ABSTRACT
Preservation was central to the redevelopment of New York’s SoHo. Planners argued SoHo should be saved from urban renewal to preserve industrial jobs. Artists worked to legalize live-work lofts to preserve their creative community. The demand for residential lofts enabled the creation of the SoHo-Cast-Iron Historic District in 1973. The rising popularity of SoHo pushed artists, unions, and politicians to try to preserve the affordability of loft districts. SoHo proved industrial structures could be adaptively reused on a wide scale. Yet while preservation helped protect historic architecture in SoHo, it failed to protect affordability or the mixed-use character of the area.
