The Müuse Atlas / United States / New York / New York City

Filming in SoHo, Manhattan

The side streets are narrow and still paved in Belgian block. Scorsese shot After Hours on them in the summer of 1984.

Greene Street looking down the block, cast iron fronts with fluted columns on the sunlit side and long fire escapes on the shaded side, cars parked the whole length of both curbs.

What SoHo looks like

Most of SoHo's side streets are still paved in Belgian block. runs from Canal Street up to Houston Street with cast iron on both sides. , Mercer Street and are much the same. The buildings go up five and six floors, with fire escapes across the fronts. Broadway is wider and takes most of the traffic.

Those fronts are cast iron, which cost less than stone. Builders bolted them onto stores and warehouses from 1840 to 1880. The ornament came from molds used again on the next building, and a broken piece could be recast. It was painted beige to pass for stone. The SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, designated in 1973, covers 26 blocks and about 500 buildings.

The is at Broadway and , with cast iron on both faces. Elisha Otis installed the first successful passenger elevator in it in 1857. The store sold china and chandeliers over five floors and did not need one. He put it in because people would come to ride it.

Older buildings survive between the iron ones. are Federal rowhouses from 1819. At and Broome there is a three floor house with a bar in it.

Artists moved into the empty manufacturing floors in the 1960s for the ceilings and windows. The city legalized it in 1971 for certified artists in lofts under 3,600 square feet. A loft floor here is one open room with iron columns down the middle and windows the height of the wall.

Films shot in SoHo

Martin Scorsese shot After Hours here in the summer of 1984, and one block of Howard Street does most of the work.

After Hours, 1985

Narrow fronts on Howard Street between Crosby Street and Broadway, with iron balconies and a fire escape running down the middle of one of them and a shopfront at street level.
Howard Street looking west from Crosby Street. Street View

The cab drops Paul at Howard Street and 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, because the budget was tight.

What SoHo can double for

SoHo can stand in for 1980s downtown New York, an artist's loft building and a nineteenth century shopping street.

Areas like SoHo

Tribecathe Flatiron DistrictDUMBO

Look

Warehouse and loft blocksMarket streets

“a narrow lower Manhattan street of painted cast iron fronts with fire escapes across them”

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