Soho loft buildings looking spiffier today than they did in 1970. (Image by Andreas Praefcke.)

I came across the photo essay “Living Big in a Loft,” a story about the artists working and living in industrial lofts in the then-gritty Soho section of Manhattan, in a 1970 issue of Life.

It’s an old saw by now, but artists who needed cheap space for large-scale creations colonized an area that was then zoned only for light-industrial use. Since the artists were also illegally living in the lofts they purchased and rented, they were in danger of losing their space if building inspectors caught them using the lofts as living quarters.

The photos of the lofts are really cool. The artists mentioned include Tom Blackwell, Jack Beal, Nobu Fukui and Bob Wiegand. An excerpt:

“Multimedia Artist Bob Wiegand swings from a trapeze he installed in his 2,500 square-foot loft, on the fifth floor of a cooperatively owned building. He enjoys performing acrobatic stunts in his studio, although he admits climbing the 144 stairs from the street is probably all the exercise that anyone needs.

Wiegand is one of the original organizers of the ‘SoHo Artists Association,’ a group working to change the laws that prohibit living in lofts. SoHo is short for ‘south of Houston Street,’ the area where most of the disputed loft-residences are located.”