80h. 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
Haphazardly tallying up all the surviving buildings within the SoHo historic district by year, a narrative presents itself to the intrepid landmark blogger. There's a small construction peak in the early 1820s, followed by little in the 1830s, then nothing whatsoever in the 1840s. Things pick up in the 1850s, then, from about 1860 to the turn of the century, a boom: anywhere from 5 to 15 or more new buildings a year, this in a district of only 26 city blocks covering 70 acres. Things permanently trail off in the first years of the 1900s, and from an Indian Summer echo in 1907 to the time the LPC report was written, there are only blips. During the boomtime, there are revealing dips in activity, roughly corresponding to the Civil War--this is when the neighborhood took a decisive turn from residences to whorehouses and warehouses--a circa 1870 depression and the Panic of 1873. So, as we proceed in rough chronological order, we leap from buildings dating back to 1860 and 1861 to one built in 1868.
When I think of American tobacco, I think of withered leaves within North Carolina and Virginia in the older kid-specific maps of all the 50 states. I think of it as very specific to the South, and assume there must be climatological and geological excellences that make tobacco farming such an irresistible proposition there. Perhaps. But the Dutch grew tobacco in Manhattan, and before them, the Lenape; New York State once farmed non-trivial amounts of the demon weed, and Connecticut and Massachusetts still do. And Lorillard, the oldest Tobacco company in America, was New York born and bred, begun as a snuff-grinding mill and shop in 1760 on what later became Park Row. In 1868, after 108 years of catering to the American nic fit, William Leete Stone describes the company as "the largest Tobacco House in America, if not in the world" as if there could be no doubt, no need to compare figures to make sure.
383-385 West Broadway is built for Lorillard the same year, one of four buildings on the block J.B. Snook designed between 1867 and 1890. The LPC report describes its original function as a "Factory for drying and moistening tobacco." How tobacco was dried in a warehouse (as well as where the tobacco came from, why it was moistened, etc. etc.) is unknown to me. High ceilings (on the first and second floors) and numerous windows seem like requirements for air-drying the tobacco, if that's how it was done; on the other hand, these features are identical to a number of warehouses in the district, especially those on Crosby Street, so...I dunno.
In any case, what made for a good industrial building is often awesome for other uses, as we will no doubt explore further. 383-385 is now a gallery, a designer's studio, lofts, and in nice bit of full-circle, a cigar store. A much later (1890) Lorillard building next door, 391-393 West Broadway, features a contemporary artwork that might only have been possible within in the spacious confines of a former warehouse: Walter De Maria's Broken Kilometer, 500 brass rods laid down on a floor oh so so so precisely. (Fuck you, don't laugh, I think it's beautiful even though I have not actually seen it or anything; plus the guy's responsible for The Lightning Field and you cannot front on directed lightning.) Question: did De Maria think up Kilometer before he had a space for it, or did develop the work with the space in mind?
Incidentally, Lorillard got gobbled up by a tobacco trust in the 1890s, then was spat back out in 1911. Philip Morris and fellow trust constituent R. J. Reynolds would later far outpace the company in sales, though they are responsible for Newport, the country's biggest cigarettes after the almighty Marlboro. And after all that time here, they consolidated executive and manufacturing by moving their headquarters from New York City to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1997.
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
Haphazardly tallying up all the surviving buildings within the SoHo historic district by year, a narrative presents itself to the intrepid landmark blogger. There's a small construction peak in the early 1820s, followed by little in the 1830s, then nothing whatsoever in the 1840s. Things pick up in the 1850s, then, from about 1860 to the turn of the century, a boom: anywhere from 5 to 15 or more new buildings a year, this in a district of only 26 city blocks covering 70 acres. Things permanently trail off in the first years of the 1900s, and from an Indian Summer echo in 1907 to the time the LPC report was written, there are only blips. During the boomtime, there are revealing dips in activity, roughly corresponding to the Civil War--this is when the neighborhood took a decisive turn from residences to whorehouses and warehouses--a circa 1870 depression and the Panic of 1873. So, as we proceed in rough chronological order, we leap from buildings dating back to 1860 and 1861 to one built in 1868.
When I think of American tobacco, I think of withered leaves within North Carolina and Virginia in the older kid-specific maps of all the 50 states. I think of it as very specific to the South, and assume there must be climatological and geological excellences that make tobacco farming such an irresistible proposition there. Perhaps. But the Dutch grew tobacco in Manhattan, and before them, the Lenape; New York State once farmed non-trivial amounts of the demon weed, and Connecticut and Massachusetts still do. And Lorillard, the oldest Tobacco company in America, was New York born and bred, begun as a snuff-grinding mill and shop in 1760 on what later became Park Row. In 1868, after 108 years of catering to the American nic fit, William Leete Stone describes the company as "the largest Tobacco House in America, if not in the world" as if there could be no doubt, no need to compare figures to make sure.
383-385 West Broadway is built for Lorillard the same year, one of four buildings on the block J.B. Snook designed between 1867 and 1890. The LPC report describes its original function as a "Factory for drying and moistening tobacco." How tobacco was dried in a warehouse (as well as where the tobacco came from, why it was moistened, etc. etc.) is unknown to me. High ceilings (on the first and second floors) and numerous windows seem like requirements for air-drying the tobacco, if that's how it was done; on the other hand, these features are identical to a number of warehouses in the district, especially those on Crosby Street, so...I dunno.
In any case, what made for a good industrial building is often awesome for other uses, as we will no doubt explore further. 383-385 is now a gallery, a designer's studio, lofts, and in nice bit of full-circle, a cigar store. A much later (1890) Lorillard building next door, 391-393 West Broadway, features a contemporary artwork that might only have been possible within in the spacious confines of a former warehouse: Walter De Maria's Broken Kilometer, 500 brass rods laid down on a floor oh so so so precisely. (Fuck you, don't laugh, I think it's beautiful even though I have not actually seen it or anything; plus the guy's responsible for The Lightning Field and you cannot front on directed lightning.) Question: did De Maria think up Kilometer before he had a space for it, or did develop the work with the space in mind?
Incidentally, Lorillard got gobbled up by a tobacco trust in the 1890s, then was spat back out in 1911. Philip Morris and fellow trust constituent R. J. Reynolds would later far outpace the company in sales, though they are responsible for Newport, the country's biggest cigarettes after the almighty Marlboro. And after all that time here, they consolidated executive and manufacturing by moving their headquarters from New York City to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1997.
Labels: Industrial, J. B. Snook, Lorillard, SoHo, Walter De Maria
posted by Michael at
11:12 PM
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