# Walking in NYC (Financial District, Manhattan)



## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

Hello everyone, it has been a while since my last Walking in NYC tour thread. So I will treat you with this one amazing walking tour of NYC. This is one of the most important neighborhood of NYC. The Financial Distrcit in Downtown Manhattan. Alot of Finacial workers come here to make big cash, and alot of them do. There also all types of other jobs aswell, not all financial related. I really love this area because of its history, its present and its future. I was very exciting to take photos here. And I hope you get excited to see these photos aswell. I made 3 posts because there are 86 photos. Enjoy! 


*Financial District, Manhattan*


The Financial District of New York City is a neighborhood on the southernmost section of the borough of Manhattan which comprises the offices and headquarters of many of the city's major financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange. The neighborhood was anchored by the World Trade Center until the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The neighborhood is roughly coterminous with the boundaries of the New Amsterdam settlement in the late 17th century, and has a residential population of about 30,000, during the day the population swells to about 300,000.

As a district, it encompasses roughly the area south of City Hall Park but excluding Battery Park and Battery Park City. The heart of the Financial District is often considered to be the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street, both of which are contained entirely within the district.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_District,_Manhattan




1. WTC7 looking proud so far.









2. Century 21 is a department store with alot of cheap clothes.









3. Firefighter truck driving close to the WTC site. Brings back those bad memories.









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6. Cool pedestrian bridge.









7. Entrance to the tunnel that goes to Brooklyn.









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13. Charming old buildings.









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15. Museum of Indian Americans









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20. Nice little plaza/park









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24. The Woolworth Building at the distance.









25. Trinity Church.









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27. Cemetary at Trinity Church.









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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

31. Downtown has all these wonderful old buildings.









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41. Downtown is known for its great unstraight building canyons.









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46. Some of those little streets.









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52. All types of shopping, especially food and discounts.









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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

59. Trinity Church at the background.









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62. The heart of the Financial District.









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70. Some really old buildings full of restaurants.









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76. Something new and tall in the middle of it all.









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83. Just didn't want to sell.









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86.


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## Westsidelife (Nov 26, 2005)

NYC is pretty much the Capital of the World. Your photos are a testament to such a claim.


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## ChrisLA (Sep 11, 2002)

^
Agreed,I just love seeing pictures of the Big Apple. I'm a big upset I didn't get over to Wall Street last October during my visit. I was heading there, and I make the mistake of boarding an express train over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn. It went so far into Brooklyn before it stopped, and I was already tired spending the day in SoHo, so I went back to the upper east side where I was staying. >( 

Anyway I hate you (lol), I would love to live in NYC. But my unreachable desire would be to have a place in both LA and NYC, so I have to settle for visiting when I can afford to.


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## cardiff (Jul 26, 2005)

I doubt many people outside the states would agree, but it is a great world city. This area is my favourite due to the more random street layout though battery park was a bit seedy when i visited which was a disapointment.


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## xzmattzx (Dec 24, 2004)

Great pictures. I've never really had the chance to see the Financial DIstrict, but I would like to some time.

What I like about the Financial District is the grid pattern doesn't exist, which makes the place more interesting. The grid in Midtown and other places is nice and efficient, but straight roads all the time can get boring.

#12 was my favorite picture.


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## Fanatic74 (Dec 16, 2006)

I love NY


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## skyscraper_1 (May 30, 2004)

What a complex and beautiful urban landscape. One of the best in the world. I wish people would look to New York more often to see examples of old and new architecture, short and tall buildings co-existing.


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## Novak (May 9, 2006)

You gotta love all those old massive blocks.


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## Kame (Jan 13, 2007)

yeeeeeaaah awesome pics!
salute to the one and only capital of the world, i love this city!!!


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## Jaeger (May 11, 2006)

Great Pics - Wonderful City kay:


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## alitezar (Mar 10, 2006)

So awesome.
I love NYC so much


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Awesome


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Nice!


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## cmoonflyer (Aug 17, 2005)

Nice shots , it is rarely near to view streets level of Manhattan financial district , and thanks for sharing ! Would you know the glass curtain wall building's name and its company name in the last pic ?


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## LLoydGeorge (Jan 14, 2006)

New York is one of the few cities in the world where one can find a classic building from the 1700's nestled next to an ultramodern skyscraper.


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

Hey thanks for all the comments! Yeah I agree, you just got to love this city. :cheers:


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

ChrisLA said:


> Anyway I hate you (lol), I would love to live in NYC. But my unreachable desire would be to have a place in both LA and NYC, so I have to settle for visiting when I can afford to.


