Reply With Quotewhy can't I get a response around here?
jus cuz i'm a newbie?!?!?
What's it really like living downtown??
I'm thinking about getting a place downtown fd/battery city park..
If anyone on these boards lives there or knows the area well, could you give me an honest opinon of what it's like as far as
1. Nightlife
2. Safety
3. Just in general is it a safe place to walk around at night or is it like i've heard from some people "a ghost town"?
4. Restaurants
5. The general atomosphere...does it feel very secluded and dead or is it live and upbeat even at night?
I'm moving to nyc soon, so anyone advice/comments would reallly help.
Thanks a lot.
Khurram
why can't I get a response around here?
jus cuz i'm a newbie?!?!?
No, because people who live downtown just haven't responded yet. Most of us don't live in lower Manhattan, so we can't help with that... I'm sure you'll get an answer before the night ends.
^ Same here I live in the Upper West Side... So I dont know how it is living in Downtown.
Not quite Battery Park City but... Here is an article that might help you decide... Good luck!
LIVING IN/The Financial District; Out of the Way, But Not Out of the Question
By CLAIRE WILSON
Published: April 10, 2005, Sunday
THE bar scene is dominated by an after-work crowd that decamps for the boroughs by 8 p.m., even from the Pussycat Lounge. There's hardly any parking to speak of and with only a few notable exceptions, like Les Halles, the Bridge Cafe and the new Coast, the restaurants are either frightfully expensive or offer every kind of fast food on the planet. Schools are few and on the fringes, but supermarkets are even fewer and no new ones are on the horizon.
Fresh Direct is one of Wall Street's big winners, but the list of services that just aren't there or are in short supply hasn't deterred the house-hunting masses from turning the financial district into one of the hottest real estate markets in the city. Despite the demand, some distinct negatives -- ''Siberia'' status at the far end of Manhattan, fallout from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and sparse amenities like shops and restaurants -- have kept prices low and relative bargains available, especially in rentals. But designer buildings bearing the names of Philippe Starck, Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry are examples of what is to come.
''I look at Wall Street as the Park Avenue of the 21st century,'' said Louise Sunshine of the Sunshine Group, which is marketing Downtown by Philippe Starck, the conversion of the former J.P. Morgan headquarters at 15 Broad Street, as well as the Cipriani Club Residences, a posh club/condo/ballroom confection that is to be carved from the former Regent Hotel at 55 Wall Street. ''The buildings are incredible.''
The elegant sweep of Park Avenue is a world away from the stark towers of Battery Park City and the kind of narrow and dark lanes like Beaver and John Streets that dominate the Wall Street area, especially between Broadway and the East River. But nestled in the warren of historic blocks in the district, co-ops, condos and rental units in once-commercial architectural gems being converted to residential properties are snapped up before the work is finished.
Almost sold out are condos under construction at the 17-story 56 Pine Street, where prices ranged from the mid-$200,000's to just over $800,000 for the largest of 90 units, said Warren Hershkowitz, vice president for operations at the Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group.
There are only a few apartments left in a 21-unit, 12-story building with a penthouse at 130 Fulton Street, where a one-bath open loft is selling for $1.75 million, and a two-bedroom, two-bath built-out version of the same space is available for $1.875 million, according to Tara Hogan, director of research for the Marketing Directors, a real estate marketing and consulting firm.
Jonathan Phillips, a broker at Halstead Properties, said prices in the neighborhood were climbing.
''A large loft space that was selling at $500 per square foot two years ago is now approaching $800,'' he said. ''Something with very good views would go for $1,000 with no problem.''
Prices in the Philippe Starck project went from $700 a square foot last summer to $1,400 a square foot, and only 40 of approximately 290 units remain unsold, Ms. Sunshine said. With a pool, dance studio, theater, squash court, bowling alley and the Starck Park planned for the roof of the adjoining 23 Wall Street, this high-profile project helped pave the way for ambitious new construction. Some of it, like the spiraling Freedom Tower, will alter the iconic skyline forever, not to mention shift prices sharply upward and help speed the transition of the district from mostly commercial space to more of a balance.
The Alliance for Downtown expects the neighborhood's residential population to increase to 52,300 in 2008 from 33,100 this year.
The architect Santiago Calatrava has proposed an unusual building of stacked town houses at 80 South Street. Mr. Gehry is currently designing a 75-story mixed-use structure, to be built by the Forest City Ratner Companies, on what is now a parking lot adjacent to N.Y.U. Downtown Hospital on Spruce Street, said Joyce Baumgarten, a spokeswoman for Forest City Ratner.
