56 LEONARD ST, #17A EAST

Most of Tribeca’s buildings date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was a center of the textile industry and home to warehouses serving the piers along the Hudson, but its current incarnation — as well as its name — dates from the 1970s. That is when pioneering artists eyed the stately, if neglected, cast-iron buildings with their open loft spaces and reinvented the neighborhood, much as others did in nearby Soho. As it transitioned from manufacturing to residential, it was dubbed Tribeca, formed from the initial letters in “Triangle Below Canal Street.” Eventually Soho’s and Tribeca’s paths diverged; as the former saw more retail and restaurants move in alongside the galleries and artists’ lofts, Tribeca stayed truer to its original character. While there are restaurants and boutiques, it remains a relatively quiet and low-key, if now far more expensive than in its early days, part of lower Manhattan.