TRAVELING IN STYLE : THE PAINTED WORLD : SoHo, the Epitome of New York Hip, Is Art Dealers and Trendy Shops and Restaurants. It’s Also Poetic Cast-Iron Buildings and the Heroically Frayed Edges of a Genuine Neighborhood.

I saw the sun rise over SoHo one morning, and I wasn’t particularly happy about it. I mean, I’m always glad to see the sun come up, considering the alternative, but I was way down here in lower Manhattan at daybreak, under professional duress. I’d been working late. Real late. Then, before I knew it, dawn was breaking.

My office looks down on SoHo from the seventh floor. In Midtown, that would probably give me a view of other seventh-story windows. But SoHo has no view-blocking skyscrapers, and the vistas are broad--a bird’s-eye landscape of rooftops, Edward Hopperish water towers, the ornate upper fringes of the facades of buildings and the occasional faded remnants of advertising signs painted on pitted brick, with the towers of the World Trade Center and the mammonist monoliths of Wall Street to the south.

I looked down on the quiet streets, faintly glistening in the autumn dampness, and thought how modest and old-fashioned SoHo looks at this time of day. Since SoHo is, as you may or may not know, a veritable hotbed of hip--both a cradle-cum-display case for the contemporary arts and a lodestone for the kind of too-cool, don’t-call-us-yuppie New Yorkers who prefer Anna Sui to Eddie Bauer (though both have stores in SoHo)--I found this momentary apparent innocence almost touching. Then a witchy-haired woman wearing a leather aviator’s jacket over a gossamer pink nightgown came around the corner walking a borzoi, and I remembered where I was.

By that time, the sky had turned from rose to faint yellow and then to a gas-flame watercolor of darker yellow and two shades of blue. I walked over to Newsbar on West Broadway, where I perched on a stool surrounded by racks of magazines and had a large espresso and a cranberry muffin as rich and sweet as Christmas cake.

SoHo is an extended neighborhood in lower Manhattan, approximately rectangular in shape and covering somewhere between 30 and 45 blocks, depending on where you draw its boundaries. The northernmost border is, by definition, Houston Street (pronounced HOUSE-ton, for reasons I’ve never heard convincingly explained). The name SoHo is an acronymic abbreviation for “south of Houston.” Its southern border, Canal Street, is equally unequivocal, because if you cross that broad boulevard you’ll find yourself in the area once called Washington Market but today known to trendy urbanites everywhere as TriBeCa, for “triangle below Canal.”

It’s on the west and east that things get confusing. In the former direction, SoHo extends to Sullivan Street, MacDougal Street or Avenue of the Americas (which New Yorkers still call by its old name, Sixth Avenue), depending on who’s counting; on the other side, the line is drawn at Broadway, Crosby Street or Lafayette Street. However its boundaries are defined, there is no question that SoHo is its own place, a distinct part of this distinctive city, with its own atmosphere and sensibility and pace of life. It is one of the few Manhattan neighborhoods that really holds together as a neighborhood, and can be enjoyed as one.

In order to enjoy it, though, you’ve got to be in something of a New York state of mind. Do not, in other words, expect theme-park perfection. SoHo is not Ghirardelli Square or Old Town Pasadena. It has not been whitewashed or scrubbed down or subjected to the stylistic diktats of some local merchants’ association so that all the signage matches. SoHo developed organically, and its seams and blemishes still show. There is good design and smart merchandise and trendy food aplenty here; there are also boarded-up storefronts emblazoned with graffiti and grungy loading docks and rusting scaffolding. There are seedy-looking neighborhood tobacco shops and tiny Korean laundries reeking of carbon tetrachloride and street vendors selling junky jewelry and knockoff baseball caps. New Yorkers wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s what makes their hipness genuine, or so they think. And it’s what makes SoHo real.