In addition to an ambulatory care facility, retail space and a new public school teaching kindergarten to Grade 8, there are to be about 500 rental units and 250 condo units, the prices of which have not been set.
Condo prices at the Cipriani Club Residences will start this summer at $1,200 a square foot, according to Giuseppe Cipriani, who is a partner on the project with the Witkoff Group. The club will have a restaurant, private dining rooms, a library, a 22-seat screening room, a gym and spa services. Charter memberships will be about $3,000 a year.
A Liberty Bond incentive program for developers has brought a lot of new rentals to the market, including the Witkoff Group's 22-story, 493-unit 10 Hanover Square, formerly the Goldman Sachs building, which will begin renting in May for August occupancy. On Front Street, Sciame Development is creating 95 apartments, some low-income, and some small shops from 13 long-derelict historic buildings that were built between 1798 and 1827.
Suzi Markham, a swimsuit model, and her husband, Jim Markham, a physical education teacher at John Jay High School in Brooklyn, pay $2,370 a month for a one-bedroom on a low floor at the 287-unit Liberty Plaza, the Glenwood Management Corporation's first downtown project, which opened last year.
It has a great view, said Ms. Markham, who came to New York from San Diego last summer. ''I look out at the Federal Reserve building and it inspires me to make money.''
At the Renaissance, at 100 John Street, a four-bedroom, six-bath triplex penthouse with skyline views is available for $10,500 a month, while a 960-square-foot one-bedroom with a home office rents for $3,200, according to Benjamin Zulkowitz, leasing manager for the Renaissance. The property is owned by the Moinian Group, which also owns the Ocean at One West Street.
''Downtown you can still get two bedrooms for $3,200 to $3,400, whereas uptown they start at $4,000,'' he said. At better buildings uptown ''they start at $4,500 to $4,800.''
Queens College estimates the median household annual income in the area to be $83,548. There are few children, but that seems to be changing, according to Ms. Hogan of the Marketing Directors, which is selling units at 130 Fulton Street. They didn't get the young, single, male Wall Street types they were expecting at the outset. ''The interest has been from families with little children, not yet school-age,'' she said.
LIMITED school options may be the reason for so few children in the neighborhood, but that is changing, too. The new school in the Gehry building is to open its doors in 2008, and Millennium High School on Broad Street, started in 2003, adds a grade each year and will graduate its first class in 2007.
Other area schools include Public School 234 on Greenwich Street, which teaches kindergarten through Grade 5 and where among fourth graders, 89 percent scored at or above grade level in English and 96.7 percent scored at or above grade level in math. At P.S. 89 on Warren Street, which teaches kindergarten through Grade 5, 84.4 percent of fourth graders scored at or above grade level in English, while 93.8 percent scored at or above grade level in math. The closest citywide, four-year high school is Stuyvesant High School on Chambers Street, where students must pass an admissions test. Of students there taking the 2004 SAT reasoning test, the average score was 724 in math, compared with a statewide average of 472, and 685 on the verbal test, compared with 444 statewide.
Convenience to almost a dozen subway lines, highways, bridges, tunnels and ferries is one of Lower Manhattan's biggest advantages, as is the quiet at night and on the weekends, according to Daniel Yarom, an importer of high-end Italian furniture and kitchens who bought his loft the day before 9/11.
''It's more of a summer neighborhood,'' Mr. Yarom said. ''Winter can be harsh, but in summer, it is a cross between living in the city and living in suburbia, and you can be anywhere in a second.''
Financial district residents could indeed spend every waking leisure hour outdoors, between the parks, the bike paths and the wide open spaces at the South Street Seaport. The bars and restaurants on Stone Street turn the restored cobblestone block into a sidewalk cafe in summer, and an ambitious refurbishment of a part of the East River waterfront is planned.
As rebuilding continues, some longtime residents bemoan the lack of a master plan.
''The quality of life is not being taken into consideration,'' said Kyle Brooks, a preservation architect who lives just feet from ground zero. ''If they keep putting up glass buildings, it's going to be hot and we are going to fry all the tourists with the reflected light, just like you used to burn flies when you were small.''
''We are making ourselves a huge solarium,'' he added. ''Cook, cook, cook.''
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Jeez you posted mid-day and are freaking out by barely the end of the work day?Originally Posted by Khurram
Folks who live in the Financial District and BPC WORK 9-5 type jobs.
Actually, none of us speak to people in the Financial District.
