Narrow side streets are still paved in Belgian block under cast iron fronts, and Scorsese shot After Hours on them in the summer of 1984.
What SoHo looks like
runs from Canal Street to Houston Street with cast iron fronts on both sides, still paved in Belgian block. Wooster, Mercer and s look much the same. The buildings run five and six floors, with fire escapes across most fronts. Broadway is wider and takes most of the traffic.
Those fronts are cast iron, arched windows set between fluted columns and topped with heavy cornices. Most of the ironwork dates from 1840 to 1880 and is painted in pale grays, creams and beige. At Wooster and s a six floor front is red sandstone instead, round arches over a rusticated base.
The stands at Broadway and Broome Street, cast iron on both faces, arched windows rising five floors to a water tank on the roof. Farther along Broadway, the cream cast iron corner at 427 to 429 Broadway has a pediment over shops behind the columns.
Older buildings survive between the iron ones. are Federal rowhouses from 1819, two and a half brick floors with short stoops. At West Broadway and Broome Street a three floor house with a shingled dormer roof holds a bar, its sign painted across the front and pennants strung over the sidewalk tables.
A loft floor here is one open room, iron columns down the middle and windows nearly the height of the wall. Ground floors hold clothing stores and gallery entrances reached by short metal stoops, with squares of amber glass set into some walls below the windows.
Shot in SoHo
Martin Scorsese shot After Hours here in the summer of 1984, using several addresses on one block of Howard Street. One building supplied the exterior buzzer and its neighbor across the street supplied the long staircase inside.
After Hours, 1985
Played Kiki Bridges' loft, 1984
The cab drops Paul at Howard Street and Crosby Street with his last twenty dollars gone out of the window, and the door he rings is 28 Howard Street. A locations map made for the crew puts the long staircase at 27 Howard, across the street. He runs back down the same block past numbers 30 and 35 after two men load the sculpture into a van. According to the cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, the rain was crew members on the rooftops spraying the street with hoses, on a tight budget. Street View
What SoHo can double for
West Main Street in Louisville, Kentucky
West Main Street between Sixth and Ninth Streets holds the largest run of cast iron facades outside this one, arched windows and fluted columns on buildings that went up in the 1870s and 1880s. The street runs wider and flatter than these side blocks, with fewer fire escapes on the fronts, so a tighter frame holds the match better than a full block width. Try searching cast iron facades now.
Old Town Chinatown in Portland, Oregon
Old Town Chinatown has its own run of Victorian cast iron commercial buildings, arcaded ground floors under upper windows framed in iron and built between 1871 and 1914. The ironwork leans toward Romanesque arches rather than Renaissance Revival columns and the blocks run wider, so a close street level frame reads closer than a wide one. Try searching cast iron commercial buildings now.
The Strand's cast iron fronted brick buildings have arched storefronts and columns at street level, most of them dating from the 1870s and 1880s. The street is wider and flatter with no fire escapes on the fronts, so a shot holding much sidewalk or upper floor gives away the difference. Try searching cast iron storefronts now.
