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Located at the East River south of the Brooklyn Bridge, this small pocket in Lower Manhattan has recently undergone a dramatic glow-up. Just a decade ago, The Seaport was home to little more than schlocky tourist shops and nary a solid bar or dinner spot in sight. After Hurricane Sandy demolished huge swaths of it, many businesses that had been hanging on by a thread were forced to shutter, casting doubt on whether there would even be a seaport area of New York City at all.

But now, with the help of The Howard Hughes Corporation—who spent years rehabilitating Pier 17 and the surrounding streets into a lively stretch of restaurants, bars, shops, and performing venues (this is also approximately when the region started to be known as The Seaport, rather than South Street Seaport)—what was once a fishing port in the 1800s has become one of the coolest neighborhoods in town.

And while the restaurant game has been strong since the area’s transformation, the recent opening of the Tin Building food hall has heralded a new era for The Seaport: A proper destination dining enclave. So if you haven’t been, or haven’t been in years, now is the perfect time to explore this riverside community. From a maritime history museum to new luxury hotels, here’s everything to eat, see, and do at The Seaport.

Dine at a dazzling new food hall along with outposts from world-renowned chefs

Whether you’re looking to max out the office’s credit card or are in search of a quick nosh, The Seaport is home to some of the city’s most exciting new eateries.

Carne Mare is a swanky Italian-style chop house perhaps most famous for their decadent (and delicious) mozzarella sticks piled high with caviar. For a special occasion meal that veers more towards pescaterian tastes, head to The Fulton, chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s paean to seafood.

For something more casual, the dinner menu at Momofuku’s Ssam Bar with their signature Large Format Meals is ideal for sharing. For brunch, there’s farm-to-table dining at Malibu Farm. And the newish outpost of beloved Di Fara Pizza is perfect for something on the go.

For dessert, cookie lovers should make a beeline to Funny Face Bakery, home to the Harry Styles face cookie. One of the Big Apple’s best new spots for mithai, or Indian sweets, is also in the neighborhood: Tagmo makes small batches of jewel-like treats, including Pistachio Burfi and Besan Ladoo. For something frozen, Mister Dips has some of the city’s finest soft serve. And an outpost of the cherished ice cream brand, Van Leeuwen, serves classic flavors with a twist like Marionberry Cheesecake, along with plenty of vegan varieties.

But perhaps the biggest new driver of appetites to the neighborhood is the gleaming Tin Building, the product of eight years of exacting reconstruction from chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and his team. The two-story food hall offers six dine-in concepts, including the Fulton Fish Co. for seafood and T. Brasserie for French fare, as well as six grab-and-go spots like the breakfast sandwich haven Double Yolk, and T Cafe for coffee and pastries. Sprinkled among the eateries are also multiple markets, selling everything from hard-to-find fresh flower varieties to the Tin Building’s own line of oils and vinegars. You’ll need at least a few visits here to conquer it all.

Snap epic selfies with the BK Bridge and historic sailboats

With its cobblestone streets and epic close-up views of the Brooklyn Bridge, since its revitalization, The Seaport stands out as one of New York City’s most charming neighborhoods for a romantic wander.

History buffs will appreciate The South Street Seaport Museum, which chronicles the city’s past as a bustling seaport and features an impressive fleet of historic ships, including an adorable 1930 tugboat. And to learn of the African Diaspora’s impact on the history of New York City, Black Gotham Experience hosts walking tours, talks, and events that aim to illuminate these often forgotten stories.

Since its renovation, the area has become home to many local boutiques as opposed to touristy big brands. McNally Jackson is one of the city’s best independent bookstores, while The Canvas stocks ethical, emerging independent brands from around the globe. Vintage hounds will love Club Vintage, which sells not only vintage threads, but furniture and home decor as well. The newest boutique, CHEVAL, opens this month with a steady supply of sparkly shoes. And for the perfect leather jacket, let Christian Benner Custom make one for you to your exact specs.

The Seaport is also home to one of our favorite movie theaters, the IPIC Fulton Market. The theater is a “dine-in,” which means you can eat a full meal of Chicken & Red Velvet Waffles reclined in a cushy seat.

And come summer and fall time, there are more seasonal offerings in the neighborhood. The Rooftop at Pier 17 is an incredible concert venue with an outdoor stage that has a gorgeous view of the city skyline. And Manhattan By Sail is one of the best ways to explore the island from the water; in season, they offer daily sailboat tours around NY Harbor aboard a historic clipper ship or a classic schooner.

Sip on famed negronis and enjoy drinks on outdoor lawns

One of the biggest advantages to a night out here are the beautiful river views. Dante's Negroni Bar, with its soaring floor-to-ceiling windows that can roll up in temperate weather, maximizes its location with an indoor-outdoor setup to sip on their famed negronis. You can also snag a bar stool at any of the Tin Building’s dining concepts, like the Chinese-inspired House of the Red Pearl. And if the agenda calls for drinks and a movie, grab a cocktail at The Tuck Room before heading into the aforementioned IPIC for a flick.

For something super low-key, Jeremy’s Ale House bills itself as “the last of the great NYC dive bars,” while Fresh Salt is a very solid, no-frills neighborhood watering hole.

