Since the mid-1960s, SoHo , the grid of streets that runs So uth of Ho uston Street, has meant art. As the West Village increased in price and declined in hipness, artists moved into the loft spaces and cheap-rental studios. Galleries were established, quickly attracting the city's art crowd, as well as trendy clothes shops and some of the city's best restaurants. Gentrification soon followed. What remains is a mix of chichi antique shops, often overpriced art and chain clothiers from around the world - in other words, earthy industry and high living.

Yet although SoHo now carries the veneer of the establishment - a loft in the area means money (and lots of it) - no amount of gloss can cover up SoHo's quintessential appearance, its dark alleys of paint-peeled former garment factories fronted by some of the best cast-iron facades in the country. Nowadays, few artists or experimental galleries are left in the area: the late-1980s art boom drove up rents, and only the more established or consciously "commercial" galleries can afford to stay. Yet still, in many ways, SoHo is a place to see and be seen.

Houston Street (pronounced How ston rather than Hew ston) marks the top of SoHo's trellis of streets, any exploration of which entails crisscrossing and doubling back. Greene Street is a great place to start, highlighted all along by the nineteenth-century cast-iron facades that, in part if not in whole, saved SoHo from the bulldozers. Prince Street, Spring Street and West Broadway hold the best selection of shops and galleries in the area. Take the #N or #R trains to Prince Street or the #6 to Spring Street.

SoHo

• SoHo
• SoHo's Cast-iron architecture

Explore SoHo

• Guggenheim Museum SoHo
• Museum for African Art
• New Museum of Contemporary Art
• Prince Street
• South of Prince to Canal Street

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