Oh the weather outside is frightful!

If the frigid temperatures, Christmas tree vendors on the sidewalk or red holiday cups at Starbucks didn’t clue you in already, it’s finally December! There’s always the standard holiday-related things to do around the city – the Rockefeller tree, ice skating at Wolman Rink in Central Park, hot chocolate at Serendipity3 – but there’s also plenty to do down here, right in the neighborhood:

The Seaport's Christmas tree

The Christmas tree at the Seaport has been up since the beginning of the month. The 50-foot tree serves as a sparkling backdrop for performances from the Big Apple Chorus, an a capella group singing blues, barbershop, jazz, gospel and Broadway tunes. Hopefully, they’ll throw in a “Frosty the Snowman” or “O Christmas Tree” too! Here’s their performance schedule.

Everyone is eagerly anticipating the opening of Seaport Ice, the new skating rink on Pier 17 that opens to the public Dec. 19. It will feature 8,000 square ft. of ice to glide on. There’s also beautiful views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, the USS Peking and other ships docked at the piers, and the city’s skyline to look at while taking turns around the rink. Admission is $5, and skate rentals are $7. It’s a great way to enjoy a holiday staple without having to deal with the hubbub of midtown.

Tree? Check. Skating? Check. How about hot chocolate? After an informal survey (read: my roommate and I have been drinking a lot of hot chocolate in the past month), we decided the best ho cho in the neighborhood is the creamy, rich offering ($2.75 for a small) at Financier Patisserie, which has three locations in the area. If you’re as avid a sweet tooth as me, their coffee éclairs ($3.25) make a great accompaniment.

Bonus tip: if caffeinated concoctions are more your style, head over to Jack’s Coffee on Front Street. Their cappuccinos (around $4) are the perfect mix of froth and espresso, and their cider ($3) is great for getting in the holiday spirit.

You don’t even need to leave the neighborhood to have a fabulous New York winter experience. But whatever you do to get in the mood for the holidays, have a good one!

Ain't that the truth!

“They say life's what happens when you're busy making other plans. But sometimes in New York, life is what happens when you're waiting for a table.”

- Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)

Beer is the new king on Wall Street

Maynard Sikowski doesn’t look like he belongs at Ryan McGuire’s Ale House. With his nice suit and gold cufflinks, the 45-year-old business consultant is clearly in a different tax bracket than the Cliff Street pub’s core jeans-and-T-shirt clientele. He also prefers to drink 1980s vintage Opus One wine, which typically retails for $400 a bottle.

But the recession has made the place his new favorite dive. “I’m at an economic class where nothing at this bar would be a splurge,” Sikowski said as he sipped a $5 pint of Blue Moon.

These days, beer is king for the Wall Street crowd. People are shelving the expensive wines and instead grabbing a beer or hard liquor. And the mood is different too.

“After-work drinks used to be more celebratory,” said Gary Pai, a regular at Ryan McGuire’s. “But now the tone is more sulking.”

Bartender Gavin Doherty offers Gary Pai, 31, and Gladstone Alexander, 49, an after-work Guinness at Ryan Maguire’s Ale House.

That night, the 31-year-old software product manager was nursing a $5 pint of Guinness, which bartender Gavin Doherty said is a top seller because of its affordable price.

“We’ve been selling a lot of beer,” Doherty added. “Miller Genuine Draft is the most popular, because it’s the cheapest. A pint for $3, a pitcher for $10. It’s popular with the young working crowd.”

Wall Street has a bunch of pubs and dive bars that report similar trends. Traditional American beers like Miller, Coors, and Bud Light have always been popular, but they’re really becoming go-to drinks now.

“Very few people are ordering a $9 beer,” Jeremy’s Ale House bartender Gina Carey said. “They’re drinking our $6 quarts of Coors Light or doing a couple of $4 shots.”

