soho ten years ago?

[Guest dontcaretoomuchforcrap]

what was soho like ten years ago?

[gentleman]

it was a lot of more built around art and design. not really much in the way of men's clothing stores aside from what was on broadway. a bunch of teenagers and tourists beginning to trickle in from chinatown.

rocks in your head and kim's underground were the major hubs for music. the stussy shop on prince was pretty popular...so was john fleuvog next door. there were still the designer shops on greene and mercer, etc...such as apc, helmut lang but they weren't catering to younger kids at all.

what i remember really changing the area was the opening of j. crew on prince...very white bread store in the heart of everything made people comfortable shopping there. mercer hotel also opened things up a bit.

now, as some bar owner recently said, "soho is now just an east coast version of LA."

[darkanimal]

I remember the Nana store. Great boots, shoes store on Prince

[djrajio]

Toronthoe. Relax. dontcare has always been like this. Actually, he's one of the few people that ask the questions that I think a lot of people want to ask but are afraid to. I lived in NYC for three months and only know of the Soho now, so I'm actually interested in the history myself.

[djrajio]

Toronthoe. Relax. dontcare has always been like this. Actually, he's one of the few people that ask the questions that I think a lot of people want to ask but are afraid to. I lived in NYC for three months and only know of the Soho now, so I'm actually interested in the history myself.

[sybaritical]

Yeah. Shit the bed, Toronthoe. Give dontcare a break. Boy is freaking fearless. (5)

[witts]

Quote:

the same as it is now you moron now shut up! good god you're the most annoying person in the world. Fucking read a book you snot.

Edited by Toronthoe on Dec 1, 2005 at 03:54 PM

--- Original message by Toronthoe on Dec 1, 2005 03:45 PM

ignore this fool. 14 posts.

[gentleman]

ill also add that everything was a lot more spread out...very little concentration of stores. i remember walking 8x around the entire village from chinatown to soho to the LES to the east village to the west village to union square.

you'd hear of a store like alife or recon opening and you'd walk all the way east to check it out and then check out some thrift store on ave a and 12th street...and you wouldn't think twice about it...not even in february...

antique boutique was the first store i remember going to...back in like 92-93...and then when they added new designer stuff like nova or mandarin duck, it was the best men's shop in the village...especially when they had a sale and i scraped together some money.

there werent many places to hang out in soho per se. there were a few clubs like spy bar and stuff but it was still the hot places back then...not for young kids.

ah, the good old days.

[djrajio]

Question gentleman. Why do you think so many niche brands and boutique found their way to SoHo as opposed to other areas of Manhattan? Was it just coincidence or was their a general trend? Do you still think that the area still has any influence or is it too "commercialized" or mass-tige? I'm curious because I had a love/hate relationship with the area. One one hand you have great stores like Atelier and Seven doing their thing, but more and more I'm finding that you have to go out to say Rivington/East Village and even Brooklyn to get the more up-and-coming boutiques like Odin, FF, etc...

[gentleman]

niche brands came to soho because regardless of its ties to art in the 60s to the 80s, it was still rife with cash. same thing with the west village...both areas were the first to get the chain stores and designer shops...not the lower east side. despite the income profile change of the people in the area, the east village to this day doesnt have any major chain stores east of 2nd ave. aside from maybe starbucks.

in the defense of the 'old days,' any new designer or store back then would have tons of hurdles trying to make that rent check and stay in business but now its just out of reach completely. you still see what are perceived to be 'successful stores' closing down in the east village or soho cuz they cant afford the rent.

all across the city, the landlords and real estate developers are killing all chances for independent stores to survive. i have a distant relative that had a bakery in the west village for 40 years but had to close because they raised the rent just too much. so some new shop comes in paying obscene rent, closes in 6 months and the landlord does it over again.

but this thread isnt about rent...but they have killed what was great about nyc...just take a look at the new crap bars opening in the LES...not the small, mom and pop places that there used to be.

[Ryan]

omgz i have more posts than you i win at the internets!!111