(Re)branding the Flon identity: A Swiss Youth Embassy_Flon ... - EPFL

SoHo, NYC
SoHo, the name itself, comes from its geographical situation which New York has called, “SOuth of HOuston
Street”. In the colonial times, this district was originally residential, eventually becoming a very elegant
place to live, attracting even larger commercial enterprises and creating a boom in urban development.
After the civil war, however, a faster pace of live moved in, leaving way to the industrial and commercial era,
full of import/export houses, trucking companies, wholesale houses, and such industrial era structures giving
it the nickname of the “Cast Iron district”.
In the mid 1900’s, the city of New York published a report declaring the area of SoHo a underutilized “comercial
wastleland”, and adopted plans to run connections to the Lower Manhattan Expressway right through
the district, which would, in effect, drive merchants and artists out of the area. This area had become up to
that time, an area popular to artists of the time due to the buildings that offered large, open spaces ideal for
studio work that were affordable to rent. Strong opposition emerged against the highway plan, and thanks
to a movement in the late 1960’s, the proposal was rejected.
The 1960’s was also a time in SoHo that, thanks to artists such as Frank Stella and Richard Serra with their
bohemian art movements, brought vitality back to SoHo. Since 1971, in fact, the city adopted a zoning resolution
allowing joint living-working quarters for aritists certified by the Department of Cultural Affairs. From
then on, it was legal to live in SoHo if one person in the household was a certified “artist”:
By 1976, another amendment increased the number of buildings that could be converted to residential use.
“Almost everyone in SoHo lives there illegally,” said Suzanne O’Keefe, executive director of the SoHo Loft
Board. In 1978, the city produced comprehensive figures, in which 92% of all loft residents were illegal tenants.
Yet, with the new housing regulation changes, and a certain “inobservance” of the law, SoHo began to become
the chic district it is known to be today.
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