Chauffeur service in SoHo

SoHo, from Houston Street to Canal Street

SoHo is short for South of Houston Street. It runs down to Canal Street, with Lafayette and Crosby Streets on the east side and Sixth Avenue and West Broadway on the west. Almost all of it is in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. Many buildings look alike, and the streets are nothing like the grid uptown. Greene, Mercer, Wooster and Crosby Streets are narrow, one-way and still cobblestone. Broadway is the wide one, and Prince, Spring, Broome and Grand Streets run across.

The most common mix-up is West Broadway, a different street from Broadway, four short blocks to the west past Mercer, Greene and Wooster Streets. Another is the same house number on two streets. 100 Greene Street and 100 Wooster Street are one block apart and look almost the same from a car. Give us the cross street with the number, and neither is a problem.

The Holland Tunnel next door

The Holland Tunnel entrance is at Canal Street and Varick Street, at SoHo's southwest corner. That makes Newark Liberty and the rest of New Jersey quick to reach from here. It also makes weekday evenings slow. From mid-afternoon, the tunnel line backs up along Canal Street and the streets around it, and on Fridays it starts earlier. A pickup on Thompson Street at 5:00 PM is very different from the same pickup at 10:00 AM, and your chauffeur picks the route for the time of day.

To JFK, we take the Manhattan Bridge onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) and the Belt Parkway, or West Street down to the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel. To LaGuardia, we go east on Houston Street to the FDR Drive, then the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and the Grand Central Parkway, or the Williamsburg Bridge and the BQE. Teterboro is through the Holland Tunnel and north, or up the West Side Highway to the Lincoln Tunnel.

Evenings and weekends in SoHo

SoHo is busiest in the evening and on weekends. People come for the restaurants below Houston Street, the galleries on Wooster and Greene Streets, the big stores on Broadway and Prince Street, and showroom appointments during the fashion weeks. The hotels are on West Broadway, Spring Street, Crosby Street and Mercer Street, with narrow fronts and little room for a car to wait.

Some landmarks are easy to meet at. The Little Singer Building is on Broadway near Prince Street, the Haughwout Building is at Broadway and Broome Street, and the Angelika Film Center is at Houston and Mercer Streets. At the south end, the Holland Tunnel entrance on Canal Street is the main reference point.

Where a car can wait

On the cast-iron blocks, a car can't wait. Greene and Mercer Streets have room for one lane, often with a delivery truck in it, and the rest of the curb is loading zones and hydrants. So we meet you at a corner on a wider street, like West Broadway, Sixth Avenue, Lafayette Street or Houston Street.

On weekend afternoons the sidewalks overflow. Broadway at Prince Street and at Spring Street are the busiest corners. A pickup one block east on Crosby Street, or one block west on Wooster Street, is faster, even if it looks farther on a map.

Around the edges of SoHo

Hudson Square, west of Sixth Avenue around Varick and King Streets, is where the Holland Tunnel traffic builds up, fed by Charlton, Vandam and Watts Streets. Nolita, just east across Lafayette Street, has the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston and narrow streets around Mulberry and Elizabeth, much like SoHo's. TriBeCa starts below Canal Street.

Some street names are easy to mix up. Sixth Avenue is also called Avenue of the Americas. And Howard, Grand and Broome Streets all run east to west within three blocks of each other at the south end, with Grand continuing across the Bowery. With a cross street on the booking, neither is a problem.

Airport routes from SoHo

Here are the usual routes from SoHo to each airport. For arrivals, with details for each terminal, see JFK terminal pickups and LaGuardia terminal pickups.

• SoHo to Newark Liberty ratesCanal Street to the Holland Tunnel entrance at Varick Street, then the New Jersey Turnpike south
• SoHo to JFK ratesCanal Street onto the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, then the Belt Parkway east
• SoHo to LaGuardia ratesHouston Street east to the FDR Drive, north to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and the Grand Central Parkway
• SoHo to Teterboro ratesHolland Tunnel, then north through Bergen County

Airport rides from SoHo have a flat rate, set when you book. See all rates.

Other trips from SoHo

• Prince Street to Wall StreetWest Broadway and Church Street straight down, or Varick Street onto West Street along the Hudson.
• SoHo to WilliamsburgBroome Street to the Williamsburg Bridge, then Kent Avenue or Bedford Avenue on the far side.

Questions

Questions about SoHo pickups