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SoHo Continued from page 24

form of rent stabilization and protect tenants against abrogations of their leases. It could monitor cooperative transactions so that no one sells space in a building he is not actually living in.

Doing that might dampen the value of SoHo to investors, and shrink the tax base it provides. But it would also stem the expulsion of artists from the area. For the big losers in the SoHo boom are artists who rent. It's a new kind of buyer's market, and anyone who can't get into it is less protected than he was in the '60s, when he had only the building inspectors to worry about. Now he has his landlord, his community association, and even his friends, who may buy the building out from under him.

He remembers the days of hundred-dollar rentals in SoHo, when boutiques were something you read about in New York magazine. Now, he feels crushed between Chinese-owned industries to the south and developers to the west. His rent has doubled and the landlord has told him that his loft is worth twice again what he pays. He works on large rolled canvases, stretching as much as 100 feet across his studio. "If things get really tough," he says, "I can roll them up and whisk them away."

There Goes the Neighborhood

But where to go? South of Canal street is "TriBeCa," where you don't have to be an artist to live in a loft. TriBeCa is supposed to be a cheaper, looser SoHo, but those who have made the trek know otherwise. TriBeCa is a seller's market too, and its arts community, which is younger and less propertied than SoHo's, finds itself in a holding action against realtors moving south.

In July, the Fine Arts Building on Hudson Street will be sold at nearly double what it cost in 1975. Galleries will remain on the first four floors, and the rest will be converted into residential lofts. Helene Winer, who operates a government-funded gallery, Artists Space, came to the building last December because she could not find space in SoHo for under $1500. Soon she may have to move again. And she cannot buy space, since public funds may not be used in a capital investment.

"It's really treacherous down here," she says. "Every artist I know is fearful about being pushed out. The landlords literally stand around on street corners rubbing their hands together gleefully." Julian Preto, who manages the Fine Arts Building, has seen the handwriting on the lease: "I look out my window and this entire intersection has been purchased in the last month and a half."

The same thing is happening in Chelsea and along the West Side, in an area known as Midtown South. Landlords are losing money and the city's tax base is shriveling as a result. If the trend continues, much of the garment center will soon be converted into residential lofts. Already a plan is underway to create a craft center on the side streets between Chelsea and Clinton- a kind of grand bazaar, with artisan's studios amid small stores and live-in lofts. But will these lofts be rent-controlled? Will the flight of industry be accelerated by the profits landlords can realize from residential conversion? Will existing communities be swallowed up by chic? And when all the space in Manhattan is occupied, where will the artists go? To Atlantic Avenue, where co-op galleries abut falafel stands? To Hoboken, where the bars aren't filled with hanging plants?

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James Hamilton