After 45 Years in Tribeca, Photo Gallery Pictures a New Life in Chelsea

In the now former Soho Photo Gallery space on White Street, assorted items await moving to the gallery's new space on 23rd Street. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Last Saturday was moving day for Soho Photo Gallery, the cooperative photography space that has occupied 15 White Street for the past 45 years. As members loaded bins and boxes into a U-Haul for transport to the gallery’s new home in Chelsea, Thom O’Connor, the organization’s president, took a moment to reflect.

“I feel a lot like I felt when my son went off to college,” said O’Connor, who has been with the gallery for 10 years. “On one hand, I was really excited about the new adventure for him and for me. And on the other hand, as soon as we left and he was on his own, I started to cry. And I’m about to do it again.”

Over those many years, the Tribeca space has been a showcase for the work of Soho Photo members, invited artists and national and international competition winners, offering visitors a vast range of photographic practices and techniques. Having lost their lease due to an unmanageable rent hike, the gallery will now be located on the ground floor of 539 W. 23 St. Many members see the new location as a step up from the former live chicken market that, in 1979, the gallery pioneers converted to one of the city’s few exhibition spaces devoted to photography.

Many improvements over the Tribeca space await the members in their modern new home. A wide street with busier foot traffic, an entrance and windows no longer hidden behind scaffolding, a polished-looking interior with floors that don’t creak. Still, emotions were mixed as they prepared for the next chapter in the gallery’s life. 

“What I’m going to miss about having Soho Photo Gallery on White Street in Tribeca is you walk into this gallery and it’s like stepping back into 1979,” said member Deborah Gilbert, “to pre-gentrified New York, to when artists owned the city rather than the Wall Street people.”

“I think when people walk in here, they love how unusual it is,” said Patricia Beary, the gallery’s vice president. “It’s not a refined gallery in terms of the grandeur of it.”

“But it’s just a stepping stone,” she added, “bringing us to the next space.”

While the gallery has had its longest run, by far, in Tribeca, West 23rd Street will be its fifth location. After its beginnings, in 1971, on Prince Street, it occupied two spaces on 13th Street (one of them above Quad Cinema) before settling on White Street.

“I will miss Tribeca deeply,” said Sandra Carrion, who joined the gallery in 1987. “I see it as my first artistic home with a wonderful support group of like-minded photographers and gallery leadership second to none.”

Soho Photo Gallery opens in its new space at 539 W. 23 St. on April 16 with a juried show of nearly 80 works by members. The opening reception takes place April 17 from 6 to 8 p.m.