From Publishers Weekly May 5, 2003 SOHO: The Rise and Fall of an

Artists' Colony Richard Kostelanetz. Routledge, $24.95 (256p) ISBN

0-4159-6572-1

The transformation of a few Manhattan blocks South of Houston into an

epicenter of contemporary art during the '60's and '70's is the subject of

artist, critic and anthologist Kostelanetz's brisk memoir, rich in vivid street-level

detail and evoking a time that now looks like something of a golden age. While

forgivably nostalgic, Kostelanetz (Crimes of Culture) is otherwise evenhanded

and thorough, describing not only the multifarious activities in which he was

involved but through them the lives and work of such luminaries as theatrical

conceptualists Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman, photographers Hanna Wilke

and Cindy Sherman, "protean polyartist" Meredith Monk and musicians Philip

Glass and Sonic Youth, to name but a few. But the book's major contribution is

its meticulous recounting of the unprecedented confluence of gray-area zoning

and occupancy laws coupled with sheer pioneering spirit that led to the area's

development in the first place. Without government assistance and for years

flying under the radar of rapacious developers and without displacing a resident

population, for there was none, hardy souls like Kostelanetz and Twyla Tharp

stealthily moved into the vast lofts above garment warehouses in search of

creative space, quite unaware of revolution in urban style they were creating.

Photographs, notes and an extensive bibliography fill things out terrifically.

Like the neighborhood it describes, Kostelanetz's cheerfully episodic book is

full of odd corners, secret alleys and sudden vistas. (June) Forecast: This

will be the summer's nostalgic beach read for anyone even remotely involved

with the international art world. Following that spike, look for long-term sales

on campus and as a steady history lesson for young artists. Long-term overseas

sales should be even better.

Library Journal Reviews June 1, 2003

Long before being featured on tourist maps and before upscale retail

establishments such as Prada gained a foothold, New York City's SoHo was a

pioneering artists' enclave, its grim industrial buildings offering spacious,

decently priced working and living quarters for a whole wave of the

avant-garde. Artist and author Kostelanetz writes with firsthand knowledge of

the place and its people, tracing SoHo from its heyday as an eclectic center of

artistic expression in the 1970s to its discovery by the mainstream and

subsequent transformation into the pricey world of chic. The chapters that focus on Nam

June Paik, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, and other such pivotal figures offer

the book's best insights into the essence of the SoHo phenomenon. However,

there is plenty of detailed description throughout about everything from

startling sculpture and performance art and the design of offbeat lofts (including the

author's own space, called Wordship) to the complicated mechanics of funding

and the protocol of garbage scavenging. Of particular interest to artists and

New York City buffs, this savvy little history should also be appealing to

those intrigued by the sociology of counterculture and the traditions of

avant-garde art. For circulating libraries. - Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

From NEW YORK MAGAZINE (June 17 2003): In print

SoHo: The Rise and Fall of an Artists' Colony "It was right in the middle of

the city, in an area nobody thought had any potential," says Richard

Kostelanetz. "Soho was off the map." It was 1974, and the timing couldn't have

been better for Kostelanetz, who fled grad school at Columbia (after flunking his

pre-orals) and settled in a Wooster Street loft. Soho benefited, too, as

Kostelanetz was "probably the only trained historian in this neighborhood, for

better or worse." The artist and critic pays homage in SoHo: The Rise and Fall of an

Artists' Colony (Routledge; $24.95), just as the area considers dropping even

the pretense of restricting residency to artists. A m[1]lange of personal

recollections, cultural history, and brief bios of artist pioneers (Richard

Foreman, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass), SoHo is as eccentric and loosely associative as

its writer, and the neighborhood itself. "Soho wasn't planned," says

Kostelanetz, and as for all the history in the book, "I did it from memory,

really. I believe very strongly that memory is a taste machine." Either way, he needn't

have left his apartment, as it contains 20,000 books, which is the main reason

he's moving out, to take more spacious digs in the Rockaways. (The loft is on

the market for $1 million.) "It's become real problematic," he confesses.

"I've stopped being able to find things. But I do believe it's important for

artists to come together. It just can't be done here. Young artists in Jersey

City now wish they were in Brooklyn. Nobody wishes they were in Soho, because

Artists' Soho is gone."--Boris Kachka