In the 17th Century--when what there was of New York proper was huddled down at the tip of Manhattan Island, and Greenwich Village really was a village--what is now SoHo was occupied by the Manhattan Indians. The Dutch built their famous wall, for which Wall Street is named, in part to protect themselves against these prototypical SoHo-ites. Later, farms and large estates grew up in the area, sprawling around a marshy patch of land known as Lispenard Swamp.

The swamp was drained in the early 19th Century--by means of a ditch dug along what is now Canal Street (never the site of an actual canal)--and urban development arrived. Houses and stores sprang up; roads were neatened into streets; fields were smoothed into city blocks. By the Civil War, the area had become the geographic and social center of the city.

When fashionable New York moved uptown in the late 1800s, the shops and houses gave way to warehouses, small factories and sweatshops. Someone dubbed the neighborhood Hell’s Hundred Acres, because of the fires that broke out regularly from industrial furnaces. By the 1950s, even the factories and warehouses started to move out, spooked by city plans to run the Lower Manhattan Elevated Expressway right down Broome Street, through the heart of the neighborhood. (The expressway, mercifully, was never built.)

In the long run, the flight of industry was beneficial. There had been artists in SoHo as early as the 1940s. In the 1960s, creative types flocked to the neighborhood, drawn by its big, empty, light-flooded lofts and low rents. It was around this time that somebody coined the name “SoHo,” in unmistakable reference to the bohemian quarter of Soho in London. The fact that SoHo was not zoned for residential use--that living in its lofts was illegal--only seemed to add to the area’s appeal. More than one artist has suggested that the law promulgated by Mayor John Lindsay in 1971 to legalize joint living and working space in SoHo was the beginning of the end for the neighborhood as a genuine artists’ quarter. With legality, rents rose, the lofts were renovated, and chic shops, restaurants and blue-chip galleries started filling the ground floors of artists’ buildings.

The midmorning--after coffee and a muffin at Newsbar or at the cafe at Dean & DeLuca, SoHo’s legendary gastronomic supermarket--is a good time for browsing the galleries and shops of SoHo. Many of them open at 10, and the uptowners and tourists usually don’t show up until noon. According to one recent estimate, there are almost 300 galleries in the neighborhood. These include such big names as Mary Boone, Leo Castelli (in two locations), John Weber, BlumHelman, Pace-Wildenstein, Sonnabend and Holly Solomon, as well as smaller, less distinguished ones selling everything from posters to the kind of contemporary sex-and-sacrilege constructions that give Jesse Helms raging apoplexy.

A single block of Broadway, between Houston and Prince, is a miniature museum row. In a well-proportioned 19th-Century palazzo at Broadway and Prince, the Guggenheim Museum opened a downtown branch in 1992--with an art-friendly interior designed by Arata Isozaki, architect of L.A.’s own Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s all very cool, very austere--a walk-in refrigerator of a place, occasionally warmed by dazzling art. A few doors up the street is the socially conscious New Museum of Contemporary Art, whose focus is the recent work of living artists, and which is not so much cool as it is plain--perfect for the riot of styles and media it showcases. Finally, there’s the Museum for African Art, the warmest and most intimate of the three. Until the end of the year, it’s featuring “Animals in African Art from the Familiar to the Marvelous,” a remarkable show full of unexpected treasures.

Interwoven with the galleries are SoHo’s shops, often showplaces of their own. I always love browsing in Zona, now celebrating its 15th year in business and (happily) no longer an outpost of faux-Southwestern style, but still very ethnic, very politically correct. (If the Nature Company had a private salesroom upstairs for high rollers, this is what it would look like.) Wolfman-Gold & Good Co., another SoHo mainstay, is a 2,500-square-foot emporium of restaurant-style china, antique silverware and table linens--a Gatsby-ish wedding banquet waiting to happen. I like Broadway Panhandler for its classic SoHo interior--whitewashed tin ceiling, time-worn hardwood floors that slope and creak, lithe iron columns--and for its rows and rows of no-nonsense cookware and dining room accessories, which always make me think of food.