Don't be hatting.  

I also love to travel to the West Coast, especially in California (wish I could also have a place there). So you are lucky to live in such an awesome state with so many great cities and places. But yeah NYC is my home and I am so glad I live here.


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

cardiff said:


> I doubt many people outside the states would agree, but it is a great world city. This area is my favourite due to the more random street layout though battery park was a bit seedy when i visited which was a disapointment.


Oh yeah Battery Park. Well I have good news fo you. Last year they started to renovate it. Trying to make it much nicer. They still seem to be working there. But it sures looks much better so far.


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

Hey thanks alot for all your comments! My pleasure!


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

Here is an article about the Mixed-Use Revival in the financial district area... Well after 9/11 things didn't look good for NYC and specially this area, but it has become more popular then ever. I don't think there is a much more vibrant Financial district out there than lower Manhattan. Where there seems to be alot to do then work.



*Near Ground Zero, a Mixed-Use Revival*










*Stone Street in Lower Manhattan has been transformed in recent years from what one business owner 
described as a trash-filled alley into a booming late-night social scene.*


By PATRICK McGEEHAN
September 9, 2007

Six years ago, in the aftershock of the terrorist attack that reduced the World Trade Center to a smoldering pile, local officials wondered whether people would want to live or work around the financial district again.

Today, as new residents fill converted office buildings and jam the raucous block party that erupts nightly on Stone Street, the more likely curiosity about Lower Manhattan is: Where did all these people come from, and how can they afford to live here?

Despite the slow pace of reconstruction at ground zero, the area below Chambers Street is humming with activity, much of it designed to appeal to the well-heeled professionals who are transforming the neighborhood. *Already, it has added hundreds of condominium units and hotel rooms, a thriving restaurant row, a private school charging $27,000 a year, a free wireless Internet service, a BMW dealership and an Hermès boutique.

A Tiffany & Company jewelry store is coming soon, and plans are in place for the arrival of grocery stores, the type of business that the area has long lacked.*

“There were very few who would have predicted that Lower Manhattan would have rebounded as quickly as it has, despite all of the false starts and delays and emotional overlays,” said Carl Weisbrod, president of Trinity Real Estate and former president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. “There were few people who were quite that optimistic.”

The rebound is a testament to the healing power of billions of dollars in government aid, like the federal Liberty Bond program, which provided more than $6 billion in tax-exempt financing for reconstruction downtown, as well as various rent and wage subsidies from redevelopment agencies.

Optimism abounds now among developers and merchants, who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into real estate along the narrow streets of Lower Manhattan. They are counting on the district, in its next incarnation, to be not just a collection of office towers and trading floors, but also a self-sustaining residential neighborhood that will appeal to families.

*Even accounting for the exodus of residents immediately after 9/11, the population of Lower Manhattan has increased by more than 10,000 in the last six years, according to census data. To accommodate new residents, more than 6,000 apartments have been created in the last four years, through conversions or construction, and an additional 5,000 are planned, according to the Downtown Alliance.*

*Office space, now in short supply, is renting for more than it did before 9/11. Over the next several years, around 14 million square feet of commercial space is scheduled to be built, replacing the offices and stores destroyed on 9/11, according to data compiled by Cushman & Wakefield, a large real estate brokerage.*

The economic rebound is indisputable, but it has left some downtown merchants with mixed feelings.

Karena Nigale has found the new financial district to be more attractive as a place to run a business, but less affordable as a place to live. Since 9/11, she has opened two hair salons — each called KK Salon — within a few blocks of the New York Stock Exchange.

Ms. Nigale started out catering to investment bankers and traders with $25 shaves and $40 haircuts. But she has expanded to serve a broader clientele, staying open on Saturdays to serve residents of the area.

*“Before, this neighborhood was operating from 8 in the morning until 5 o’clock in the afternoon,” and on weekdays only, Ms. Nigale said. She expected her business would soon become a seven-day-a-week operation.*

Ms. Nigale lived above her first salon until the din from the carousers on Stone Street below her windows, along with a rent increase of more than 30 percent, drove her out. Unable to afford a suitable apartment in the sizzling downtown market, Ms. Nigale and her 11-year-old daughter decamped to the Jersey City riverfront about a year ago.

“I need two bedrooms, and there’s nothing for less than $4,000 a month around here,” Ms. Nigale said, speaking from the larger salon she opened on Maiden Lane last year. A place to park would cost at least an additional $400 a month, she said.

Her business, though, is thriving. Her young customers all have “big watches, expensive handbags,” and no qualms about the cost of her services, she said.

