Devoid of jacked-up Wall Street traders on the weekends, New York's financial district morphs into a surprising oasis of calm, its slender streets mercifully quiet.
Except for the children. They've congregated on the Bowling Green, a narrow strip of park, to snap selfies with Fearless Girl, the defiant bronze sculpture installed here in stockbroker-land ahead of International Women's Day last March. Well, the girls pose with Fearless Girl. The boys have wandered over to Charging Bull, that other sculpture a few feet away, and are mugging for photos under its sizable package. A bit of an impasse.
Fearless Girl is but one new draw to the financial district, which has been warming up to becoming a true neighbourhood in recent years. People are moving here to live, not just work. Marquee restaurants, cocktail bars, gourmet markets and boutiques are multiplying. The soaring Oculus structure draws in shoppers under the shadow of One World Trade Center. Nearby, the cobblestoned South Street Seaport district has transformed itself from tourist kitsch to a vibrant local neighbourhood. And a complete redevelopment of adjacent Pier 17 will see Momofuku and Jean-Georges restaurants arriving next year.
The revival has come slowly. After the horrors of 9/11 and the long, painful rebuild, Hurricane Sandy landed another blow in 2012: Some business owners mark the 11-foot-high flood lines on their walls as a cautious reminder. But as one New Yorker put it to me as he sidled up to the bar at a swank new Battery Park restaurant, "It feels like a utopia again." A utopia you can almost have to yourself – at least by NYC standards.
STAY
The Beekman Hotel:
Following a sumptuous restoration of this once-abandoned Victorian skyscraper, the Beekman opened its doors to well-heeled guests last August in the financial district.
Built in 1883 as Temple Court, the brick and granite tower originally played host to lawyers, bankers, publishers and ad men who hopefully appreciated how good they had it with office space like this.
Walled off for decades, the building's nine-storey atrium is the showstopper, a Wes Anderson vision cascading with light and sound. Thanks to an enormous glass skylight overhead, the hotel's personality changes depending on the weather. Looking up, the atrium glows silver at night, an effect of the cast iron panels that line the underside of each floor. Looking down, you can take in the plush Bar Room as peals of laughter from women quaffing bespoke cocktails float up the air shaft. I chose to think of it as a magic Victorian hole.
The building is a testament to a bygone era of inefficient, handcrafted beauty: balustrades etched with sunbursts and flowers, staircases stamped with blue herons and T-brackets sculpted like dragons, the Beekman's central motif. A bellhop points out another exotic detail: Since iron safes were too heavy for the 19th century elevators, architects cut holes open in each floor to winch those safes up, up, up the air shaft.
More eccentricity lies in the rooms. During turndown service, staff leave behind small cards that read "psychic powers." Illustrated with ominous clouds and lightning bolts, the cards let guests know whether it will rain or shine when they wake up, a clever antidote to turning on the Weather Network. You really don't want to watch TV when you're staying at the Beekman, let alone leave the hotel.
That's helped by chef Tom Colicchio's sublime in-house restaurant Fowler & Wells, which takes its name from two phrenologists who once practised their quackery on the site. Macabre odes persist at the Beekman, as Edgar Allan Poe glowers from numerous portraits on the walls. It's an homage to a library that once stood on the site, where Poe, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau and other literary heavies worked.
Today, the luxury hotel boasts 287 rooms (including 38 suites and two penthouses inside rooftop turrets), currently ranging from $399 to $599 (U.S.) for standard rooms and $699 and up for suites. The rooms are decadent, with Carrara marble bathrooms and custom-made furniture from acclaimed interior designer Martin Brudnizki.
123 Nassau St. thebeekman.com
EAT AND DRINK
The Wooly Public:
Housed in the neogothic Woolworth Building, this hidden jewel of a bar inventively blends the old and the new. Cocktails are divided between "old souls" and "new editions" while the menu features updated classics like beet-cured deviled eggs with house-smoked trout and addictive Peking duck tots topped with queso and scallions. If you're really nostalgic, the Wooly also interprets dishes from the building's original 1913 menu: frogs legs and tartar sauce, anyone? During a recent swing dance night, girls get spun around before a cabaret dancer takes the floor clad in little but feathers. At the bar, the guy next to me reads a book, no iPhone in sight. Old school.
9 Barclay St. thewoolypublic.com
The Wooly Public, New York City. The cocktail bar and restaurant opened in February in the lobby of the landmark Woolworth Building.