And it seems what’s happening on Wall Street is a national trend. Around the country, the sense is that more budget-conscious wine and cocktail drinkers are turning to beer, according to Rick Sellers, beer director for DRAFT Magazine.

“The economy is definitely affecting what people drink,” agreed Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association. “People are trading down in wine and spirits, but beer seems to be more resilient.”

The shift to beer has meant less business for Wall Street’s tony wine bars.

“Instead of coming in four days a week, our customers are coming in two days a week or less,” said Mauricio Ortegón, manager of the chic wine bar Bin No. 220.

Local liquor stores are also feeling the pinch. Though there are still plenty of shoppers, their choices have changed.

“People always buy alcohol, no matter what,” explained Peter Muscat, owner of Maiden Lane Wine and Liquor Store. “But they’re buying less expensive stuff because they have less money. Less expensive wines especially.”

This week, Muscat’s top seller was a 2007 Domaine Barry Côtes du Rhône, on sale for $9.99. On South Street, Pasanella and Son Vintners has also started offering promotions in order to drum up business. The cavernous store’s weekly jam sessions and movie nights, often paired with free wine tastings, have become a big hit.

“We wanted to have events where people didn’t have to spend money to have fun,” owner Marco Pasanella said. “Who doesn’t like to have a free tasting and a movie?”

Even so, area residents are reluctant to spend money on alcohol. Many have cut back on drinks when dining out.

“I’m still going out to eat once a week, but I’m not ordering as much wine,” teacher Mary Broydrick, 27, said.

Health care manager David Smithson has made more drastic cutbacks. The 40-year-old has omitted alcohol completely from his dining experience.

“That’s what kills the bills,” he said.

A chat with Shaun Hergatt, executive chef at SHO Shaun Hergatt

Restaurateur Shaun Hergatt, of Atelier fame, is gearing up for the opening of SHO Shaun Hergatt, his eponymous new hot spot in The Setai building at 40 Broad St. The Australian-born chef chatted with me briefly about this new venture, which has been eagerly anticipated by the gourmands of Wall Street.

IS: What’s the timeline for the restaurant’s opening?
SH: We’re opening at the end of December or early January. Construction is a tough thing to oversee, which is the reason for the delay.

What will SHO Shaun Hergatt look like?
We’ve created two sections of the restaurant: the Pearl Room and the Show Room. The Pearl Room is without tablecloths, and it’s a lighter experience than the Show Room, which is for the typical serious dining experience. We split the room in two, so regardless of your economic background, you can have the dining experience you like.

Speaking of the economy, how are you planning on opening a restaurant in the middle of a recession?
Opening this restaurant has been three years in the process. We didn’t dream that this economic schnozzle would occur. We want to build something long-term, want to face the economic crisis and are dealing with it in reacting in an efficient way.

We put a number to that offered our menu at a competitive price for the quality and investment (we can’t divulge actual prices until restaurant opens, but will be much less than most three- and four-star establishments).

Who do you expect as customers?
Our market is a local market [initially]: Wall Street, the Financial District and Lower Manhattan, but eventually we want to be a destination restaurant.

We’re targeting special areas of the market. We want to market to the correct people, and quality of the product is always going to drive business, regardless of the economy. Value for money is key. People will say, “If I spend $50, what am I gonna get?”

Now, the money question: what will the food be like?
The food is modern French with bold Asian flavors. I have classical training, but coming from Australia, I have influences from Asia.

In tribute to the never-ending construction on Fulton...

“New York will be a great place when they finish it.”

- Anonymous

Sums up life on Fulton Street perfectly.

A Local Landmark: The Paris

The bar at the Paris, lit up for the holidays

When you walk in, The Paris looks like an average bar. Eleven flat-screen TVs line the walls, each displaying a different game. But a closer look reveals intricately carved dark-wood molding, creeping out from beneath the sleek black screens.

It’s a juxtaposition of styles: technology of the 21st century next to a holdover from the original Paris Café, established in 1873.