And while it’s only open seasonally, The Greens is one of the most unique places to grab a drink with pals. Located on the roof of Pier 17, the space has mini-lawns that fit up to 8 people, complete with chairs and an umbrella.

Lodge at chic hotels with stunning views and arcade game-filled lobbies

While the neighborhood, which roughly stretches from Water Street to the East River, doesn’t technically encompass any hotels, there are plenty of nearby options.

For luxury, Mr. C Seaport from the Cipriani family of restaurant fame offers 66 rooms boasting stunning views of the Brooklyn Bridge or NYC skyline. Expect high-end Italian linens and rain showers in each room, and the on-site restaurant Bellini serves (naturally) Italian food. The Wall Street Hotel from Preferred Hotels & Resorts is the newest fancy property to debut close by. Here, 180 rooms are inspired by classic NYC apartments, and its amenities include a private rooftop terrace with postcard-perfect views of the New York Harbor and Lower Manhattan. Chef John Fraser’s newest restaurant, La Marchande, is also on-site, serving contemporary French brasserie meals. But, for an even more exclusive address, become a member of Casa Cipriani in the historic Battery Maritime Building. This private club offers 47 hotel rooms and suites with private balconies overlooking The Statue of Liberty.

For more apartment-style living, we’re big fans of Mint House at 70 Pine, which offers about three times the space of a normal hotel room, plus a full kitchen. But if you don’t feel like cooking, 70 Pine is also home to the Michelin-starred restaurants Crown Shy and Saga (and its cocktail bar Overstory), plus the tasty Black Fox Coffee Co.

And finally, for something more wallet-friendly, the Moxy NYC Downtown boasts the on-site coworking and “play space” Recreation, which has old-school arcade games, strong cocktails, and programming like live music and DJs. Its 298 rooms are outfitted with sleek touches like leather headboards, cute denim robes, and 10-foot floor-to-ceiling windows.

Earlier this month, after he declined to throw out the New York attorney general’s fraud suit against Donald Trump — calling the president’s petition “frivolous” and suggesting he would sanction his lawyers — Justice Arthur F. Engoron delivered a quieter decision that reverberated more fractiously within Manhattan’s liberal ecosystem. The matter before the state supreme court justice involved the fate of an empty plot of land on Water Street that is technically within the perimeter of the South Street Seaport Historic District, with all the restrictions such a designation implies. Despite the omnipresent urgency of the city’s housing crisis, the parcel, at 50,000 square feet, had remained a historically landmarked parking lot for decades.

The vibe shift arrived in 2018 when a Texas real-estate firm, the Howard Hughes Corporation, bought the lot with the intention of constructing a 26-story apartment building that would include commercial space, anticipating the inevitable community backlash over scale. Although the project had the support of city officials, it would still need approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. In a highly unusual realignment of traditional sympathies, the commission, hearing the case two years ago, did not side with the local opposition. Instead it signed off on a prospective building that would stand at 324 feet.

The building at 250 Water Street would be much taller than anything else in the compact historic precinct, whose precise borders are meaningful to preservationists but not altogether obvious to the ordinary flâneur, who experiences the Seaport as a performatively consumerist extension of the financial district — one where, as of last month, it became possible to ‘‘immerse yourself in the world of the Golden Girls” by way of a pop-up restaurant, The Golden Girls Kitchen.

Walking around the neighborhood, you might find it hard to understand the objections to a venture that would be half the size of a beleaguered glass skyscraper meant for waterfront luxury condominiums — the Seaport Residences — partially up, right nearby on Maiden Lane but nevertheless outside the district. Similarly, the Water Street project would stand around 500 feet shorter than Frank Gehry’s 8 Spruce Street two very visible blocks away, a building that introduces into the Lower Manhattan skyline the impression of a steel-gray towel in the process of getting wrung dry.

By contrast, the renderings for 250 Water Street show it in anodyne modern red brick, putting the building in a less discordant dialogue with the Seaport’s 200-year-old rowhouses. Unmoved, a trio of neighborhood groups that came together to form the Seaport Coalition sued the commission over the ruling. Justice Engoron ruled in its favor, putting a stop to a project where excavation had already begun.

Although the developer plans to appeal the decision, the sequence provides a particularly confounding example of the challenge to economically integrate wealthy neighborhoods in New York, even after the successful campaign to rezone SoHo, a civic debate that consumed the end of the de Blasio years. The proposal for the Water Street site includes 270 rental apartments, at least 70 of which would remain affordable, significantly, to those making an average of 40 percent of the area’s median income.

Typically in neighborhoods where real estate is so expensive, mixed-income developments set earnings thresholds at a higher rate. In this instance, a family of four making $45,000 a year — less than what two parents would bring home if each worked full time at $15-an-hour minimum-wage jobs — would qualify to live in a new building downtown, close to every conceivable means of public transportation and highly regarded public schools including Peck Slip, across the street.

