At the high-profile corner of Broadway and East Houston Street, 606 Broadway will mend a blighted tear in the urban streetscape by transforming an underutilized site into a symbolic gateway to SoHo. The wedge-shaped lot had been left vacant since the 1930s when existing buildings were razed to lay trolley tracks along Houston Street. S9 Architecture developed an innovative design for the site that leverages its prominent location and unique spatial challenges to invigorate the area’s architectural landscape. The six-story, mixed-use building will bring 34,000 sf of prominently-positioned retail and office space to this destination shopping district, and will serve as a new icon of SoHo, enriching the neighborhood’s character by linking its past and future.

606 Broadway is designed around the concept of the ‘slice,’ a dynamic architectural gesture that highlights how cycles of demolition and development sculpt the urban grid. The glass curtain wall of the 200-foot East Houston Street façade exposes the articulation of the building’s inner members to suggest where the widening of East Houston Street once sheared away a portion of the original lot. A multi-floor atrium activates the narrow end of the wedge where East Houston meets Broadway, replacing the blind sidewall of the current site with a high-impact branding opportunity for the anchor retail tenant.

Sited within a landmarked district, 606 Broadway pays homage to the details, textures, and proportions of the surrounding 19th century buildings. The sliced East Houston Street façade is punctuated at intervals by recessed frit glass and aluminum window bays that reference the setback windows of the neighborhood’s cast iron façades. The Crosby Street façade blends in with the adjoining historic buildings by adopting a contemporary take on the architectural details that give this neighborhood its distinctive appearance.