This downtown neighborhood is virtually synonymous with black-clad artist-types, expansive loft apartments, chic boutiques, and packed-to-the-gills restaurants. Three decades ago, though, the area was a virtual wasteland. SoHo (the district South of Houston Street, bounded by Broadway, Canal Street, and 6th Avenue) was regularly referred to as "Hell's Hundred Acres" because of the many fires that raged through the untended warehouses crowding the area. It was saved by two factors: first, preservationists here discovered the world's greatest concentration of cast-iron architecture and fought to prevent demolition; and second, artists discovered the large, cheap, well-lighted spaces that cast-iron buildings provide. By the 1980s SoHo was such a desirable area that only the most successful artists could afford it.