80n. 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, and August 8, 2008
Additional Information: LPC Landmark Designation Report
Last entry I was mourning how the SoHo of my researches was shaping up to be a landscape of almost-nameless hat factories and silk stores, but I spoke a little too soon. 47-49 Mercer Street (Joseph M. Dunn, 1873)was owned by Alexander Roux, a cabinet-maker maybe only known to American antiquarians, but still, what a relief to encounter somebody who's left traces beyond mangled scans on Google Books.
Roux's work is at the Met, the Brooklyn Museum, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and on eBay for prices that are more than I make in a year. And they are rather incredible. I know nothing about antiques and have never really had much desire to reverse the situation, but...I respect these pieces. Well-trained hands and sharp tools made some pieces of wood sing with a human voice. The care could break your heart. The slopes of lines, rococo crannies. Tiny inlays. The grain of wood followed. Techniques learned in guilds and passed down from generation to generation. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Well, I'm sure somebody does, somewhere. But it's rare. No demand for it. Roux had the demand, he had the workers (120 by the 1850s) and the techniques (steam-powered saws!) to produce $250-$500K of furniture a year (about $5 to $11 million today). That's an enterprise roughly comparable to one of your 21st-century suburban kitchen cabinet barns. Today, when Americans want to buy furniture with this level of craftsmanship, they just buy antiques. And most don't. (My apartment is entirely furnished with about a thousand bucks of IKEA--they make furniture for people who don't want to care about furniture.)
This furniture made me curious why this cast-iron, as lovely as it is, wasn't built to suggest their level of detail: they could've maybe indulged in a Gothic fantasy like 448 Broome or something as obsessively ornate as the Haughwout. Costs, I guess. Fashion and fitting in are other possible reasons. Maybe Roux was already looking ahead to his next address and being mindful of resale value. (I'm sorry I keep peppering the blog with so many questions I can't answer.) The LPC report says this was a store--as was nearby 53 Mercer, also factory space--but it's not clear what kind of status it had compared to Roux's other locations. Most are gone, except for 827-829 Broadway, one of the finest cast-irons outside SoHo, smothered in butterscotch.
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, and August 8, 2008
Additional Information: LPC Landmark Designation Report
Last entry I was mourning how the SoHo of my researches was shaping up to be a landscape of almost-nameless hat factories and silk stores, but I spoke a little too soon. 47-49 Mercer Street (Joseph M. Dunn, 1873)was owned by Alexander Roux, a cabinet-maker maybe only known to American antiquarians, but still, what a relief to encounter somebody who's left traces beyond mangled scans on Google Books.
Roux's work is at the Met, the Brooklyn Museum, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and on eBay for prices that are more than I make in a year. And they are rather incredible. I know nothing about antiques and have never really had much desire to reverse the situation, but...I respect these pieces. Well-trained hands and sharp tools made some pieces of wood sing with a human voice. The care could break your heart. The slopes of lines, rococo crannies. Tiny inlays. The grain of wood followed. Techniques learned in guilds and passed down from generation to generation. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Well, I'm sure somebody does, somewhere. But it's rare. No demand for it. Roux had the demand, he had the workers (120 by the 1850s) and the techniques (steam-powered saws!) to produce $250-$500K of furniture a year (about $5 to $11 million today). That's an enterprise roughly comparable to one of your 21st-century suburban kitchen cabinet barns. Today, when Americans want to buy furniture with this level of craftsmanship, they just buy antiques. And most don't. (My apartment is entirely furnished with about a thousand bucks of IKEA--they make furniture for people who don't want to care about furniture.)
This furniture made me curious why this cast-iron, as lovely as it is, wasn't built to suggest their level of detail: they could've maybe indulged in a Gothic fantasy like 448 Broome or something as obsessively ornate as the Haughwout. Costs, I guess. Fashion and fitting in are other possible reasons. Maybe Roux was already looking ahead to his next address and being mindful of resale value. (I'm sorry I keep peppering the blog with so many questions I can't answer.) The LPC report says this was a store--as was nearby 53 Mercer, also factory space--but it's not clear what kind of status it had compared to Roux's other locations. Most are gone, except for 827-829 Broadway, one of the finest cast-irons outside SoHo, smothered in butterscotch.
Labels: Alexander Roux, Cast-Iron, SoHo
posted by Michael at
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