Indeed, the Downtown Alliance, the neighborhood’s business improvement district, estimates that *the median annual income among the households in the financial district is $165,000, which is about triple the figure for Manhattan as a whole.*

While salons and grocers may be welcome in the neighborhood, economic development officials argue that maintaining downtown’s position as a global corporate center is important for the city and even the nation.

Nearly 20 million square feet of office space has been lost since 9/11, from the destruction of the World Trade Center, the damage to the Deutsche Bank building and the conversion of older office buildings to residential use. Still, said William Bernstein, the acting president of the Downtown Alliance, “The financial industries will always be the backbone of Lower Manhattan’s economy.”

A recent sign that downtown’s traditional role remains viable is the decision this summer by JPMorgan Chase & Company to build a headquarters for its investment bank on the site of the ruined Deutsche Bank building. The Chase building will stand just a few blocks from where Goldman Sachs is building a 2.1-million-square-foot tower. Both are within a block of ground zero.

And 7 World Trade Center, which contains 1.7 million square feet of space, is open and more than half leased. The other buildings planned at ground zero would add 12 million square feet of office space in coming years.

Office rents downtown are 10 percent higher, at $45 a square foot, than six years ago, and the vacancy rate has dropped below 7 percent, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield.

Business owners are finding other uses for some older office buildings besides turning them into condos. Across Broad Street from the stock exchange, a former Bank of America building has been transformed into the Claremont Preparatory School.

Starting its third year, the school has several hundred students from prekindergarten through eighth grade, said Michael C. Koffler, the chief executive of MetSchools, the operator of Claremont Prep.

About 40 percent of them live downtown, and he expects that number to grow as more apartments become available and the neighborhood gains more stores like a Gristede’s supermarket planned on Maiden Lane and a Whole Foods proposed for nearby TriBeCa.

“You see children in baby carriages all the time,” Mr. Koffler said. “You see people walking dogs. There will be many more apartments with three bedrooms, meaning the development community is acknowledging that this will be a community of families.”

For some, the neighborhood’s growing pains have been a frustrating disruption.

Tazz Latifi’s pet supply shop, Petropolis, sits three blocks south of ground zero in the street-level space of an older apartment building. Since she opened in March 2006, her business has had to weather the relentless reconstruction of the surrounding blocks, Ms. Latifi said.

Her first unpleasant surprise came last year, when the building was emptied for a conversion to luxury condominiums. Since then, she said, Con Edison has dug up the street outside her shop three times. In recent weeks, some of the local streets have been closed because of last month’s fire at the Deutsche Bank building, in which two firefighters died.

“It’s frustrating for the residents here,” said Ms. Latifi, 38. “I have so many customers that have moved because of the noise and the air quality.”

Peter Poulakakos has had a front-row view of the less tangible changes through the windows of Ulysses’ pub on Stone Street and the six other food-service businesses he and his partners operate nearby. Talking over a standing-room-only crowd on a Thursday night in late summer, Mr. Poulakakos recalled that the street, which was first paved in the mid-17th century, was a trash-filled alley a decade ago.

Now, closed to traffic and lined with restaurants and bars, it is the stage for one of the liveliest social scenes in Manhattan, a slice of South Beach tucked into the financial district — minus the palm trees and bikinis.

Inside Ulysses’, which stays open until 4 a.m., couples were dancing to salsa music blaring from a D.J.’s booth. Next door at Adrienne’s Pizza Bar, which serves until midnight and was named after Mr. Poulakakos’s mother, a pair of women were buying a $12 four-cheese pie to take home.

A belief in the downtown economy’s ability to recover from disasters, financial and otherwise, runs in the Poulakakos family. Mr. Poulakakos’s father, Harry, ran the Wall Street mainstay Harry’s at Hanover Square for decades. He closed it in 2003 after his wife died, but his son and a partner revived it as Harry’s Cafe and Steak.

In April, Peter Poulakakos took a bigger leap, opening Gold Street, a restaurant that never closes, at the base of 2 Gold Street, a 51-story building where two-bedroom apartments rent for as much as $5,900 a month.

“Downtown still has a ways to go, as far as progress,” Mr. Poulakakos said. But the tide of sentiment about its prospects has clearly turned, he added.

“We get a lot of customers who used to live down here,” Mr. Poulakakos said. “They say, ‘I wish I was living here now, because it’s so different.’ ”












Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

Here is another recent article...


