NoHo, Manhattan

NoHo, short for "North of Houston Street" (as contrasted with SoHo), is a primarily residential neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

In 1748, Jacob Sperry, a physician from Switzerland, created the city's first botanical garden near the current intersection of Lafayette Street and Astor Place.

At the time, it was located about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the developed portion of the city and served as a vacation stop for people from present-day downtown.

[8] Therefore, in 1826, after Delacroix's lease expired, Astor carved out an upper-class neighborhood from the site with Lafayette Street bisecting eastern gardens from western homes.

Editor and poet William Cullen Bryant and inventor and entrepreneur Isaac Singer lived in the neighborhood in the 1880s.

[12] The demolition of upper-class buildings continued, and by 1902, the southernmost five mansions on Colonnade Row were demolished for the Wanamaker's Department Store annex.

21 Bleecker Street's entrance now bears the lettering "Florence Night Mission," described by the New York Times in 1883 as "a row of houses of the lowest character".

It attempted to reform prostitutes and unwed pregnant women through the creation of establishments where they were to live and learn skills.

Bleecker Street was the home of Sanger's original Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, operated from another building from 1930 to 1973.

From its designation report: The NoHo Historic District, which comprises approximately 125 buildings, represents the period of New York City's commercial history from the early 1850s to the 1910s, when this section prospered as one of its major retail and wholesale dry goods centers.

Acclaimed architects were commissioned to design ornate store and loft buildings in popular architectural styles, providing a rich fabric against which shoppers promenaded, looked at display windows, and bought goods, and merchants sold products.

Today, the effect is of powerful and unifying streetscapes of marble, cast iron, limestone, brick, and terracotta facades.

It includes 56 buildings and a mid-block parking lot to the south and east of the existing Noho Historic District.

Despite the fragility of the structure, in April 2014 the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission approved construction of an eight-story hotel immediately next door.

Since NoHo is primarily made up of loft apartments, this in turn makes it one of the most expensive and desirable neighborhoods in Manhattan.

The block also houses the Planned Parenthood headquarters at the Margaret Sanger Square, adjacent to a Catholic event center.