SOHO cast iron historic district NY

If not for someone drawing my attention to The Soho Experience: What Is There to Do?, I would never have know about the existence of the SOHO cast iron historic district in New York.

Cast iron? A district full of factories producing cast iron products or workshops turning out cast iron sculptures? No, neither. It is a roughly rectangular district in New York comprising 26 blocks and about 500 buildings bounded by West Houston on the north, Crosby Street on the east, Canal Street on the south and West Broadway on the west. The name SoHo is an abbreviation of South of Houston.

Location map of SOHO

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The reason why it is called the Cast Iron District many buildings incorporated cast iron architectural elements into its buildings. Here is a photo from Wikipedia:

Source: Wikipedia: SoHo Cast Iron Historic District

Here is a photo of the cast iron roving bridge at Rotton Park Junction (fabricated by Thomas Asbury & Co, Smethwick):

Photo of cast iron roving bridge courtesy of Ted and Jen

And a photo of a cast iron stairs in SOHO

Photo of cast iron stairs courtesy of Julia Manzerova

Here are more photos from Flickr using the Creative Commons copyright license:

Photo of "The Queen of Greene Street" courtesy of Michael

Photo of E.V. Haughwout Building courtesy of Michael

Photo of SOHO cast iron buildings courtesy of John Weiss