Lunch can be a problem in SoHo: There are simply too many choices. If I’m alone, I might just stroll over to Gourmet Garage--a sort of discount Dean & DeLuca with its own delicious charms--and buy a smoked turkey or grilled vegetable sandwich to go; or I might stop at the Cupping Room Cafe, SoHo’s interpretation of a macrame-and-hanging-fern health food joint, for an oversized (and $10) tuna melt on focaccia bread with terrific fries on the side; or tuck into a barbecued pork sandwich at the Cub Room Cafe, an adjunct to the Cub Room itself, an extremely attractive and lively restaurant named for the dining room at the old Stork Club. In company, I might try something outre at T Salon, downstairs at the Guggenheim--a green-tea chicken sandwich, perhaps, or salmon cooked in blood orange juice.

But where I always really want to go is either Nick & Eddie, which updates bar and grill food with a sense of humor and a steady hand (where else can you get a catfish sandwich with homemade “tater tots”?) or Cafe Noir, which feels like a funky Parisian bistro and serves mostly tapas and Moroccan. Here, I might try grilled fresh sardines or salt-cod fritters, followed by grilled spicy lamb and one too many glasses of earthy red wine from Provence and start wondering whether I actually have to go back to work.

SoHo not only contains museums within its boundaries; it is a museum itself, of cast-iron architecture. Indeed, a portion of the neighborhood was designated as the SoHo Cast-Iron Historic District in 1973.

Cast-iron construction was pioneered in England in the 18th Century, but held sway in the United States in the latter half of the 19th. In terms of architectural engineering, it was revolutionary, employing grids of iron beams and pillars in place of conventional load-bearing walls. This meant that buildings could be made of thinner, lighter materials, with larger windows and more floor space. Cast-iron buildings flourished in New York until structural steel was introduced in the late 1800s, and were not only highly practical but also graceful, sometimes almost poetic.

Consider the so-called King and Queen of Greene Street, both designed by architect Isaac F. Duckworth. The King, built in 1873 in the French Second Empire style at #72-76, was originally a warehouse. Today it houses galleries, a fabric shop and offices. Its facade is an only-in-New York clutter of fire escapes, Corinthian columns and fragile-looking grilles, all in creamy yellow. The Queen of Greene Street, at #28-30, is less harmonious but no less impressive-- crisply unornamented (the Corinthian columns have been denuded of their foliage) surmounted by an almost out-of-scale mansard roof.

The remarkable New Era Building at 495 Broadway, is one of the rare examples of Art Nouveau-style architecture in New York. Built in 1897 and designed by the firm of Buchman & Deisler, the New Era is particularly notable for the intricate ironwork around its fifth-floor windows, which from the street appears as delicate as the wood-carving on Chinese cabinetry, and for its magnificent mansard roof, in verdigris, as large and well-proportioned as a small cha^teau.

Dinner is another problem in SoHo; if anything, the choices increase. SoHo is as safe as any downtown neighborhood in any big city (no safer, mind you, but as safe), and it takes on a new character at night. After dark, uptown moves downtown, the streets bustle. People spill out of cafes and restaurants; taxis jostle along the century-old Belgian stones that still pave many SoHo streets. New York’s famous energy, its urban electricity, seems particularly concentrated here at night, and particularly contagious. The choice of food seems even more extravagant. Should it be Portuguese tapas at Tasca Porto, fish soup at Provence, steak frites at Raoul’s, wonderfully assertive Indian food at Baluchi’s (I’m addicted to their spinach with homemade cheese--the spicy version, please), Sardinian specialties at Cala di Volpe?

If it’s early or very late, though, it would be hard to do better than Blue Ribbon--open daily from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. and so small and so crowded from 9 to 2 that even friends of the house with reservations have to wait. Who cares? The place is full of great-looking people, and if there’s energy outside, this place seems to be the generator itself. The menu is large but the food superb. All the diner has to do is decide between, say, French onion soup, a pupu platter, fresh oysters, Caesar salad, or foie gras to begin, and then a heroic cheeseburger, a hearty lamb shank, a piece of impeccably cooked fresh fish, or maybe an old-fashioned rack of lamb. Like SoHo itself, the food mixes high and low, with similar success.

