Artists Only Need Apply By ANDY NEWMAN

As SoHo?s iron-boned, sprawling lofts became gold mines over the past two decades, co-op boards, banks, brokers and the city itself winked at the decades-old rule requiring that they be reserved for working artists.

But over the last year or so, something odd began to occur: people ? banks, co-op boards and the like ? started paying attention to the rule. And last year, for the first time in memory, the city rejected as many applications as it approved, in a cryptic process that mystifies those who have gone through it. The bottom has not dropped out, and the typical artist will still be unable to afford to move in. But the sudden reawakening of the artist-in-residency requirement has shaken up the SoHo real estate scene. [NYT]