Historic SoHo photos seen as vision
of what rezoning may build – or bulldoze
Bogardus Building on northwest corner of Washington and Murray Streets, being prepared for
demolition to make way for Washington Market Urban Renewal.
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
SoHo and Tribeca faced
an uncertain future more
than 50 years ago when a
young architecture student named
Edward LaGrassa took out his
camera and walked around the
communities, snapping pictures
of buildings that seemed destined
to meet the wrecking ball.
LaGrassa photographed
scores of historic cast iron industrial
buildings, many of which
sat vacant or underutilized amid
the era of urban renewal. Few
believed they would last the next
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VILLAGE PRESERVATION/LAGRASSA COLLECTION
decade; a large section of Lower
Manhattan had been torn down
as part of the Washington Street
Renewal Project, and much of
SoHo was in the path of the
Lower Manhattan Expressway
— one of master builder Robert
Moses’ dream highways that
many others saw as a destructive
nightmare.
But the expressway was
never built, and while some of
the historic buildings wound up
being demolished, the majority
of them remained — and found
new life as artist’s lofts over the
fi ve decades that followed. The
area evolved into one of the most
posh neighborhoods in all of
New York, and now its future
is up for debate again with the
city setting its sites on changing
the community’s zoning laws to
foster in a new era of economic
development.
That’s where LaGrassa’s photos
come into the picture.
Recently, LaGrassa donated his
collection of SoHo and Tribeca
images snapped around 1969
to Village Preservation, the
nonprofi t group which advocates
for the historical preservation of
buildings in SoHo and NoHo,
Greenwich Village and the East
Village. It is also among the most
vocal opponents to the proposed
SoHo-NoHo rezoning, and has
pitched an alternative plan that,
its executive director Andrew
Berman says, provides more affordable
housing and economic
benefi ts than the city’s proposal.
Berman told The Villager
that LaGrassa recently reached
out to Village Preservation and
donated the photographs he took
more than a half-century ago to
its archives. The black-and-white
images provide the viewers with
a glimpse of how SoHo and surrounding
areas appeared at one
of the most crucial points in its
history — when its future was
very much in doubt.
The SoHo-NoHo rezoning
doesn’t resemble the Lower Manhattan
Expressway plan — which
would have rammed an interstate
highway through the neighborhood,
connecting the Manhattan
and Williamsburg Bridges with
the Holland Tunnel. But Berman
suggests the rezoning would alter
the community for the worse.
The city’s plan calls for the
M1-5B zoning in the area, which
has permitted the propagation
of artists’ lofts for the past 50
years, to be changed in order to
permit the creation of 3,200 new
apartments — up to 494 of which
would be designated as affordable
housing units. The rezoning area
would primarily impact manufacturing
and loft spaces in the area
bounded by Canal Street to the
south, Houston Street and Astor
Place to the north, Lafayette
Street and the Bowery to the
east, and Sixth Avenue and West
Broadway to the west.
116 Franklin St.
But that plan, according to Berman,
would permit the alteration,
and even destruction of some
of the historic buildings which
weathered the turbulent 1960s
and saw new life as artists lofts.
The alternate plan that Village
Preservation pitched would seek
new buildings only on open lots,
garages and utilitarian structures
in the community that would be
in character with the area’s current
building stock — and “ideally
100% affordable housing.”
“The beautiful architecture
would remain and the new buildings
would not only remain in
scale, but also be much more
dedicated to affordable housing
for a much broader range of
people in need than the city’s
proposal,” Berman said.
Community activism, led by
journalist and advocate Jane Jacobs,
derailed Moses’ vision for
the Lower Manhattan Expressway
and gave SoHo a second chance.
In many respects, Berman sees
the photos LaGrassa provided to
Village Preservation as a new way
to help win over public opinion in
the debate over the SoHo-NoHo
rezoning.
“I think it’s important for
people to see the beauty of these
buildings and to recognize that
50 or so years ago, this battle
was previously waged, and we
almost made the wrong decision
then,” Berman said in a phone
interview on April 16. “Instead,
we can go a more thoughtful
route of preserving what’s there
and building in character of the
neighborhood. That’s something
we should be considering.”
To view more of the LaGrassa
archives, visit villagepreservation.
org.
80 and (r.) 74 Leonard St. The building on left has been
demolished.
14 April 22, 2021 Schneps Media