Whose history is the city preserving?
Decriers of change across New York City’s neighborhoods miss few opportunities to underline the critical importance of preserving the history and character of each district, even when that preservation makes it harder for the city to evolve to meet New Yorkers’ current needs. The proposed SoHo/NoHo rezoning is no exception. The loudest voices are worried about keeping the history of SoHo and NoHo intact — but exactly whose history are they trying to preserve?
SoHo and NoHo are celebrated for their late-19th century loft and masonry buildings, rich arts and cultural history, cobblestone streets and distinct architectural styles. These are indeed features of the neighborhood from a snapshot in time. However, lost among the cries to maintain the aesthetics of the neighborhood — which are largely protected by historic preservation laws that will remain in place regardless of the zoning anyway — is the less-often-told history of SoHo/NoHo as a place where racial lines have been contested and drawn for centuries.
The conversation surrounding the neighborhood’s historic character and legacy has been completely missing the story of SoHo/ NoHo as the first enclave of emancipated Black people in the United States, and how the area has since displaced and excluded Black people for centuries.
In the 1620s, the Dutch West India Company enslaved 11 people of African descent and forcibly transported them to Manhattan to build the colony of New Amsterdam. In 1644, the group petitioned the company for emancipation and negotiated a status of “half-freedom,” achieving wages and the right to marry, own property, and testify in court. The group was also allocated several tracts of land to live on and farm — land that includes large swaths of the SoHo-Cast Iron and NoHo Historic Districts today.
SoHo/NoHo became known as the “Land of the Blacks,” as 130 acres of land in and around the area became owned and occupied by people who had been partially emancipated from the Dutch West India Company. While the arrangement of partial emancipation was still one that violated human rights, the ability to own and farm this land allowed the earliest Black New Yorkers a level of autonomy that was stripped from future generations.
When England took control of New Amsterdam in 1664, Black landowners were forced to give up their land, most of which was transferred to wealthy white landowners who maintained large estates in the area for the next hundred-plus years.
By the mid-19th-century, after the last of those estates had been parceled out and sold, the area had become home to growing numbers of working-class Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants, as well as the largest Black population in the city. In 1850, the Eighth Ward, roughly bound by Houston, Broadway, West Broadway and Canal accounted for 7% of the city’s population and 18% of Black New Yorkers. The blocks extending north of Spring St. to Washington Square became known as “Little Africa.”
As industrialization progressed, hundreds of Black families were once again stripped of their property in SoHo/NoHo — this time to make way for some of the very loft and masonry buildings that are celebrated and protected by historic preservation laws today. In 1870, the city decided to extend and widen West Broadway from Canal St. to Waverly Place. To facilitate the project, 127 properties along West Broadway were condemned and destroyed, displacing 700 predominantly Black residents in the process. Shortly afterwards, the Romanesque and Renaissance-revival lofts that fill SoHo today moved in and took their place.
Ever since, an effort to prioritize cast iron and cobblestones over equity and quality of life has been successful in creating one of the wealthiest and whitest districts in New York City. Historic district designations benefit homeowners by raising local property values and making it more difficult and expensive to build new housing. Historic districts in New York City have disproportionately benefited white, affluent neighborhoods — areas that grow even more expensive and less diverse after a designation is granted.
Throughout much of New York City’s history, historic designation and landmark preservation have been co-opted as tools to reinforce and justify exclusion and segregation. SoHo/NoHo is resource-rich, transit-dense and high-opportunity — but its opportunities have been kept under lock and key for the few New Yorkers who can afford to benefit.
The history that the opponents of the SoHo/NoHo rezoning are so eager to preserve is incomplete. It is a story of aesthetic value and architectural wonder that fails to acknowledge the displacement and racial inequity upon which those qualities are built. It is time to face the past — an honest and comprehensive recount of our history of racism, redlining and displacement — and move forward to create a city that works for everyone.