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If You're Thinking of Living In/TriBeCa; Families Are the Catalyst for Change

If You're Thinking of Living In/TriBeCa; Families Are the Catalyst for Change
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September 26, 1993, Section 10, Page 5Buy Reprints
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TRIBECA has been changing slowly since the mid-1970's and is changing still. Its residents ventured down to its lofts to forge a livable quarter in an increasingly hostile city. They have been, perhaps, too successful: Their local schools are at capacity, more recreational space is needed and new zoning proposals confront the very changes wrought by the neighborhood.

Families have overtaken commerce as the catalyst for change in this TRIangle BElow CAnal Street (although the only triangle here is its heart: Hudson Street meeting West Broadway at Chambers Street, with Canal its north side).

In fact, Canal to Murray Street and Broadway to West Street form a trapezium, which the dictionary defines as a quadrilateral no two sides of which are parallel.

As Andrew Scott Dolkart relates in the book "The Texture of Tribeca," the area remained open land well into the 18th century.

The eastern portion was developed by Anthony Rutgers and his son-in-law, Leonard Lispenard. Trinity Church owned the western portion until the late 18th century, with streets named for prominent parishioners, among them John Chambers, James Duane and Joseph Reade.

Business pushed residences northward, and early 19th-century Federal-style homes (nine preserved at Harrison and Greenwich Streets) gave way at mid-century to commercial buildings in Italian Renaissance stylefor textile and dry-goods merchants.

Proximity to piers established Washington Market, the city's major wholesale-produce outlet, spurring building of Romanesque Revival and neo-Flemish warehouses from 1880 to 1910 for produce, coffee and spices.

The area saw little architectural change until the 1960's, when the city leveled buildings in the market after its departure to Hunts Point. The three 40-story residential towers of Independence Plaza North, or I.P.N., on Greenwich Street rose over desolation in 1974.

(The market-rate complex stayed empty for a time until it was turned into subsidized Mitchell-Lama housing to coax New Yorkers to the neighborhood; today, the waiting list has long been closed).

Artists began seeking refuge from fashionable SoHo (SOuth of HOuston) as early as the mid-70's. Robert Mango, his wife, Helen, and two children, Joseph, 6, and Magdalena, 7, live in a loft in the Duane Park area off Hudson Street. The unloading of goods all night keeps the street unusually safe -- and noisy; all-night garbage collection adds to the street noise.

In 1978, on Mr. Mango's first night there, he recalled that Steve Wills, a dairy wholesaler next door who eventually became his friend, came in and said, "Look, we don't want any artists here, so you'd better just move out."

"They were jitsy that it would turn into a SoHo and force them out," Mr. Mango said.

Artists were followed by Wall Streeters and lawyers, some employed in the courts to the east. "People came down here in the 80's who wanted to start a family -- folks who otherwise would have left Manhattan," said Robert Weinstein, a lawyer who walks to work on Broadway from his Jay Street loft.

There is light and open sky over the low buildings, with sunsets reaching into the streets off the river.

Only one central subway stop, at Franklin Street, makes for a sense of quiet isolation on weekends. That, and large loft space, puts real estate at a premium. Loft sizes range from 1,000 to 32,000 square feet. The average is about 1,700 square feet.

"The bulk of sales here range between $300,000 to $400,000," said Jeff Tabak of Tabak Real Estate, with lofts as low as $165,000 for 700 square feet on Leonard Street to $1.3 million for 3,000 square feet on Hudson Street.

Rentals are coveted, move quickly and average $1.80 to $2 a square foot, or $3,600 a month for 2,000 square feet, according to Edward Ferris of the William B. May Company. Three condominium projects built after 1987 on lower Greenwich Street have sold out, primarily to younger Wall Street executives. Here, too, rentals are prized, averaging $1,000 for a studio to $2,600 for a two-bedroom unit. Twelve-year J-51 tax abatements, given by the city to encourage loft conversions, are expiring on many buildings. Although the subsequent tax bill is jolting, it can be reduced through reassessment by the city, said a developer, Mitchell Lowe.

"They're out of whack," he said. "You just have to go in there and do your due diligence. Logic prevails, believe it or not. I fought an assessment recently and cut it in half."

