A brief history of the area of Manhattan that is now called SoHo from Collect Pond in the 1700s through the present.

Ranney's thesis contains a wealth of background information about everyday life in SoHo, including this excerpt about elevator, doorbell, and dumpster etiquette (some of which has been covered in past posts but merits a revisit), as well as etiquette when interacting with SoHo's weekday population, the factory and warehouse workers.

SoHo is also known as the Cast-Iron Historic District, as it was designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in August 1973.  Ornate cast iron facades were originally used to spruce up pre-existing buildings, kind of like brickface and stucco, but was later used in new construction as well.