SoHo: An Upside-down History

 

This image and information-packed 2-hr walking tour makes sense of an inscrutable history. The streets of SoHo contain a fashionable world class city from the 1850s, 60s, and 70s when Broadway was one, long, grand promenade of fine shops, theaters and hotels, overrun by buildings from the 1880s, 90s, and 00s that were built for manufacturing and industry. And those buildings are far more beautiful! The history that created the streetwalls of SoHo and Noho is that of a city that is almost streaming in its moves up Broadway, then Fifth Avenue, in an intergenerational, decades-long onslought of homes and churches being overrun by fine shops, theaters, hotels and museums, in turn overrun by buildings for warehousing, manufacturing and industry. And in discerning the two eras as you will learn to do on the tour, a "hidden in plain sight" truth about the city will come to the fore: the city is filled with the most beautiful buildings built for mundane commercial purposes.