Hey guys,
thanks a lot for the replies..didn't mean to freak out, i was just getting anxious cuz i posted a thread a couple days ago and didn't get any replies for that yet so i thought this would be the same...hope i didn't offend anyone!...and also i'm in a differnt time zone (half way around the world) so i didn't realize it was midday in nyc...my bad.....well thanks again for the replies.
take care
khurram
I live on the UES but i am down there at work and still ven after all these new apartments there is not alot of life, outisde of the Seaport area, but that only for a little bit, by like 9 its a ghost town like it always was
Stone Street has some great restaurants with outdoor seating and it stays pretty lively and festive late into the evening.
Tribeca has great eating -- indoors and out.
Chinatown of course has eating of all sorts at any hour you want.
During the summer there are some great performances at Battery Park, Wagner Park and at the WFC Plaza -- many are free.
Thursday nights at the Bulgarian Social Club at Broadway & Canal is wild and crazy.
Then there is SoHo, Little Italy and the Lower East Side -- good eats galore.
If you just head out and look around you'd be surprised how much is going on late into the evening.
I live in the North neighborhood in BPC and love it. I really love living on the water and not having tourists around. And you have tribeca just a block or 2 away! And on the 26th floor there are some amazing views. It is very safe here and lots of restaurants deliver. Also a Duane Reade is opening up here on North End Ave. It's also great here if you have a dog. The negatives - very windy, a bit far from subway (but crosstown bus drops you off right here). There is also the Downtown Connection which is a free mini van service from BPC all the way around seaport.
The south neighborhood i found a bit more isolated when i was looking to move here.
If You're Thinking of Living In/The Financial District; In Wall Street's Canyons, Cliff Dwellers
By AARON DONOVAN
Published: September 9, 2001, Sunday
IN ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities,'' her famous treatise on the liveliness of city neighborhoods, Jane Jacobs deplored central business districts that were not also used for residential or cultural purposes. As the primary example of one such neighborhood, she described downtown New York, noting the restaurants there that were mobbed at lunch but did not offer dinner at all.
''To see what is wrong,'' she wrote, ''it is only necessary to observe the deathlike stillness that settles on the district after 5:30 and all day Saturday and Sunday.''
That was 1961. Forty years later, things have changed in the section of the city that contains the New York Stock Exchange, the World Trade Center and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Evening in the financial district offers a sight that would have been a rarity four years ago, unthinkable 40 years ago: side by side with the idling black Lincoln Town Cars waiting for their Wall Street fares are casually dressed men and women leisurely returning home from restaurants and grocery stores and walking their dogs.
''The transformation has been dramatic,'' said Francis Greenburger, chief executive of Time Equities Inc., which owns half a dozen residential buildings in the area. ''Not that it's thriving at night, but now there's a background to the area, a more 24-hour feeling.''
New museums and hotels in the area -- there are 10 hotels and 13 major museums in the area and more on the way -- partly account for that. So does Battery Park City, with more museums and residential and commercial buildings, to the west. But the main engine driving the changes is thousands of new residents who have poured in in the last five years.
After the recession of 1990-1991, office vacancy rates downtown were persistently high, with some buildings standing empty. City officials and neighborhood boosters adapted by encouraging office buildings to convert to residential use. ''Jane Jacobs has really stood the test of time,'' said Carl Weisbrod, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the city's largest business improvement district in terms of area and budget.
IN 1995, the city began offering tax incentives to owners who converted downtown commercial properties to residential use under the Lower Manhattan Revitalization Plan. Since then, according to the Alliance, more than 5,000 apartments have been created in 51 formerly commercial buildings.
''In 1997 the financial district was a very speculative area,'' said Andrew S. Heiberger, chief executive of Citi Habitats, the large rental broker. ''It was certainly known as a secondary neighborhood and by all the other words that real estate people don't like to hear like 'transitional' and 'alternative,' '' Now, he said, it is now a strong market in its own right.
The vast majority of the recent conversions created rental apartments. ''Any time you have a new neighborhood, generally the first people who move in are renters,'' said Brian G. Edwards, director of leasing for the Halstead Property Company. ''Then conversions to home ownership begin as the neighborhood becomes more stable.''
Because the area was not an established residential neighborhood, building owners invested heavily in amenities to make the converted structures attractive as apartment buildings. ''At first they were concerned about attracting tenants,'' Mr. Heiberger said, ''so they went over the top with kitchens and granite countertops and marble baths, which are standard in the area.''
In addition, most buildings have fitness centers and laundries, as well as concierge service and roof access, and they allow pets. The apartments are larger and have higher ceilings than those uptown, and the conversion from office space to apartments has frequently meant offbeat layouts.
