Tribeca

Tribeca — the Triangle Below Canal — was for a century the city's food distribution center, built around the Washington Market and lined with the substantial masonry warehouses that gave the neighborhood its bones. When the market moved to the Bronx in the 1960s, artists priced out of SoHo moved into the empty buildings, and the conversions that followed produced the largest apartments in Manhattan: loft floorplates measured in thousands of square feet, with ceiling heights and window walls that new construction rarely matches. Robert De Niro founded the Tribeca Film Festival here in 2002 to help draw people back downtown after September 11th, and it remains part of the neighborhood's identity. Today the market spans grand prewar conversions and a generation of ultra-luxury towers — 56 Leonard, 111 Murray, 30 Park Place among them — and consistently records some of the highest prices per square foot in the city, particularly for family-sized apartments. Washington Market Park and the piers of Hudson River Park supply the green space, and the dining is quietly excellent rather than showy, from the Odeon's forty-plus years to Frenchette and Locanda Verde. The defining quality is unusual for Manhattan: wide streets, low traffic, and a residential hush that makes it a favorite among families and anyone seeking discretion.