In the 21 years since 9/11, lower Manhattan has more than doubled its residential population, from nearly 40,000 to more than 82,000. Downtown’s evolution into a mixed residential neighborhood – which was initiated by the City in the mid-1990s, but catastrophically interrupted in 2001, as well as by the financial crisis of 2008 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012 – has been a story as much about the conversion of older office buildings into apartments as about new construction.
Led by The Skyscraper Museum Director Carol Willis, the walking tour will cover blocks from City Hall Park, a perfect vantage to admire the new stand-out residential towers, and wind south through the Financial District to Wall Street, where Art Deco office buildings have been converted to hundreds of small rental apartments with lavish amenity spaces. Along the way, we will discuss the zoning changes, financing incentives, and historic preservation and development strategies that have produced a new neighborhood.
Tour duration is around 60 minutes. The tour will meet at 1pm in the public plaza of 30 Park Place, midblock on Park Place between Broadway and Church St. The last stop of the tour will be at Wall Street and Broadway. Any updates for bad-weather cancellations will be sent to your email address.