Traces of the past are common at The Paris, located at 119 South St. Even the name lingers on. Though owners John Ronaghan and Peter O’Connell changed the name to The Paris Bar when they bought the restaurant in 2000, locals still refer to the place as the Paris Café. One hundred and twenty years of history is hard to ignore.

Black-and-white photographs of old New York hang on the exposed brick walls, alongside framed reprints of recent newspaper articles lauding the Paris’s success. The wine list is scribbled messily on a chalkboard, but few customers even glance at it. With 18 beers on tap, no one’s drinking wine.

Locals flock to the restaurant’s candle-lit tables and mahogany bar. A couple clad in jeans sits next to a group of men in suits, Blackberries in hand. It was pretty full on the Monday night I went, but waitress Annette Jackman worried that the ongoing financial crisis will slow business.

“We get lots of Wall Street people, especially from AIG,” Jackman said. “Are they still going to show up? We don’t know.”

While the Paris’s traditional demographic is declining, the changing face of the neighborhood is bringing in a new sort of patron: the resident.

“We never saw people walking their dogs before,” bartender Bob Grant said. “The neighbors are mixing with Wall Street.”

New clients are ordering differently too. Though the bar has always been known for its beer, vodka has become popular recently, Grant said.

“They’re like sheep,” Grant said. “If there’s one brand in fashion at the moment – that’s what’s big.”

Even the menu contrasts old and new. Traditional bar favorites are popular, especially the fish and chips ($13). A cod fillet the size of a pint glass is coated in a rich beer batter, cushioned on the plate by a mound of thick-cut fries. It’s old-school Irish pub grub, comparable to any in Dublin.

But the kitchen also serves up more fashionable fare: farfalle with shrimp and sun-dried tomatoes ($15), sesame-crusted tuna salad ($15), and blackened snapper with mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes ($18). The snapper is smoky, spicy and a little salty, but a valiant effort at creating something more than bar food.

The Paris has been open since 1871

The flexibility with the menu and drink list has helped the Paris stay open in an area where many mainstays have recently closed. When the Fulton Fish Market moved to the Bronx in 2005, fish market workers who had often stopped in for a post-work beer also moved north, which proved fatal for such landmarks as Sweets and Sloppy Louie’s.

“I miss the Fish Market,” Grant lamented. “The neighborhood is much more residential, so [the restaurant] is changing.”

The Paris may be changing, but it still retains its storied past. Anyone that walks in and sees the centuries-old molding on the walls can attest to that.

Thoughts from the neighborhood on Election Day

Though the election buzz has calmed down a little, here's a little recap of what locals thought about Nov. 4. I was surprised to hear that most people didn't care about the historic day:

Stella, a 26-year-old employee at Yorganic in the Financial District, wasn’t sure if she would vote today. She said that she should, but didn’t know enough about the candidates to make an informed decision.

Regina, a 22-year-old employee at Pylones, said the same thing. “I’m not sure [if I’m voting] because I’m not aware of their economic policies, and I think it would depend on that.”

Though this is one of the most exciting elections in recent history, business owners and employees by Wall Street were unenthusiastic about Nov. 4. No one believed that the election would affect his or her business. The owner of Wall Street Wine Merchants said, “If people want to drink, they want to drink.” Martin, an employee at the Stone St. Financier Patisserie said, “people still need their coffee.” Newell Cheung, an investor of B4, said, “people are still going to want to come in [to the bar] and unwind.”

No one cared about the election because they thought it would not create immediate change. As Stella said, “just because one person becomes the president, the economy’s not going to go up the next day.” She couldn’t talk specifically about the candidates’ economic plans, however, because she didn’t know anything about them. Like Stella, most people I talked to had little to say about the election, simply because they were uninformed.

The proprietor of a hair salon on Maiden St. summed it up best: “I’m not voting and I don’t want to talk about it.”

***

I was pretty excited - it was my first time voting!

