Soho

Mer’ • cer [Middle English, from Old French mercier, trader, frommerz, merchandise, from Latin merx, merc-, merchandise.] A dealer in textiles, especially silks. Soho’s Mercer Street, which runs for 12 blocks from Canal St. north…

Unfortunately, most of NYC’s beautiful buildings date to between 1850 and 1940, the castiron, Beaux Arts and Art Deco-Art Moderne periods. Thereafter, minimalism took hold with the International Style’s glass…

Howard Street is something of an anomaly as far as Soho east-west cross streets go. It’s the shortest of them all, running only 4 blocks, from Mercer east to Lafayette just…

In January 2005 I walked the Bowery and documented the remains of its old-time flophouse – and wholesale lamp and kitchen supplies ambience. I don’t lament its demise; though I’d…

Sometimes, you can walk past something a hundred times and never know it’s Forgottenworthy. That’s what happened this week [March 19-25, 2006] when news broke that the Tunnel Garage, a venerable…

For much of its history, it’s been an avenue without a number, ever since it was proclaimed the Avenue of the Americas in 1945. New Yorkers have always referred to it…

You’re not supposed to call it 6th Avenue, you know. 6th Avenue has a rather involved history. It has been extended both northward and southward and has been renamed twice! In…

Before the days when the New York City Department of Transportation began to install replicas of classic bishop-crook, “Corvington” long-armed lamps and twinlamp designs, they defaced still-standing classic lampposts that were…

  The Soho Building, on Greene Street between Spring and Prince Streets, is home to NYC’s most unusual subway map…despite the fact that no subways run underneath it and that the…

While poking around the streets of Soho (South of Houston) and Noho (North of Houston) you can find several hidden and not-so-hidden alleyways that contain a few surprises here and…