''It seemed like they'd do anything to get you to move down here,'' said Nikki Loffredo, 32, an administrative assistant who works in Midtown and has lived at 75 West Street, one of the early rental conversions, for a year and a half.
Ms. Loffredo, who had lived in Greenwich Village, said she was attracted to the idea of having a newer and bigger apartment. ''My old apartment had like 100 coats of paint,'' she said. ''It was old and rickety. I wanted a nice apartment in an O.K. neighborhood.''
Since the stock market downturn last year, rental prices are off 10 to 15 percent, real estate agents say. ''The financial district has felt the brunt of the downturn more quickly than the neighborhoods uptown,'' Mr. Edwards said. ''And we're seeing concessions for the first time. New tenants often sign a 13-month lease in which they typically get the first or 13th month free.''
A low-floor studio without a view rents for $1,800 a month while a larger one with a terrace can rent for $2,500 a month, said Arnon Barzilai, a Citi Habitats rental agent who specializes in the financial district. One-bedroom apartments rent for $2,300 to $3,200 and two-bedroom apartments for $2,800 to $4,500. ''The top ones could usually be converted to three-bedrooms,'' he said.
With zoning that is unique in New York City, the financial district is home to breathtaking artificial canyons created when streets barely wide enough for a single lane of traffic are bordered on both sides by some of the tallest buildings in the city.
Most of the area's apartments can be found in recently converted skyscrapers, some of which once housed the headquarters of leading American companies. The three rental buildings with the most units are 200 Water Street, with 576 apartments; 17 Battery Place, a mixed-use building with 496 apartments; and 99 John Street, with 442. The John Street building also houses the new Jubilee Market grocery store.
Real estate brokers and developers speculate that buildings will begin to convert from rentals to co-ops or condominiums. Some of the better-known existing co-ops are at 3 Hanover Square, 176 Broadway and 55 Liberty Street. Condominiums are scattered throughout the area, for example at 33 Rector Street, with 14 apartments; at 25 Ann Street, with 9; and 130 Beekman Street, with 18. A 2,200-square-foot condominium loft could sell for $950,000 to $1.2 million, depending on the size, the floor and maintenance costs, said Katharine Vaccaro, a broker with Douglas Elliman. Similarly sized co-op apartments, lofts or two-bedroom apartments would sell for $480,000 to $1.2 million. An apartment might have a spectacular river or cityscape view or nothing more than the sight of a solid wall of the building across the street, a factor that influences price. ''Light is always very important,'' Ms. Vaccaro said.
BUT small-scale buildings are also to be found, including a row of a dozen three-story Federal and Greek Revival-style town houses on Stone Street, built soon after a fire in 1835 leveled most of the area. These contain full-floor two-bedroom lofts that rent for about $3,500 a month, said Joey Goldman, a partner of Goldman Properties, which owns five of the buildings.
The district contains three areas with concentrations of residential buildings: the financial district proper, especially along John Street; the handful of blocks south of the World Trade Center along Greenwich, Washington and West Streets, and the seaport district, which is another area with century-old low-rise buildings.
''The financial district and the seaport are in character two completely different areas,'' said Felicia De Chabris, a sales associate with the Halstead Property Company who lived on Nassau Street for five years but has since moved uptown. ''The seaport is quiet, residential, and has an old world charm,'' she said. ''It just sits in a period of time, and it doesn't move.''
Every working day 375,000 workers flood downtown New York, the third-largest central business district in the country. But its burgeoning residential character is more of a return to the past than an innovation, said Edwin G. Burrows, professor of history at Brooklyn College and author with Mike Wallace of ''Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898'' (Oxford University Press, 1998). ''If you were to walk down Wall Street in the decade before the American Revolution,'' he said, ''you would find plenty of residences.''
The area was the first in the city to be settled by Europeans, in 1626. It was not until the 1840's and 50's, as the city's population swelled and the neighborhood took on an increasingly commercial character, that most residents moved uptown. ''There are old stories of people's houses being surrounded by the clamor of business and trade and the owners complaining that they can't get anything done,'' Dr. Burrows said. ''That's a big story of the first few decades of the 19th century.''
Despite the recent influx of residents, the area is still quiet at night, when steam from underground pipes wafts upward in narrow canyons populated by grinding sanitation trucks but not a single pedestrian.
The nighttime peace is a big draw for some, said Bruce Menin, a residential developer downtown. ''I think a lot of people who live here really like the fact that they are not assaulted by throngs of tourist strangers that they don't know,'' he said. But others, who go to SoHo, Union Square or TriBeCa for restaurants and night life, said they would like to see a little more activity.
