SOHO SHOE FACTORY
The SoHo Loft: From Shoe Factory to Sanctuary of Art
For over 40 years, 393 West Broadway, between Spring and Broome Streets, was the creative heart of Marlene Yu’s world.
Back in the 1970s, Marlene and James Yu were walking the streets of SoHo—a neighborhood just beginning to attract artists—and they found a building they loved. It wasn’t for sale. But they asked anyway.
Eventually, they bought it.
At the time, co-ops were popular in New York real estate. So they sold off individual floors—but no one wanted the top. It was too big. Too raw. Too industrial.
So they were, as James liked to say, “stuck” with the 8,000-square-foot penthouse. A former shoe factory, it became their home, Marlene’s studio, and a place where ideas, colors, and communities came together.
It wasn’t just that one building. James Yu helped transform neighborhoods—SoHo, Tribeca, Chelsea, Dumbo, Long Island City—before they became art-world hotspots.
In Chelsea, he built a neighborhood art museum.
In Dumbo, he helped convert a full block under the Manhattan Bridge into artist live/work lofts.
In SoHo, he converted commercial spaces into residential lofts. Galleries followed the artists—and then the boutiques followed the galleries. What started as an affordable creative zone became one of NYC’s most iconic fashion districts.
James had the foresight. Marlene had the vision. Together, they saw what a building—as if a blank canvas—could become.
New York City has always reinvented itself.
As James likes to point out:
“The Limelight was a church. Then a dance hall. Penn Station became a post office.”
And 393 West Broadway became a place where art and family were inseparable.
Now, that spirit lives on through the Marlene Yu Museum—in Shreveport, in Long Island City, and wherever art helps reimagine what a space can be.