RE: Soho: Snobbism, exemplified
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Wed, 18 Mar 1998 21:27:38 -0500
> On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, PODESTA,Lesley wrote:
>
> > Umm Andrew. I think Brendan was being ironic when he asked the
> > question.LP
>
> You sure you mean ironic? I think you may have meant to say sardonic or
> sarcastic. This may very well be the case, and even if it was, I still
> loved going off on SoHo like that. It's always nice to slam fake'ness.
SoHo is ghastly (sociologically) but aside from the aforementioned
galleries, it's also the world's largest collection of cast-iron buildings.
Some of them are exquisite. When I was a kid it was a deserted zone at
night, and so it was lovely to walk around there in the desolation. (If
you've seen the movie "Basquiat," or know the artist's work, he used to
write graffiti there under the name SAMO; I used to love to spot his work,
though by now it seems all gone, either eradicated or painted over.)
The neighborhood has another strictly New York distinction: it's the only
place that has experienced the theft of a building! An owner of a
cast-iron building dismantled it -- either to move it or to do renovation
-- and left the pieces in an empty lot. He came along one morning and
found the empty lot -- empty. They never found the pieces, and the chances
are that they were simply melted down for the scrap-metal value.
Most of the neighborhood (because of the cast-iron architecture and the
bluestone sidewalks) is designated a historical zone. It's wretched on the
weekends, but tolerable during the week, especially early in the day. I
still like it at night, though -- it's cleaner than it used to be, but
that's the price of success. At least the old buildings and sidewalks
remain.
--tim