NOHO Historic District

Borough and State: Manhattan, New York

Listed: 1999, expanded in 2008

Type of district: certified local historic district

Main Intersection: Broadway and West 4th Street

Reports: Historic District Designation Report andHistoric District Extension Report

Maps: Historic District Map and Historic District Extension Map

NoHo Historic District, New York, NY

The NoHo Historic District consists of approximately 125 buildings representing the period of New York’s commercial history from the early 1850s to the 1910s, when the area prospered as a major retail and wholesale dry goods center. Merchants and developers commissioned builders and architects acclaimed for their commercial designs to produce store and loft buildings that were lavish enough to impress customers and tenants, yet practical enough to enable easy handling of goods. Elaborate ornaments and a variety of materials provided a rich-built fabric against which shoppers promenaded, looked at window displays, and bought goods. Typically, the façades feature cast-iron or stone storefronts supporting stone, brick, cast-iron, or terra-cotta walls, pierced by regularly placed window openings and crowned by metal cornices.

The earliest store and loft buildings resemble the Italianate exterior of the influential A.T. Stewart Store, while the later buildings display a wide variety of popular architectural styles, such as Queen Anne, Neoclassical, and the Greek, Romanesque, Renaissance, and Colonial revivals. The historic district also contains early 19th century houses of varying integrity, 19th and 20th century institutional buildings, turn-of-the-century office buildings, as well as more modest 20th century commercial structures, all of which testify to each successive phase in the development of the historic district.