Historic Notes about Soho | Historic Notes about the Buildings
About Us
Ventilaire® Realty Corporation has been
located on Canal Street, the "Historic Cast Iron District", downtown
Soho, New York City, since 1947.
Residential:
Please e-mail us with any questions or comments
to rentals@canalspace.com
Commercial:
Please e-mail us with any questions or comments to rentals@canalspace.com
Historic
notes about the Soho-Cast Iron Historic District
Ventilaire®
Realty Corp. owns the premises located at 313-315 Canal St., and One Mercer
Street New York, N.Y. in the southern end of the Soho-Cast Iron Historic District.
This twenty-five square-block district was designated
a historic district by the Landmark Preservation Commission on August
14, 1973. The Soho-Cast Iron Historic District in lower Manhattan is nearly
rectangular in shape and is bonded by Canal Street, Broadway, Howard Street,
Crosby Street, East Houston Street, West Houston Street and West Broadway.
It consists of 26 city blocks and contains about 500 buildings.
The hyphenated name, “Soho-Cast Iron” was chosen in order to suggest some of the diversity of the area. The “Cast Iron” portion of the name refers to the unique collection of cast-iron structures located within the District. “Soho,” meaning “South of Houston” is the acronym adopted by a group of artists who moved into the neighborhood in the 1960’s. They have given it a new life, making feasible the preservation of an irreplaceable part of our cultural heritage. The double name also suggests that, even architecturally, the District contains more than just cast-iron buildings, important though they are. Indeed, the District contains some of the City’s most architecturally interesting extant examples of brick, stone and mixed iron-and-masonry commercial construction of the post-Civil War period.
The earliest extant buildings within the Historic District date back to the first decade of the 19th century when the area was exclusively residential. By mid-century, most of the early houses had either been replaced or converted for commercial purposes, but there remain today over thirty identifiable Federal period buildings within the District boundaries.
see more historic notes on the area
Historic
notes about the Buildings
Number 313-315 Canal Street is a four-story building with a brick
facade having three windows per story, topped by stone lintels. Originally
a Federal-era house, it was completed about 1821 for Isaac Lawrence and consisted
of three stories plus a peaked attic with a dormer window. The brick laid
in Flemish bond at the second and third stories is original to the building.
After a fire in 1877, the attic was removed and replaced by an additional
brick story, following the design of the stories below, and a bracketed cast-iron
cornice was added. It is likely that a storefront was installed at the time
of the attic alteration, in conjunction with the conversion of the building
for commercial use.
Number 313-315 dates from the earliest period of development in the historic district when the area was a thriving residential neighborhood. Today it survives as one of a rare extant group of eight Federal-era buildings (six built for Isaac Lawrence) on the north side of Canal Street between Mercer and Greene Streets. Roughly thirty buildings in the district remain from this period.
As commercial interests spread into the area beginning the mid-nineteenth century, most of the houses were demolished and replaced by larger buildings. This house, however, was enlarged to accommodate new houses. Thus, while the building still retains the overall design and proportion of a Federal house and much of that original exterior fabric survives, it also represents the important commercial transformation that occurred in the historic district.
In the year of 2005, a restoration was undertaken. The rebuilding of the brick walls using authentic 200 year old clay brick. The interior has had the floors and roof removed and replaced by the highest quality steel beams and columns supporting steel reinforced concrete for sound and vibration suppression. State of the art plumbing and electrical systems have been installed. Efficient gas heat, central A/C and the multi-pane windows that are designed to optimize the sound and thermal insulation, are a few of the features to insure the most pleasant experience for those tenants who chose to dwell in the crux of one of the most interesting areas that Manhattan Island has to offer.
Contact us:
Ventilaire®
Realty Co.
PO Box 692
New York, New York 10013
fax: 212-941-1796
email: rentals@canalspace.com