Andy Warhol would have drawn it at 14th street, and Edith Wharton at Washington Square, but both New Yorkers would have agreed on one thing: the significance of the line between Uptown and Downtown. In the 1970s, as in the 1870s, certain tribes of Manhattanites staked their identities on their positions relative to that line. But then something happened in the 1980s-the border between the two worlds grew blurry, and a new kind of neighborhood began to emerge. Uptown grace and Downtown style first found common ground in SoHo and TriBeCa, where restaurants, galleries, and one-of-a-kind shops intermingled with newly renovated luxury lofts. What we take for granted now as "urban chic" was a heady mix at first. It still is today in neighborhoods from Chelsea and the Hudson River waterfront to the Financial District.