KATHRYN E. FREED, a Democratic City Councilwoman and a 17-year resident, recalled how the new residents sought amenities. A dump site south of Independence Plaza was to become a city parking lot.

"We stuffed the neighborhood with fliers, held a community meeting with elected officials, and demanded a park," she said.

Now in its 10th year, Washington Market Park at the northwest corner of Greenwich and Chambers Streets is privately maintained through revenue from a nearby parking lot in a deal with a developer. It has a tot play area, gazebo and a summer concert series. Tennis courts are west of the park on the other side of an entrance ramp to Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Other community efforts have brought about a public library at 9 Murray Street, a new building for P.S. 234 at the southwest corner of Greenwich and Chambers Streets and four historic districts. A Food Emporium, still the only supermarket, opened at Independence Plaza in the early 80's; there is a summer greenmarket Wednesdays and Saturdays on Greenwich Street.

The City Planning Department is studying zoning changes that, if approved, would take effect in late 1994. They would restrict high-rise development in the east (where a luxury residential tower at 105 Duane Street stands empty, in bankruptcy), with some increase in bulk and height in development along west Chambers Street. But the primary-manufacturing district would change to commercial zoning, allowing mid-block retail and community services. And where city planners speak of churches and day-care centers, residents see drug rehabilitation clinics and homeless shelters.

"What ticks us off is, we built this neighborhood with sweat equity," said Carol De Saram, a 19-year resident and president of the TriBeCa Community Association.

"Remove this protective zoning and we're opened up for every institution that wants to move in here. And we'll be boutique land down the side streets, just like SoHo."

Chuck Lowe, a developer turned actor ("The Mission," "Goodfellas") and a former local manufacturer, supports the change to commercial zoning.

"You can't use a metaphor of SoHo," he said. "It's entirely different, because we don't have the volume. Is it hip to walk 12 blocks to a hardware store? You can't have two and a half dry cleaners for 5,000 to 6,000 people."

There seems little threat of a gallery scene. Ricco/Maresca closed Aug. 23 at 105 Hudson Street after three years of serving its regular clientele "but getting virtually no walk-in visitors," said the co-owner, Roger Ricco. In 1990, Mr. Ricco counted eight galleries here, since closed. Ricco/Maresca has reopened at 152 Wooster Street in SoHo.

Mr. Ricco and his colleagues had a better time eating in TriBeCa -- at El Teddy's (Mexican), at 219 West Broadway; the casual Barocco (Italian), at 301 Church Street, or the very casual Yaffa's Tea Room, at 19 Harrison Street. The area has a concentration of renowned French restuarants, including the four-star Bouley's, at 165 Duane Street; Chanterelle, in the Mercantile Exchange Building at 2 Harrison Street, and Montrachet, at 239 West Broadway.

SINCE 1990, the TriBeCa Grill, featuring modern and American fare, has proven the most visible manifestation of a neighborhood inhabited (discreetly) by film stars and celebrities. It serves as ground zero to Robert DeNiro's TriBeCa Film Center in the former Martinson Coffee warehouse at Franklin and Greenwich Streets.

P.S. 234 had 180 students on opening day of its new building five years ago. Today, 650 youngsters pack the school, with its nontraditional program that eliminates tracking and features multi-age groupings until the sixth grade. The Early Childhood Center, in Independence Plaza, started in 1988 with 53 pupils; it, too, is now at capacity with 170 children. The k-2 center includes creative writing and individualized reading.

"We've been trying to get another school built here," said Judy Epstein, co-chairwoman of the Parent and Teachers Association. "We're also looking into alternative sites for next year, but at the moment there is no money for leasing space below the high school level."

Children from Battery Park City to the south have added to the P.S. 234 enrollment. David Emil, chief executive of the Battery Park City Authority, has indicated leaders that future residential development in Battery Park will include schools.

Parents are now seeking a community recreational center for teen-agers. But the city is encouraging Wall Street development on the last large sites in TriBeCa, west and south of P.S. 234.

"You know, we've created a neighborhood in spite of the city bureaucracy, rather than because of it," said Hal Bromm, a 21-year resident who led the fight for designation of the historic districts. "When does the city say, 'Hey, you've done well. We want to help you stay here, rather than move away.' "

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section 10, Page 5 of the National edition with the headline: If You're Thinking of Living In/TriBeCa; Families Are the Catalyst for Change. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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