A Trip to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center

Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2007

Ground Zero is an inescapable part of any New Yorker’s life, especially one living down in the Financial District. It’s the center of the neighborhood. Whether you were in New York at the time or not, Sept. 11 was a defining moment of this generation, and of all of our lives. I had never been to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center on Liberty Street, though I had walked by it countless times. Our class trip to the Center last week was an eye-opening experience.

I was 12 on Sept. 11, 2001, living in a suburb of Washington, D.C. I was in my Geometry class when we heard the news. Within hours, school had been cancelled (many of my classmates had family who worked at the Pentagon, site of one of the attacks), I was home, and my family and I were glued to the TV. It was a completely surreal experience, like a really bad movie that I couldn’t stop watching.

I’ve never really thought about Sept. 11, partly because it never seemed real, and partly because I don’t like to linger on bad experiences. I didn’t visit Ground Zero until last year, when I was forced to for a class assignment. I never got a sense of the place on my little self-guided tour, and I thought our trip to the Tribute Center would be similar to my experience last year: something very detached and cursory.

John Henderson, who works for Graduate Enrollment Services at NYU and volunteers as a tour guide at the Center, walked us around the site. Somehow he made the imaginary visions in my head real. I never understood the terror that consumed the people trapped in these buildings, until Henderson described their frantic attempts to escape. I never appreciated the thread-thin line between survival and death, until Henderson said that people below the 91st floor in the North Tower could escape, but those above could not, because debris had blocked the stairs completely.

The Center itself was informative, but I couldn’t walk through it without tearing up. It was inspiring to see how determined people were to help out their fellow New Yorkers that day, and to see how resilient families have been in 9/11’s aftermath. We talked to survivor Manny Papir, a business consultant and self-described “political hack” about his experience that day. Papir, who was Rudy Giuliani’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the time, said that he saw smoke rising from the towers from his home in Brooklyn, and immediately headed over to the World Trade Center to help.

I apologize for being graphic, but one thing he said really struck me: when describing the scene at Ground Zero, Papir said, “We weren’t finding whole bodies, we were finding parts.”

Sept. 11 is still something I will never comprehend, but the Tribute Center visit was a big step in finding some understanding of such a watershed moment in all of our lives.

Words to live by...

Advice from Hamill, by way of his mother:

“Never look down on anyone, unless you’re giving them a hand to get up.”

Pete Hamill, an Old-Time New Yorker

Our journalism class chatted with journalist and author Pete Hamill recently. Hamill was like that crazy old uncle everyone has - to announce his presence, he poked his head into the classroom to say, “I’m eating a cheese danish. Give me 15 minutes” - you know the type: the one with the amazing stories who you could listen to for hours.

He wrote Downtown: My Manhattan, which we read in class, and talked to us about his life, his writing career, and what went into his book. He’s covered New York City longer than my parents have been alive, so his memories in the Big Apple are incomparable. Who else can say they lived down the block from Jimi Hendrix or used to hear Thelonius Monk play a set at the corner bar?


Hamill’s musings in Downtown have a certain lyrical quality to them. They're a bundle of emotions and experiences and poetry. He confirmed that idea during his visit, and said he always asks himself as he writes, “What’s the music of this piece? What’s the beat?”

It was fascinating to hear that he still hand-writes parts of his books: he uses a yellow legal pad to pen down his initial thoughts, and then fleshes them out on the computer. He also said that the best way to get to know a place is by foot. Even though he’s 73 years old, he takes a walk every day, finding new marvels in a city he’s known all his life.

Hamill is old enough to remember life before the Twin Towers were even built, so I was interested to hear what he thought about life after the towers were destroyed. Since the Freedom Tower is an issue on everybody’s minds down here, I asked him about that. He said that it wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but with the economic crisis it didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime soon.

He also had a suggestion for Ground Zero re-developers: “I always thought they’d be better off with a park – a place for kids to learn how to play stickball. You could have one tree from every country that lost people in 9/11. That would give it some sense of privacy, some place where old guys can read Yeats and kids can learn to hit spaldeens.”

