Below Houston

In 1940, Mayor LaGuardia opened Essex Street Market to bring hundreds of pushcart vendors indoors. It was a practical piece of the Lower East Side, built for the Jewish, Italian, and Puerto Rican shopkeepers who gave the neighborhood its daily rhythm. By the 1980s it was struggling. In 2019, the market crossed Essex Street into its larger new home at 88 Essex, carrying many of its vendors with it.

The old site at 100 Essex has been sitting as the last undeveloped piece of Essex Crossing. Now BFC Partners plans a 10-story, 99-unit rental there, with 26 permanently affordable apartments and 15,000 SF of ground-floor commercial space. The scheme also hands the MTA room for 3 new elevators and a larger escalator landing at the Delancey-Essex station, one of the few places where the F, J, M, and Z subway lines all meet.

Demolition is expected this fall. The building is due for completion in 2029. But the more interesting point is what stays in the story: the market did not get erased. It moved, the train station gets a better front door, and the old market block gets another 99 households and 4 retail spaces.

At 300 Lafayette, the next retail experience asks you to spend an hour being measured. Neko Health, founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, opens its first U.S. clinic on September 24. The company says 25,000 New Yorkers have already joined the waitlist for its $499 body scan.

The pitch is not a conventional doctor's visit. Neko combines scans, bloodwork, and health data, and then delivers results during the appointment with a clinician. Its 2-floor SoHo clinic will have 7 scan rooms. Neko says more than 350,000 people globally have registered or joined its waitlist, and that it will add more New York locations after this one.

That makes 300 Lafayette a useful signpost. SoHo has always been good at turning a store into a ritual: line up, browse, try, buy, leave with a story. Neko is applying the same discipline to preventive health.

CANYON is taking shape at Essex Crossing for a 2027 opening. Its August 18 Department of Buildings approval covers a $2.342 million interior museum renovation across 39,963 SF at 200 Broome. The project is led by former MASS MoCA director Joe Thompson and backed by philanthropist Robert Rosenkranz.

CANYON is not planning to behave like the usual gallery stop. The venue is designed for video, sound, performance, and other work that asks for time rather than a quick lap. The plans call for 18,000 SF of galleries, a 60-foot skylit piazza, a cafe, a full-service bar and restaurant, and a 260-person performance hall. Its own language is unusually direct: art that invites you to come and stay awhile.