Mr. Menin, managing principal of Crescent Heights Realty, was the first residential developer to convert a building to residential use under the revitalization plan, turning 25 Broad Street into 345 apartments of one, two and three bedrooms.
As a young lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell at 125 Broad Street in 1989, Mr. Menin lived near the intersection of 89th Street and Third Avenue. He said he remembered a difficult commute and thought people might like to avoid it. ''I believed there would be people who would see the dual benefit of avoiding the commute and living in a building they can be proud of when they have visitors,'' he said, noting that he aimed to provide all the amenities of a Fifth Avenue luxury building.
The financial area is populated to a large degree by young men and women fresh out of college who move to the area shortly after landing a job with long hours at a Wall Street firm. ''For anybody who's starting out in banking or some kind of job that is downtown that has very work-intensive hours, it's good place to be,'' said Josh Goldin, 24, a financial analyst with Lehman Brothers who has lived for 14 months at 99 John Street. ''The convenience thing is great for someone who works a lot of hours.''
Still, many others, like Ms. Loffredo, commute to Midtown or elsewhere. With 14 of the city's 22 subway lines going through the area, residents say a reverse commute in the city is easy. ''There are so many subways down here,'' Ms. Loffredo said. ''You can easily get anywhere in the city.''
Relatively few families with children live in the area, though their number is growing. Children who live south of Cortlandt Street and west of Broadway attend Public School 89. Those who live elsewhere in the area attend P.S. 234. Both schools, in TriBeCa, perform well above the citywide average. There are no private schools in the area, but a leading educational presence is Stuyvesant High School, one of the city's premier public schools, which is at the northern end of Battery Park City.
There are no schools in the district itself, but with so many new residential conversions, hotels and museums opening in the area, the diversity that Jane Jacobs wrote about is at last coming to the southern tip of Manhattan. But that does not mean that people will stop calling it the financial capital of the world.
''It will become a more and more integrated area that people will enjoy living in,'' said Mr. Greenburger, the developer. ''But it's always going to be a mixture of a business district and a residential one, with the business dominating by a vast majority.''
Gazetteer
POPULATION: 12,042 (2000 census).
AREA: 0.49 square mile.
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $61,355 (1997 estimate).
MEDIAN PRICE OF A 2-BEDROOM CO-OP: $647,000.
MAINTENANCE ON MEDIAN CO-OP: $1,275.
MEDIAN PRICE A YEAR AGO: $601,000.
MEDIAN PRICE FIVE YEARS AGO: $331,000.
MIDRANGE RENT ON A 2-BEDROOM APARTMENT: $3,600.
MIDRANGE RENT A YEAR AGO: $3,800.
MIDRANGE RENT FIVE YEARS AGO: $2,875.
DISTANCE FROM MIDTOWN MANHATTAN: 4 miles.
RUSH-HOUR COMMUTATION TO MIDTOWN: 15 minutes on the 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C or E lines, 20 minutes on the 1, 9, N or R lines; one hour on the M6 bus, 45 minutes on the M15 bus ($1.50 one way, $63 for a monthly unlimited MetroCard).
GOVERNMENT: City Councilwoman Kathryn E. Freed (Democrat).
CODES: Area, 212, 646 and 917; ZIP, 10004, 10005, 10006, 10007 and 10038.
MAKING DO BEFORE THE CONVERSIONS: By the 1850's, Wall Street had been more or less purely commercial for about 30 years. But Herman Melville's short story ''Bartleby, the Scrivener'' revolves around a character who decides to live in the area. In the story, Bartleby is described as an oddball legal clerk who refuses to do work because he ''prefers not to.'' Eventually, he starts to make his home in the office where he supposedly works. Exasperated, the lawyer who hired him decides to relocate the office when he realizes that Bartleby might ''perhaps outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual occupancy.'' Melville, born at 6 Pearl Street, has the lawyer say of the area: ''Of a Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra, and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous.''
Published: 09 - 09 - 2001 , Late Edition - Final , Section 11 , Column 2 , Page 5
If I had money to invest I would invest in lower Manhattan, now! The trendiest areas in Manhattan are right now Soho and Tribeca and I feel the trend will continue southward with the pricing out of these areas and with all the new development and conversions that are taking place (80 South Street, Beekman Place). Additionally there is a myriad of improvements and attractions that are taking place in lower Manhattan.
I'll be living in Downtown the next four years! So, hopefully it'll be pretty cool!
oh yeah, i forgot about that rule...
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