*DOWNTOWN A VERVE CENTER*


By BRADEN KEIL and MELISSA JANE KRONFELD
September 11, 2007

No one who witnessed the devastation of lower Manhattan after 9/11 could have imagined that six years later, the area south of Chambers Street would become a vibrant hub of apartments - not only for high-powered Wall Street execs, but for young families committed to living there.

On the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, reminders of the tragedy linger, especially with the recent deadly fire in the Deutsche Bank building and the ongoing construction that will continue for several more years.

Today, the neighborhood will host memorial events to honor the heroes and the victims of the terror attacks.

But beyond those painful memories, the area has become a destination for young New Yorkers and their families.

Construction of thousands of pricey condominiums such as the 330-unit William Beaver House; the Setai at 40 Broad St. with 167 apartments; and the 106-unit Cipriani Club Residences at 55 Wall St., have attracted businesses, as well.

A Montessori School has popped up, along with supermarkets, and upscale restaurants, including a new Cipriani on Wall Street, to serve the growing population.

Luxury retailers such as Tiffany and Hermes have followed.

"In the days following September 11th there were dire predictions of a real-estate market crash," recalls residential real-estate broker Dolly Lenz. "Not only did the market not crash, but it continued to set price records every year thereafter."

Lenz adds that the Financial District, which was supposed to bear the brunt of the economic impact of the attack, is in fact the fastest growing area in the city for families.

*In the second quarter of 2001, 592 apartments in the area were sold. In the second quarter of this year, that number was 1733*, according to real-estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

*In that time, the median sales price rose to $932,000 from $410,000*, the firm said.

"When I came down and I saw all the kids on the playground, that convinced me," said recent buyer Karen Jones, a 45-year-old working mother. "I was scared my kids wouldn't have enough social activity. But there are so many families downtown. Everyone is raising a family here."

"We wanted to be part of the rebuilding," said Brian Lover, 44, who moved here from West Orange, N.J., after 9/11 with his wife Kristina Rinaldi. "We felt we had to be back in New York. And we love the community."

Lawyer Harry Johnson, 62, has lived on Hudson Street for 30 years.

"I didn't have plans to go anywhere after 9/11, and I have no concerns," he said. "Nothing can happen here that can't happen somewhere else. When I got here it was desolate. If it was up to me I would have made it stop growing five years after I arrived."


Copyright 2007 NYP Holdings, Inc.


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## Talbot (Jul 13, 2004)

Top notch pictures. New York is spectacular!


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## pokistic (May 8, 2007)

Did I say that this so amazing! Oh yeah I did. But it needs more attention.


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## Thermo (Oct 25, 2005)

Who doesn't love NY? Great pics of the capital of the Western World!


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## juancito (Mar 1, 2006)

very beautiful place


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## alitezar (Mar 10, 2006)

New York is just my love.. The best in the world


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## Galandar (Dec 2, 2004)

Oh thank you for this wonderful thread, i remembered the times when i lived in New York. Great city!


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## Snowy (Nov 6, 2006)

One of my favourite ever threads.

Call me ignorant, but I never knew New York had this many old buildings...............I mean really old buildings! I plan to visit New York again during the next couple of years and this time I'll do it properly, not the usual tourist sh*t!


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## FelixMadero (Aug 29, 2005)

its amazing how many awesome buildings together!


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## rajesh jagetia (Aug 1, 2009)

Fantastic NWC pictures.


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## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

And the best of N.Y.C.: Manhattan :cheers: thanks @krull for those photos, are very nice


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## DetoX (May 12, 2004)

This is fantastic city!

I've been there many times, and it always shocks me!
Anyway, do you have some similar shots of Upper East side ?


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## Camilo_Costa (Oct 27, 2007)

OMG! 
I love it! I love it! :master:


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## kardeee (Jul 25, 2009)

Thanks Krull, great shots!

Being right there in the middle of the financial district with the world passing you by is something I've meaning to experience for so long.


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## Iskandar (Oct 5, 2008)

Great pics!!

Why is there a Korean flag at the stock exchange??


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## dnobsemajdnob (Jan 29, 2009)

Snowy said:


> One of my favourite ever threads.
> 
> Call me ignorant, but I never knew New York had this many old buildings...............I mean really old buildings! I plan to visit New York again during the next couple of years and this time I'll do it properly, not the usual tourist sh*t!


NY has been a city for 400 years. This is what it looked like in the 1600's.


















http://images.google.com/imgres?img...dam&hl=en&rlz=1T4SKPB_enUS328US328&sa=N&um=1\


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## krull (Oct 8, 2005)

Thanks for viewing the thread and for your comments everyone. :cheers1:


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## Guest (Aug 31, 2009)

Brilliant, I feel as if I am there


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