The SoHo Cooperative Playgroup (or just SoHo Playgroup) was a child’s paradise—if you were a free-spirited kid who did not mind a little grime and was okay with periodic flooding. Not overseen by any institution, not regulated by any department, it embodied the best of SoHo’s DIY spirit. Makeshift everything— furniture, rugs, toys—brought out the creative spirit inside each of us children that was nurtured by a caring teacher and parent volunteers.
Zoe, a Playgroup graduate, recalls that “for some reason there were two stacks of mattresses at one point. We would jump from the taller pile to the shorter pile.” Despite the head-splitting concrete floors, she lived to tell the tale, bedbug free.
Located on Prince Street at Wooster, underneath the restaurant FOOD, a teacher, assisted by a rotating cast of parent volunteers, looked after us kids while the off-duty parents had time to make art and whatever else grownups did back then in SoHo.
I reached out to SoHo Playgroup alums, parents, and Cynthia, our fearless teacher, and I’ve gathered some of their recollections below. That I am still in touch with all of them (we even have reunions!) says something about the tight community that formed in a dark, damp SoHo basement space where magic happened.
THE TEACHER
CYNTHIA:
I had been working at the Dalton School as an assistant teacher when I learned that the SoHo Playgroup was looking for a teacher. I was interviewed by a group of parents, mostly mothers, and soon hired. I went from working in a nursery school where children arrived in limousines to a parent cooperative preschool where I was the teacher assisted by two parents, usually mothers, for four hours each weekday. I was paid fifty dollars in cash each week, enough to support myself and pay for my rent-controlled apartment in the West Village.
The playgroup space was unusual. After walking down a long basement hallway, then passing the sink and bathroom toilet, we entered the large room, which was like many of the Soho lofts, unfinished and thrown together. There were packing mats used as rugs, interactive toys, places to cuddle, and tables for crafts and activities. Today, and probably even then, it would not be legal or safety approved. Soho in the 1970’s was not yet the pricey neighborhood it is now.
There were endless supplies that we found, discarded on the sidewalk by businesses in the nearby loft buildings, and used each day for arts and crafts activities. I remember kneading large mounds of playdough from flour, water, and food coloring and using stuffed paper bags to make turkeys for Thanksgiving or bunnies for Easter. There was always pasting, drawing, painting on easels and messy finger painting, story time, and singing so many songs – open shut them, the wheels on the bus, doctor knickerbocker, monkeys on the bed. There was a playground nearby that we regularly frequented.
I had worked in several day care programs before I returned to graduate school and became a psychotherapist. Soho Playgroup was the only one that was a caring extension of family and neighborhood, affordable, and unconventional. I loved that job and the sweet kids I got to be with.
A PARENT
FUSAKO:
In August 1969, the celebratory parade for the Apollo 11 moon landing passed just below my window. Holding my four-month-old daughter, I looked out from the sixth-floor window saying, “Look—there’s Mr. Armstrong of Apollo 11.” Confetti streamed from every window in celebration. It was just like the scenes I had seen in newsreels.
I had been in the United States for two and a half years, and everything still felt new. At that time, living in lofts converted from warehouses had not yet been legalized. As the area began to be called SoHo, movements started to improve the living environment for loft residents.
When my daughter turned three, I received an invitation to join the SoHo Cooperative Playgroup. By then I was in my fifth year of learning conversational English, and I immediately replied that I wanted to participate.
Three parents would take turns over five days, each serving once a week. Fifteen families formed the core group and established the nursery. Someone offered the use of a basement room on Prince Street free of charge. The floor was finished with linoleum and the walls painted white, creating a bright space.
Cleaning was managed through a rotating schedule. Tables, chairs, toys, and picture books were all brought from home. Cynthia was hired as the teacher. Every day from nine to noon she spent time with the children and planned activities for the week to keep them engaged.
