80v. 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; August 8 and 31, 2008
Additional Information: LPC Landmark Designation Report
Designed by John T. Williams, finished in 1896--over a hundred years old and 443-449 Broome Street is still a beacon in SoHo, tall and thin and broad. And as if to deny its boxy silhouette, the top three stories are given a full-on ornamental treatment of leaves and scrolls and shells and things in between. And as if to deny the modernity of its steel-frame construction, it analogizes to a Corinthian column: frilly top, the middle marked by tall and unornamented pilasters, the bottom a thick base.
The end result is beautiful, but all this historical and natural reference is perhaps overkill, too. Was it done out of some barely-acknowledged guilt over the imposition the building made on its neighborhood? Or was it a way to forestall the inevitable: the plunge towards height--the Park Row Building was only three years ago--that would end up annihilating so much of what 19th-century man knew about architecture and nature?
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; August 8 and 31, 2008
Additional Information: LPC Landmark Designation Report
Designed by John T. Williams, finished in 1896--over a hundred years old and 443-449 Broome Street is still a beacon in SoHo, tall and thin and broad. And as if to deny its boxy silhouette, the top three stories are given a full-on ornamental treatment of leaves and scrolls and shells and things in between. And as if to deny the modernity of its steel-frame construction, it analogizes to a Corinthian column: frilly top, the middle marked by tall and unornamented pilasters, the bottom a thick base.
The end result is beautiful, but all this historical and natural reference is perhaps overkill, too. Was it done out of some barely-acknowledged guilt over the imposition the building made on its neighborhood? Or was it a way to forestall the inevitable: the plunge towards height--the Park Row Building was only three years ago--that would end up annihilating so much of what 19th-century man knew about architecture and nature?
Labels: John T. Williams, SoHo
posted by Michael at
11:22 PM
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