’t crumble, chip, rot away, sag, or break apart. The cast iron darkened with red and brown smudges of color, a weathering process that deepened into its own shadows. The buildings held their unique patina like the testimony of aged beauty.
Twenty-eight Greene Street was the building hidden behind netting and scaffolding on that day. My guidebook says it’s the queen of the cast iron architecture in Soho. Next time I’ll check out it out.
As for the rest of the last collection of neglected buildings—next time I expect to see fresh coats of cream colored enamel paint.
On Greene Street we saw something unexpected. The next handful of buildings were vacant and worn out. One of them was hidden behind a cocoon of netting and scaffolding. The others had a hundred years weathering.
We had taken our time weaving in and out of the cobblestoned streets. I had little doubt these were the last collection of neglected cast iron buildings in Soho. It was like finding a pair of Levi’s torn and stained from cattle roundups untouched in a turn-of-the-century trunk.
Soho—the name was coined during the district’s revival in the 1970s—was a nineteenth century manufacturing district. New York’s era of prefabricated building materials began with metal products used as façades. Buildings adorned with art nouveau scrolling and Greek temple columns demonstrated how cheap fabrications could replicate any craftsmanship or style.
Prefabrication techniques steadily moved on to change almost everything about the built environment. The muscular era of concrete and steel arrived and never really left. Builders built grandiose projects that pierced the sky: the Flatiron, Woolworth, Chrysler, and Empire State—all took a turn as world’s tallest building.
By the post-World War II years, manufacturing changed. The old district south of Houson was a relic before its time. It didn’t have the floor space, parking lots, or truck access found across the river. Property values fell as the long-term manufacturing tenants moved out. The neighborhood of buildings dressed up in metal ornamentation sunk into disrepair. From the number of fire calls, the Fire Department took to referring to it as Hell’s Hundred Acres.
In the Robert Moses era of the 1950s, urban planners favored only one approach for dealing with these kind of changes that were happening to little old New York: fund a bloated public works project to do the double duty of obliterating the problem away. Plans were drawn up for the old neighborhood to be razed and ten lanes of expressway cut through to be connected to Long Island and New Jersey.
Yet Soho survived. In the 1960s, communities were learning to join together. In Soho they did it with the zeal of a community under siege. Greenwich Village resident Jane Jacobs, who understood the importance of the attachments people make to a place, saw a cause which gave practical expression to ideas in her The Life and Death of American Cities. She became the leader to save Soho. Once, she led a march inside a meeting room during city proceedings. The voice of the community was not to be ignored.
The expressway plans were finally scrapped in the 1970s.
By this time the small neighborhood had been around for two important urban movements. The first was when it was built as a collection of innovative demonstration models ushering in the new age of prefabrication. The second was when it became the rallying cause for community planning. Big gains were made for unwieldy public processes by Jacobs and her crowd, and the undemocratic practices of managerial planning took a heavyweight beating.
Soho was soon zoned as a historic district, a risky idea for the old manufacturing district. This approach was known to turn around New York’s residential neighborhoods, where a homeowner could restore a dilapidated brownstone with the comfortable knowledge that the neighbors would not be issued permits for cheap vinyl siding. The risk in Soho was, unlike residential areas, its historic uses were all but over and done with. For a historic district to work, tenants were needed for the manufacturing spaces.
Meanwhile, quietly at first, the veteran neighborhood of buildings incubated another urban movement. The lofts with open floors and sunlit windows were custom fits for artists. Doubled up and used as mixed work and living spaces, rents were even affordable to this struggling class. Greenwich Village was becoming too pricy anyway. Artists moved into the vacant buildings.
Things moved quietly at first because the work-living arrangement wasn’t legal. Zoning rules didn’t allow people to live in spaces built for manufacturing. But, in the spirit of community planning, changes can be made. The artist pioneers and the gallery owners that supported them were recognized as forging a new urban model. In the upcoming years, other cities would turn to the experiences of Soho for the solution to the depleted manufacturing districts in their own urban cores.
Relationships among the newcomers grew close from working and living in a tight urban space and the art scene got hot. Artists sent new art pieces down the old elevator lifts to the galleries below, and yuppie investors took the short cab ride to the galleries after a big day on Wall Street—of which there were many—to pay bloated prices for freshly painted pieces.
Sensing his opportunity, the unknown Jean-Michel Basquiat introduced himself to Andy Warhol at an outside table in Soho, selling him a print for one dollar. In his artwork, Basquiat, like his personality, would pry open opportunities from his own mix of experiences and abilities. Seven years later, Basquiat overdosed on heroin a millionaire 500 times over.
In Soho, contemporary art was spectacularly marketed as never before. In narrow streets and mixed-use buildings, people tapped into a wellspring of creativity and entrepreneurship. Once more this small neighborhood saw the power of the spirit of public association.
When the frenetic art scene bubble was over, its artists and hanger-ons moved on. “Neo-expressionism” and other catchy marketing faded from use. Today, galleries and boutiques are posh and homes in loft spaces are precious. Soho has stepped into the gentrified phase of whispering money.
Of course, on that day on Greene Street I took a long hard look when Dianne and I unexpectedly came across the last collection of neglected cast iron buildings.
The cast iron, left alone to age, seemed peculiarly defiant to the battery of time’s brutalizing forces. It didn’t crumble, chip, rot away, sag, or break apart. The cast iron darkened with red and brown smudges of color, a weathering process that deepened into its own shadows. The buildings held their unique patina like the testimony of aged beauty.
Twenty-eight Greene Street was the building hidden behind netting and scaffolding on that day. My guidebook says it’s the queen of the cast iron architecture in Soho. Next time I’ll check out it out.
As for the rest of the last collection of neglected buildings—next time I expect to see fresh coats of cream colored enamel paint.
posted by Paul Cogley at 6:30 PM
1 Comments:
I hope to see these buildings someday. Evolution, what a concept.
Post a Comment
<< Home