Soho, ou comment le «village» devint planétaire

Abstract

SoHo is certainly the most famous and most spectacular example of gentrification. In the international urban imagination it is this showcase in front of which many apprentice pioneers, and many apprentice speculators, stopped to boost the fantasy of their «successes» and their future careers. Others also, but with sharp and reproving looks, linger, but this time to hone the «critic's blade», to explain the disappearance of some through the success of the others, and denounce in this popular deprivation process the role played by a «social traitor» artist. The fact that this accusation brings to the narrator real symbolic status — he is seen to be more radical — is insufficient, however, to guarantee his truthfulness. This is what the author shows through close scrutiny of the demographic data available since the end of the war. In this respect, the lesson of Lower Manhattan and its evolution — and in spite of political incitement in terms of restoration — is that to host the professionals who flock to the south of the island it has been easier to house them in non-residential areas, or even to encroach into the sea (Battery Park), than to nibble away at pre-existing residential territories, especially if they were occupied by modest populations. Yet, if the gentrification story turns out to be inadequate, then it is the kingpin —the rent gap theory — which must be questioned. The author concentrates his criticism by showing that this economic model fails to take in the territorial dimension of residential settlements. However, to appreciate SoHo's evolution, it is necessary to leave not only the gentrification story but also its criticism : this still focuses attention on the phenomena of residential replacements, whilst it is due in fact to something quite different. SoHo is not only a «successful hobohemia», it is also an integral — and prosperous — part of the New York hypercenter. The question is, therefore, to know how the artistic professions could control to their advantage the «transition exit» from this "industrial slum". To the negative factors which explain this successful urban breakthrough by a territorial vacancy (no inhabitants already there) or also by indecision of the elite concerning investment strategies in the district, must be added a positive factor which is that of the identity content which this district will assume for a rising generation of artists. Very rapidly, and through vigorous urban struggles throughout the sixties, to value what they are and to value this district will be a single objective. Finally, in a last development, the author attempts to show that this urban breakthrough has, from the outset, taken the importance of a breakthrough in the cultural domain of contemporary art ; and that, as a result, the works of art from the «SoHo moment» bear the «physical» mark of the territory where these young artists tried to engrave their artistic pre-eminence : the history of contemporary art must include SoHo, and bears its mark.

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