80c. SoHo Historic District
A.K.A.: SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District
Location: roughly bounded by West Broadway, Houston, Crosby, and Canal Streets
Built: from early 1800s to today; most cast-irons date from 1870s
Architects: multiple
National Register Number: 78001883
Listed: June 29, 1978
Visited: June 21, 24, and 26, 2008
Additional Information: LPC Landmark Designation Report
The Collect Pond was 48 acres of fresh water, west of where Chinatown is today. Shitting where they ate, New Yorkers and their tanneries, their slaughterhouses, their breweries turned it into a sewer. With a city growing ever-northward, this pollution could not stand, so authorities in the early 19C filled it with the remains of a nearby hill, and drained it into a ditch in the center of a new road. This became Canal Street. In 1819, the stinking trench was covered over; it seems like these four slightly dilapidated Canal Street Federals, all dating with 1821 or before, were built in a fit of unwarranted optimism--unwarranted because the damn stink didn't go away.
The stink's gone but 327, 325, 323, and 321 Canal Street will likely never be made respectable, even with their ole-time authenticity and cute pitched roofs. There's too much traffic in front of them, with all the cars and trucks going to and from Manhattan Bridge and the Holland Tunnel, and thus there's no incentive to make remake them into ritzy homes again. Canal Street's larded with foot traffic, too, as it hosts honky-tonk electronics stores, food vendors, foldaway tables with bootleg goods. Everybody is slow, distracted by all the goods dancing at the periphery of their vision; with my impatient temperament, this means I don't linger, regardless of the mystery that exists past the storefronts.
By the way, Samuel Morse--yes, the telegraph guy--lived in 321, the one with all the hubcaps in the window.
Location: roughly bounded by West Broadway, Houston, Crosby, and Canal Streets
Built: from early 1800s to today; most cast-irons date from 1870s
Architects: multiple
National Register Number: 78001883
Listed: June 29, 1978
Visited: June 21, 24, and 26, 2008
Additional Information: LPC Landmark Designation Report
The Collect Pond was 48 acres of fresh water, west of where Chinatown is today. Shitting where they ate, New Yorkers and their tanneries, their slaughterhouses, their breweries turned it into a sewer. With a city growing ever-northward, this pollution could not stand, so authorities in the early 19C filled it with the remains of a nearby hill, and drained it into a ditch in the center of a new road. This became Canal Street. In 1819, the stinking trench was covered over; it seems like these four slightly dilapidated Canal Street Federals, all dating with 1821 or before, were built in a fit of unwarranted optimism--unwarranted because the damn stink didn't go away.
The stink's gone but 327, 325, 323, and 321 Canal Street will likely never be made respectable, even with their ole-time authenticity and cute pitched roofs. There's too much traffic in front of them, with all the cars and trucks going to and from Manhattan Bridge and the Holland Tunnel, and thus there's no incentive to make remake them into ritzy homes again. Canal Street's larded with foot traffic, too, as it hosts honky-tonk electronics stores, food vendors, foldaway tables with bootleg goods. Everybody is slow, distracted by all the goods dancing at the periphery of their vision; with my impatient temperament, this means I don't linger, regardless of the mystery that exists past the storefronts.
By the way, Samuel Morse--yes, the telegraph guy--lived in 321, the one with all the hubcaps in the window.
Labels: Canal Street, Federal Style, SoHo
posted by Michael at
10:20 PM
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