I . . . never loved Tribeca. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t turn down a multimillion dollar cast iron palace à la Blake Lively and Harry Styles, but the reasons celebs love it tend to be the very reasons plebes hate it. Street life is nil . . . many brunchy bistros, all with very expensive potted plantings rotated biweekly; the occasional superbougie toy shop or book store; dive bars, dollar pizza places, graffitied vacant storefronts, and brutalist highrises mix indiscriminately with the sedate, darkened lobbies of luxury condo buildings made from gutted Victorian factories and warehouses.
Façades remain deliberately gritty and retail deliberately shitty for the discreet, impressionist lifestyles of the überrich: going about their business in chauffeured black cars, they do not participate in street life; from afar (say the huge windows of a $20 million loft apartment) the graffiti and grime are picturesque and “old school New York.” Dollar slice shops are headspaces to glance at punk teenagers and daydream, NOT a dietary option, symbol of class polarization, or symptom of an urban food desert.
For all my disdain, I understand how the neighborhood remains aesthetically inspirational for many. So here are some themes I like in Tribeca!
The neon lighting shops along Canal. This has been an electrician source place for at least 70 years, and they don’t bother doing anything with their windows at all, which is fun!
2. Graffiti . . . this is what the tourists come for!
3. Brutalist architecture and public sculpture
4. Art Deco
5. City Hall Park. Small enough for a peaceful pretty stroll, and the golden statue Civic Fame is visible from almost anywhere in the neighborhood, calling like a beacon of serenity.
And here are two unique spots I just like:
The Ghostbusters fire station? How have I lived 36 years as a native New Yorker and not realized this?
2. Philip Williams Posters. Local legend since 1973 and he’s in the shop every day, a decorator MUST