And after dinner, what? Maybe a drink and some talk at Naked Lunch, a new high-design bar that somehow manages to seem very hip and very neighborly at the same time. But serious night life? I don’t know. I’m the wrong guy to ask. My idea of a perfect day in SoHo is one that ends early enough to get me home before the sun comes up.

GUIDEBOOK: Streets of SoHo

Telephone numbers and prices: The area code for Manhattan is 212. Restaurant prices are for dinner for two, food only.

Getting there: Most major subway lines run into or along the edge of SoHo. Take the A, C, or E train southbound from the west side to Canal Street, then walk across Avenue of the Americas into SoHo; or take the 1 or 9 train southbound to Canal Street and walk along Canal to West Broadway and turn left into SoHo. From the east side, take the 6 train to Spring Street and walk east into SoHo. A taxi to the corner of Prince and Spring streets puts you in the heart of SoHo.

Where to eat and drink: Baluchi’s, 193 Spring St., 226-2828; about $60. Blue Ribbon, 97 Sullivan St., 274-0404; $50-$80. Cafe Noir, 32 Grand St., 431-7910; $60. Cala di Volpe, 430 Broome St., 431-4411; $50. The Cub Room, 131 Sullivan St., 677-4100; $75. The Cub Room Cafe, 183 Prince St., 777-0030; $17-$30. The Cupping Room Cafe, 359 West Broadway, 925-2898; $30 lunch, $50 dinner. Dean & DeLuca, 121 Prince St., 254-8776; pastries, sandwiches and salads, $15 for two. Gourmet Garage, 453 Broome St., 941-5850 (food shop). Naked Lunch, 17 Thompson St., 343-0828 (bar). Newsbar, 366 West Broadway, 343-0345 (coffee, light snacks, magazines). Nick & Eddie, 203 Spring St., 219-9090; $40-$65. Provence, 38 MacDougal St., 475-7500; $60-$75. Raoul’s, 180 Prince St., 966-3518; $75-$85. Tasca Porto, 525 Broome St., 343-2321; $40-$60. T Salon, Guggenheim Museum, 142 Mercer St., 925-3700; $40-$50.

What to see: There are galleries on virtually every block in SoHo, with a concentration of them between West Broadway and Broadway and between Houston and Broome streets. The Guggenheim Museum SoHo, 575 Broadway, 423-3500, is open Sunday and Wednesday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Admission: $5 adults, $3 students and seniors; children under 12 free. An exhibition of the works of light artist Dan Flavin is showing through Nov. 30. The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 583 Broadway, 219-1355, is open Sunday and Wednesday-Friday, noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday noon to 8 p.m. Admission: $4 general, $3 for artists, students and seniors; children under 12 free; free from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. The current show is “Temporarily Possessed: The Semi-Permanent Collection,” through the end of the year. The Museum for African Art, 593 Broadway, 966-1313, is open Tuesday-Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; weekends noon to 6 p.m. Admission: $4 adults, $2 for children, students and seniors. “Animals in African Art from the Familiar to the Marvelous” runs through the end of the year. Where to shop: As with galleries, shops of all kinds--clothing, antiques, cards and books, and more--are found on nearly every SoHo block. SoHo Shopping Spree, 594-5650, a shopping service, guides groups of 10 to 12 shoppers to stores of special interest. The fee is $30 per person and includes discounts at many of the stores.

For more information: SoHo Partnership, a nonprofit organization assisting the homeless, disabled and persons with AIDS, publishes SoHo Guide, $10, an annual directory of SoHo galleries, restaurants, shops and other businesses. Available at neighborhood bookstores. New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019; (800) 692-8474.