Greene Street cast-iron blocks

Greene Street holds the densest run of cast-iron architecture anywhere — block after block of 1870s facades whose columns, capitals, and cornices were poured in foundries, bolted on, and painted to imitate carved stone. The trick still works. Stand across the street and the fronts read as marble palaces; step close and you can rap a column with a knuckle and hear the hollow ring.

The showpiece is the so-called Queen of Greene Street at Nos. 28–30, a mansarded Second Empire confection by Isaac Duckworth, with the 'King' holding court a few blocks north at 72–76. Underfoot, the Belgian block paving survives too, which is why fashion shoots gravitate here on weekday mornings. Walk the full stretch from Canal to Houston and watch the loft district's whole origin story scroll past.