As a tourist, I’m a sucker for Soho: cobbled streets, old industrial building, a place to buy braces (If); it’s got everything:-
As a tourist, I’m a sucker for Soho: cobbled streets, old industrial building, a place to buy braces (If); it’s got everything:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Many of these façades are manufactured cast iron, purchased from catalogues (I’ll have twelve of the #486 Corinthian capitals, Harry…”) then bolted and screwed together on site. As the buildings become familiar, you’ll recognize the same two-story arched front on at least three different addresses. Many of the foundries were up in the Bronx and the pieces brought downtown in carts and bolted on to the structures. Outside of New York City, the largest collection of cast-iron buildings is in Louisville, Kentucky, of all places, and I lived on one such building for many years. Here and there in New York, one can see the manufacturer’s label on the façade and I’ve noticed ‘Snead Iron Works, Louisville Ky” on a couple of them.
Dear Richard, Really interesting. I must look more carefully. Charles