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There was once a time when SoHo was threatened with becoming a victim of the City’s ambitious urban renewal efforts.
Have you ever noticed the beautiful, intricate design carved into the sidewalk at the northwest corner of Broadway at Prince Street in front of the Prada store, one of the most heavily trafficked corners in New York City?
The corner of Broadway and Houston Street, where two of New York’s major thoroughfares intersect, has gone through many changes since it was first settled in the early 1800’s.
The Roosevelt Building, located at 478 Broadway (between Broome and Grand), was built in 1874 and designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt. It is said to be one of the most significant cast iron buildings in the world.
Believe it or not, Canal Street was not only once an actual canal, but it was also the northernmost border of New York City.
The Wall, Forrest “Frosty” Myers’ now iconic public art installation at the northwest corner of Broadway and Houston is also known as “The Gateway to SoHo.”
In the late-1980s and into the 1990s, at the tail end of SoHo’s heyday as the center of New York’s gallery scene, small and often specialized galleries thrived along the Broadway corridor.
SoHo’s Broadway in the 1970s mainly housed two kinds of ground floor businesses: textile/clothing wholesalers and the luncheonettes/diners that served to their employees/customers.
If you walk by 555 Broadway, you will notice the name “Charles Broadway Rouss” emblazoned across its façade.
In any discussion about SoHo preservation, the name Jane Jacobs usually comes up almost immediately. But there is another, lesser-known yet hugely influential figure in the saga of saving SoHo and preserving its architectural heritage: Margot Gayle.
The St. Nicholas Hotel, on the west side of Broadway between Spring and Broome Streets, was a hotel like nothing New York City had seen before.
Here are some more stories about how our neighborhood’s streets got their names.
Who would ever know that the unassuming yet grand buildings at 537 and 541 Broadway, unified by a homogenous façade design, were once the epicenter of modern dance in SoHo?
Learn more about John Jacob Astor’s Haughwout Building.
Part of ‘A Look Back at SoHo’s Broadway’ Series – SoHo Neighborhood Guide