The Wooly Pub
Nobu Downtown:
In April, cutting-edge Japanese restaurant Nobu moved from its iconic Tribeca location to the financial district with a two-floor space that feels like the set of a luxury hip-hop video. On the ground level, a high-ceilinged, marble-columned lounge; down below, a red-banqueted dining room. Sit at the sushi bar and trust the chefs with the Omakase menu or try new items on the "Nobu Now" list – think wagyu gyoza dumplings and bigeye tuna tataki with truffle eryngii mushrooms.
195 Broadway. noburestaurants.com
BlackTail:
Since most young Americans haven't (yet) set foot on Cuban soil, BlackTail offers a simulacrum: a sultry bar inspired by 1950s Havana.
Deep mahogany walls are lined with framed photos, including the requisite shot of Ernest Hemingway looking blotto, as well as old waybills from Bacardi. Copper fans buzz and whir like hummingbirds above bartenders outfitted in stiff fedoras.
Have the sloppy joe empanadas and crispy rabbit fritters with pickled figs, plus a heady "Handmade Woman": That's gin, mezcal, vermouth, sherry, apricot, dandelion and chamomile. Oh, and since it's still illegal to import Cuban rum into the U.S. of A., BlackTail approximates with its own five-rum blend.
22 Battery Place. blacktailnyc.com
BlackTail, a newly opened Havana-inspired cocktail bar where staff all don stiff fedoras.
Brent Herrig
Eataly NYC Downtown:
FiDi's Eataly location opened last August with a sprawling 40,000-square-foot marketplace and five restaurants, including the new Orto e Mare, which focuses on seafood and vegetables. Stroll aisles heaped with beautifully packaged truffles, olives, chocolates and jams, or take a seat at the wine counter with the ladies who lunch for some Woody Allen-esque dialogue. A feast for all the senses.
101 Liberty St. eataly.com
SHOP
Northern Grade:
Carbon steel skillets forged in Virginia, dominoes crafted in Rhode Island, candles poured in Austin and linen dresses spun in Louisiana – with cotton from Arizona – this boutique showcases wares made in the USA. Established as a roving marketplace that made pit stops in places like Nashville and Los Angeles, Northern Grade now resides in this more permanent location in the financial district. (Funny, no red-hatted Trump supporters spotted here buying American.)
117 Beekman St. northerngrade.com
The Northern Grade shop on Beekman Street showcases wares made in the U.S., such as hand-carved and hand-painted paddles on the wall.
Northern Grade
Bowne & Co. Stationers:
Look no further for your postcards. A paper-geek's dream, this shop prints fine cards on two of the South Street Seaport Museum's 16 ancient letterpresses: the "Golding Jobber #7" from 1901 and the "Columbian Rotary" from 1875. Also tucked away in the pleasantly musty 19th-century room: a well-curated selection of NYC photography books, vintage posters and knick-knacks well-sized for a carry-on.
211 Water St. southstreetseaportmuseum.org
Emily Thompson Flowers:
From her studio in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, celebrity florist Emily Thompson transports customers to "the forest and field, the swamp and the bog," arranging rare botanicals with unlikely props like garlic scapes and fiddleheads. The effect is reminiscent of the still-life paintings of the Dutch masters - on hallucinogens. Clients include Bjork for the opening of her 2015 exhibition at MoMA, and the Obama White House for the 2011 holidays, when Thompson rendered the family's Portuguese water dog Bo out of pine cones.
142 Beekman St.emilythompsonflowers.com
LOCAL SECRETS
Battery Urban Farm:
Manhattan's largest educational farm was badly flooded by Hurricane Sandy. Today, the garden is up and running again with broccoli, kale, salads and Swiss chard sprouting in neat rows.
Food grown here by students gets donated to school cafeterias. A green respite from the city.
State St. and Battery Place. thebattery.org
Oculus Plaza movie nights:
This free, outdoor screening series showcases beloved films set in New York, including Annie Hall, Breakfast at Tiffany's, West Side Story and Ghostbusters. Film buffs may be distracted by the Oculus, the dove-like, steel-and-glass structure designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava as a showpiece for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub.
Corner of Church and Dey Sts. tribecafilm.com
The writer paid a reduced rate at the Beekman Hotel. It did not review or approve this article.