Around the Neighborhood

There's a bunch of free stuff going on in the area in the next few weeks:

Fritz Scholder's “American Portrait No. 46,” on display at the National Museum of the American Indian

On Nov. 1, the National Museum of the American Indian celebrates El día de los muertos (Day of the Dead), an indigenous Mexican holiday after Halloween, with dance performances, art installations, and the holiday’s staple treat, sugar skulls. The museum also debuts painter Fritz Scholder’s exhibit Indian/Not Indian that day.

You can catch the New York Scandia Symphony for free too (a $2 donation is suggested). Conductor Dorrit Matson will lead the strings ensemble in pieces by Grieg, Roman, and Wagenseil, as well as in the U.S. premiere of Andrew Ackers’ Pastoral Peace. Check it out on Nov. 6 on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street.

Also on Nov. 6: The AKO Gallery in the Seaport is holding a poetry reading and exhibit reception. Poet J.M. Barnes will be on hand to read his “Villa lovis,” the inaugural publication of the recently launched Tennyson Press. And the library’s always a good place to find free events. The New Amsterdam Branch of the NYPL (on Murray Street) is screening the Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis classic “Some Like It Hot” on Nov. 12.

Though it’s not free, the Seaport’s Halloween celebration should be a fun time. Anyone can tour a haunted house, but you can tour the haunted USS Peking, “the Ship of the Dead.” Tickets are $15-20, but it’s not a bad price to pay for a good scare.

And because I’ve always got food on the brain, here’s a quick restaurant update:

As I reported earlier, Todd English’s Libertine opened a few weeks ago on Gold Street, but reviewers from the New York Daily News were not impressed.

MSNBC.com reports on the difficulty of opening a restaurant during these trying economic times, and talks to Australian restauranteur Shaun Hergatt about his slated opening for SHO Shaun Hergatt at the end of the year. Hergatt’s chic restaurant will be in The Setai New York building on Broad Street, and will most likely be upscale. Hopefully the economy will have rebounded by then, though Hergatt mentions in the MSNBC article that he’s looking into less expensive menu options. I’ll keep you posted as more details come out!

Meet Asma Mohamed, A Local Street Vendor

Asma Mohamed has never complained about running her halal vendor business. The hours spent standing in the rain, cold, or extreme summer heat were hard, but the 20-year-old didn’t mind.

That changed in August, when Mohamed gave birth to a daughter. Try operating a food cart with a baby in your arms!

Mohamed manages three food carts in the Financial District. She operates one of the carts from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. four days a week, and supervises all three when she is not vending. Maryam, born only 43 days ago, stays with a babysitter sometimes, but it is common to see Mohamed carrying a pink bundle in her arms as she oversees her business.

“It’s too hard with the baby, but what can I do?” she said. “We need the money.”

***

After 9/11, Mohamed’s father left New York to return to their native Egypt, and Mohamed and her husband Saif, 40, took charge of the family’s food cart business. It was rough. There was little street traffic by Wall St. and customers were wary of Mohamed’s ethnicity, even though she emigrated from Egypt at age 10 and graduated from high school in Queens.

“We’re Arabic,” she said. “Nobody stopped.”

Business has since improved. A stream of regular customers chat with Mohamed in Arabic and smile at her sleeping baby.

“All the people here like me,” she said with a laugh. “All the customers know me now. There’s lots of business.”

She passes the long hours joking around with customers and her three employees, who are mostly friends of friends.

Ataf Ali runs Mohamed’s cart when she supervises the other employees. The 25-year-old juggles college courses at LaGuardia Community College in Queens.

“She calls me, and whenever I have a chance, I come in,” Ali said. “She’s the wife of my friend, so I work when I can.”

