- nbhd -
fidi, seaport, tribeca

Way down at the bottom of Manhattan is a neighborhood reserved, apparently, for tourists and finance bros. A bronze bull and a fearless girl, two shadows of twin towers, a skeletal transit hub, a marble cube, a Wall street and a Stone street. On any given morning, tour groups congregate on the cobblestone streets and street construction in the shadows of skyscrapers. And commuters hustle quietly in business attire from one transit hub to another. It’s so filled with the rhythms life and yet so soulless at the same time.

Way down in the part of Manhattan before the numbered streets start, we’re off the grid and street names are everyday hints of the city’s past. Here we have a lot of shiny new skyscrapers, rebuilt out of necessity, to prove the resilience and persistence of the greatest city in the world. But here we also have some of the most historic parts of the city. Beautiful architecture preserved from centuries past. Blocks that might look more like London than it does even Midtown a couple miles north. Natural light and sun is hard to come by in the cramped streets. For most hours of the day, unless you’re in the larger plazas, you’re in the shadow of grand buildings: Beaux Arts, Neoclassical, Art Deco juxtaposed with sleek mirrored surfaces of the Freedom Tower and the other World Trade buildings. And in between, historic churches, financial institutions, colonial row houses, mid-century public art. It’s easy to get swept up here. In the imaginations of generations past, when the streets were filled with horse drawn carriages, high and low society mingling together, or even older, when America was a new nation building, building. When two towers anchored the skyline as a symbol of a global power, and a target.

FiDi is of course a modern phenomenon. It’s notoriously corporate, notoriously sleepy and quiet at night. Filled with quick serve restaurants that will build you a salad or bowl if you’re willing to wait in line with a bunch of vests. Stone Street pubs that seem almost like a gimmick these days. Genuinely you probably shouldn’t be here unless you work here or it’s your first trip to NYC.

Parks line the waterfront. Many many joggers on the west side, a free ferry on the south end, and a Jean George project on the east side. Seaport is a weird neighborhood. It somehow always feels empty, even though it is just as packed with buildings as the west side is. The attempt at revival with the Tin Building is a good effort but truly, it’s only ever fun to come here if it’s to ferry to and from Brooklyn.

And then to the north, Tribeca, which we almost forget is also a ridiculous real estate neighborhood name. “The Triangle Below Canal Street.” But perhaps the reality of what the neighborhood has become is even more ridiculous. Full of rich moms and grown up finance bros. The tranquility and suburban feel of this little corner of Manhattan is truly remarkable considering it is bordered by the chaos of SoHo as the capital of consumerism and the bustle of FiDi as the capital of, well capitalism. Here, the streets are wider, the buildings are pristine, and the pricey cafes and restaurants seem to always be populated even in the middle of the week. Time slows down in Tribeca. Or rather, time doesn’t matter. Because if you can afford to be here, you can afford to linger. For those of us who don’t call Tribeca home, it’ll always be that weird aspirational part of the city that we transit through. And maybe that’s ok.