Lunch was prepared by the parents on duty. The three parents would divide the task of bringing ham, cheese, vegetables, fruit, bread, and drinks. In the afternoon the children were split into small groups and went to different homes for naps.
Each family contributed forty dollars to pay Cynthia’s salary. At the time, I thought it was rather hip to live in a way that did not rely on the local government.
One family once had their babysitter perform their duty shift. Serious opinions were voiced: “Can someone else truly take on a parent’s responsibility?” “Wouldn’t that undermine the foundation of this group?”
Through these discussions I felt I learned not only English conversation, but also a sincere way of looking at and thinking about things. The cohesion of this community felt almost like that of a family.
Four Haiku About SoHo Playgroup
Snow boots chirping—
children laughing
in the little theater.After leaving the child in care,
I transform quickly—
sunglasses on.With the children in the sandbox,
summer arrives.Summer with the children—
to the Calder mobile exhibition.–Fusako
THE CHILDREN
The memories of the SoHo Playgroup “kids,” who are now pushing 60, are fragmented at best, small disjointed flashes from when they were two, three, four years old.
ZOE:
I remember a long, low table that we all sat at for eating and drawing etc.
I remember playing in a large empty lot that later became NYU buildings. First, the Coles center, and now whatever it is. I would draw a birds-eye outline house and draw a bed and lie in it. So much of what we did required great stretches of imagination since most of our play things were found objects.
I recall our teacher Cynthia and that each day was a different parent. Some parents were less flexible than others but everyone was like an extended family.
YUKIE:
I remember that, since we were in the basement, we would have floods every once in a while. The children would all have to stand up against the wall while the parents tried to clean away the water and dry out our “rugs.” We used moving blankets as rugs, and for the longest time, whenever I saw anyone moving, I always wondered why they covered all their furniture with rugs.
I also remember Havarti cheese. The parents of the day would be responsible for bringing in the snack of the day, and often it was purchased at THE CHEESE STORE, Giorgio Deluca’s cheese shop at 120 Prince Street. Giorgio Deluca, went on to open Dean & Deluca, the gourmet food store. My mother, who was pretty new to New York and the U.S., didn’t know what to buy, and one day she saw that another mom had brought in Havarti cheese, so she bought that too from then on. I ate A LOT of Havarti cheese back in those days
LUCIEN:
I remember walking down the steep black stairs from the sidewalk and entering the dim basement under FOOD—lit, as I recall, mostly by a few bare bulbs.
I think it was Tuesdays when the food co-op was happening. At the bottom of the steps, to the left, there were crates of vegetables. I remember each family sending one representative (not much space down there) being allowed to pick a certain number of each type of vegetable. One time I was dropped off with my friend Ian O’Connell and his mother Jill for the playgroup, which was in the back room past the vegetables. I remember seeing my mother working the co-op, helping people find their rations and checking off their names off a handwritten list.
Sometimes my mother would take us upstairs to the restaurant, FOOD. I loved the soup—at least the ones without onions, since I was a picky kid. We would slide our trays along the cafeteria rails and ask for items over the counter. I also remember a very dense bread that I loved dipping into the soup.
MIMI:
I loved the SoHo playgroup. I remember always being surrounded by friends and playing at each other’s houses (excuse me, I mean lofts.) Things like peanut butter, graham crackers and apple juice come to mind. I don’t have any strong memories, but I know I had a good time.
One thing I remember is that at the playground we climbed all over this enormous wooden climbing thing that was rotting and had a weird smell and it was really splintery. This new generation seems so sanitized. We got dirty, and now my immune system is iron clad.
After “graduating” from SoHo Playgroup at age 4, many of us went on to attend P.S.3 in Greenwich Village, as SoHo did not have any schools of its own. Founded by charrette, in the same cooperative spirit as the playgroup, one of P.S.3’s stated education goals was that teachers recognize that a child needs to and can “discover his soul.” Education in New York City sure has evolved since those soul-discovering days of the early 1970s!