His cart is on the corner of Broadway and Cedar St., next to Mohamed’s larger halal cart. Mohamed also has a smaller stand on Broadway and Liberty St. The carts sell anything from pretzels to hot dogs to bottled water, but Mohamed’s favorite is halal chicken with rice, the business’s top seller.

***

As we talk, a wind gust ruffles Mohamed’s headscarf, a reminder that the weather will turn cold soon. She frowns.

“All the business gets f---ed up in the winter,” she said. “When the rain comes, nobody stops. In the snow, nobody stays in the street.”

Usually Mohamed returns to Egypt in December. This year, because of the newborn, she will pass the season in her New Jersey apartment.

“It’s too hard for me with the work and the baby,” she said with a small smile. “[Hopefully] I make time for the baby.”

Chatting with Sean Basinski, founder of the Street Vendor Project

As the thermometer takes a turn south, you’ll notice that the streets get a little less crowded. Asma Mohamed’s halal cart is not the only one that disappears: There are fewer t-shirt vendors crowding the Fulton Street sidewalk, and you might have to run into a Starbucks instead of getting your coffee on Broadway and Cedar.

Where do the street vendors, so omnipresent during warmer times, go during the “off-season,” the bitter New York cold?

To find out more, my journalism class chatted with Sean Basinski, the founder and director of the Street Vendor Project, an organization that advocates for street vendors across the city. Basinski, 36, described the Project as a union of sorts: independent individuals using collective action to take on their adversary, namely the New York City government.

He said that though the cold might force vendors to close for a few months, the city presents a litany of other problems.

Vendors face issues with permits, with the police, or with policies that limit where they can set up shop. Basinski said that the Project helps vendors realize their rights, because often vendors do not understand that the city is taking advantage of them.

“We envision some of what we do as opening vendors’ eyes to problems that they can’t see because they’re so in the middle of things,” he said.

The biggest thing that the Project focuses on is giving vendors a voice. Its goal is to get vendor customers involved as well. Anything as small as a letter or a signature on a petition could help countless people, and let’s not lie: You need that 50-cent cup of coffee. Check out the website at streetvendor.org, and visit the Project’s offices if you get a chance. They’re located right in the neighborhood, at 123 William St.

So much to do...

The Waterfalls exhibit on the East River ends soon

The culture calendar is stacked the next few weeks:

A few summer holdovers end soon. The Waterfalls exhibit along the East River goes down for good Oct. 13. The fall weather is perfect for a stroll along the river, so check out one of the city’s largest public arts initiatives before it’s too late.

Speigelworld, the traveling party currently in the Seaport, features performances, live music, cocktails, a restaurant, and Tuesday and Thursday night DJ sessions. It ends Nov. 2, so party under the stars before it gets too cold!

A few exhibits debuted at local museums this week. The Museum of Jewish Heritage opened “Woman of Letters: Irène Némirovsky and Suite Française” on Sept. 24. The exhibit examines the life of the Russian-born Jewish author, who was deported to Auschwitz in July of 1942 and died a month later, leaving her only novel unfinished.

The National Museum of the American Indian celebrates Mexico with a film series that started yesterday, and runs until Oct. 28. There are daily screenings of the short films that focus on the indigenous experience in Mexico. The museum also hosts a Traditional Dance Social, featuring the Thunderbird Indian Dancers and Singers, on Oct. 18.

The Lowdown

Here's a rundown of what's going on in the neighborhood:

Obviously the recent financial crisis is wreaking havoc on the neighborhood. With lots of companies downsizing, if not going under completely, there’s a lot of empty office space and no demand for more growth, which is bad news for FiDi development.

Over at Ground Zero, Port Authority officials signed a security contract for the Freedom Tower for a jaw-dropping $20 million. The security system will reportedly include a video analytics system that can “detect abnormal situations,” whatever that means.

Not everyone is feeling the effects of the plummeting economy though. A penthouse in the luxury condominium building The Setai, New York sold for a record-setting $7.82 million. The most expensive single unit in the Financial District is about 3500 square feet, and has three bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths.

Also undaunted by economic woes? Restaurateur and celebrity chef Todd English, of “Cooking with Todd English” fame. English opened Libertine at the Gild Hall Hotel last week. The restaurant serves haute American cuisine with, according to martiniboys.com, a seriously Anglophile vibe. The Libertine doesn't have a website yet, but I'll keep you posted!

And in completely unrelated news, ABC’s hit show “Ugly Betty” premiered its third season last week. It’s the first time the Manhattan- and Queens-based show has filmed in the city. The Woolworth Building is the stand-in for the fictional “Mode” magazine’s offices, so expect to see camera crews crowd the Wall Street area.

The Neighborhood

We might not be tourists, but we wanted a picture in front of the Charging Bull too!

Ask most New Yorkers for their opinion of the Financial District, and you’ll get some variation of the same answer: “There’s nothing to do there. It’s dead after 6.”

That might have been true a few years ago, but Wall St. has a new swagger now. It’s evolving from a business-only neighborhood into a residential haven for the newest generation of young professionals – the area’s residential population has doubled since 2000, according to the neighborhood's Community Board. Though it’s been a hub for economic interests since the seventeenth century, the Financial District is slowly changing its stripes.

Lower Manhattan is the oldest part of New York. It's the site of the original Dutch settlement, established in 1625 when the Dutch built Fort Amsterdam just south of Bowling Green. From there they expanded north, into what is now FiDi.

Though close to four centuries have passed since the Dutch first arrived, they've left footprints all over the neighborhood. Take Stone Street. When it was paved by the Dutch in the 17th century, it was the one of the first paved streets in the New World. Today, restaurants line both sides of the street. People mill about on the cobblestones, rarely recognizing the rich history beneath their feet.

Tourists also flock to this area that is so often ignored by New York City’s locals. They come to see Ground Zero with flowers and candles and cameras in hand. They go to Arturo Di Modica’s 7,000-pound bronze Charging Bull statue in front of Bowling Green, and smile broadly for the camera while hanging off of the Bull’s horns.

They flock to the New York Stock Exchange and Federal Hall, crowding the Grecian columns where George Washington was inaugurated in 1789. They peruse through the “I Love NY” T-shirts and caps that vendors proudly hawk in front of Trinity Church, a Gothic marvel on Broadway. The area comes alive with a different pulse on weekends, when the suits are at home and the offices are closed. Saturdays and Sundays are for visitors, and they frequent the neighborhood in droves.

New apartment buildings and restaurants open daily. Probably the biggest indicator of the changing neighborhood is the rumor that Whole Foods might open a store on Broad Street.
There is much more to the Financial District than finance. Sure, money is its backbone, but there is so much more to this area than that. Here, there is tourism, there is housing, there is history.

About Me...

The Financial District gets a bad rap among young people. Sure, most places close at 6 p.m. and it’s hard to find fun, young places to go to down here at the tip of Manhattan. But there’s a lot more to Wall Street than meets the eye. I’m using this blog space to find and explore those places. I’m sure they exist somewhere!

I’m a senior at NYU, and a Journalism and Spanish major. I just spent the spring studying abroad in Madrid, which got me really into traveling. And I love food, so there will probably be a lot of restaurant and café chatter. There’s nothing better than a strong cappuccino and a good book on a Saturday afternoon, so I’ll be looking out for good coffee down here. I’m also big on shopping, so you can expect to see a lot about that too. I’m on a limited budget, but I think the best part of living in New York City is finding those offbeat stores that sell weird things.

My biggest goal with this blog is to show that the Financial District is a lot more than offices and business people - there’s a lot going on down here! Lower Manhattan was the site of the original Dutch settlement in the seventeenth century, and there’s a lot of history among the high-rise office buildings. This blog is an exploration into one of the city’s more overlooked neighborhoods, one that is dynamic and rapidly changing.