Among the many ironies underscoring the fight over the development is that one of the groups in the Seaport Coalition — a group worried about toxins and the broader disruption to students already fortunate enough to go to Peck Slip or to the adjacent, private Blue School — calls itself Children First. From the same myopic vantage, another of the coalition’s founding organizations is made up of residents from the site’s neighboring Southbridge Towers, which were built as subsidized cooperative housing through the Mitchell-Lama program in the 1960s but privatized nine years ago, allowing owners to sell their apartments at market rate.

What opponents argued, and where Justice Engoron emphatically agreed in his seven-page ruling, is that the landmarks commission, an independent body entrusted with the responsibility of preserving architecturally and historically significant buildings, overstepped its authority when it engaged with developers over their pledge of millions of dollars toward the foundering Seaport Museum, established in 1967 as a place to commemorate the city’s maritime history.

The judge saw this as a quid pro quo, even though it came, by his own admission, “with the laudable purpose of museum funding.” But the practice of extracting civic benefits from private enterprise has been the default setting for any ambitious development for the past 20 years. The Gehry building on Spruce contains a public elementary and middle school. When it was completed, One Clinton, a luxury condominium building on the edge of Brooklyn Heights, delivered a modernized branch of the local public library.

The implication is that the commission behaved as a political entity when it was not entitled to — overlooking the extent to which it is immersed in politics all the time, particularly as it has shown an increasing interest in naming landmarks for their cultural rather than aesthetic currency. When the commission unanimously voted in 2015 to grant landmark status to the Stonewall Inn, the Greenwich Village bar sacrosanct in the movement for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, it became the 50th building to receive the distinction for meaning over appearance out of 33,000 the commission had designated over the previous half century. Last month the commission gave landmark status to Julius’, another Village bar important in the L.G.B.T.Q. community not long after it recognized a building just west of Prospect Park as an individual landmark, honoring it as the storage site of the country’s largest and oldest archive of material related to lesbian life.

Opponents of the Water Street project have repeatedly pointed out that a series of proposals submitted in the 1980s, ’90s and early 2000s were all rejected by the landmarks commission on the grounds that in each case whatever was suggested created a visual confusion about the district’s outlines. But the argument that the commission should be bound to precedent ignores the altered realities of an increasingly alienating housing market that has escalated to a humanitarian emergency. In November roughly 67,000 people were sleeping in the city’s homeless shelters every night, more than six times the population in 1983. How do we weigh the view from the Brooklyn Bridge against that?

Get ready to embrace all things Barbie at this new pop-up restaurant opening in the Seaport this week.

The Malibu Barbie Cafe is a family-friendly pop-up restaurant that really leans into the Barbie aesthetic. Presented by Bucket Listers, the pop-up officially opens to the public on May 17 and will run throughout the summer until Sept. 15.

“We’ve always been looking for something that appealed to everyone. A lot of our stuff is really nostalgic and leaning toward more of an adult culture. We met Mattel and this idea kind of came together of not just a Barbie cafe, but it would be still cool to do something where we transform people from different cities to feel like they’re in Malibu,” said Derek Berry, VP of Experiences at Bucket Listers. “Just after literally one conversation, everyone was super excited. We want people to come into it and just feel like they’re taken out of New York City or Chicago and like just in this beachy vibe while they’re here.”

The timing with the release of the upcoming “Barbie” movie this summer, Berry says, is a complete coincidence. With the film’s release coming this summer, the Bucket Listers team is happy to help celebrate it with this pop-up.

“It’s like, come celebrate the movie, get excited for it here, go see the movie, come by after and have a good time. But yeah, [it was a] total coincidence,” said Berry. “I’m personally super excited about the movie. I have a 12-year-old daughter and she can’t stop talking about it.”

When you step into the Malibue Barbie Cafe, you are immediately immersed in a fun, beachy environment with the walls splashed with pinks, blues, yellows, and oranges. There are two floors of seating with views right out into the Seaport, and each floor has that Malibu feel that Bucket Listers was going for.

“Barbie came out in 1971, so let’s lean into that 70s vibe. How do we keep it as we’re leaning into the retro feel, but also how do we still lean into something a little bit more modern and trendy, with what Barbie feels on brand for?” said Berry. “So it was pulling like seventies heavy influence, but more pops, like the pop art of the eighties and nineties and the bright pinks that maybe were looking more dull in the 70s. We wanted to incorporate that all because obviously 2023 Barbie is still super important. Let’s definitely do the justice and have the pinks that people would expect, but let’s lean into those other Panton and color schemes,” said Berry.

The menu at the Malibu Barbie Cafe was created by “Master Chef” semi-finalist Becky Brown. Each seating includes a guaranteed window of time to dine, plus a choice of entree and drink (cocktail/mocktail). As for the food options, guests can enjoy all-day brunch selections such as the Beachside Breakfast Burrito, the Pacific Paradise Rainbow Pancakes, and the Make Waves Avocado Toast, as well as lunch options like the Beach Burger, the Live Your Dream Grilled Cheese, California Dreamin’ Club Sandwich. There is also a full kids menu for youngsters to enjoy.

As for drinks and desserts, there is a full lineup of sweet treats to indulge in, such as the Anything is Possible Sundae, the Make a Difference Macarons, and the ice cream floats. For the adults, there are a variety of beers, wines, and cocktails to enjoy alongside your meal.

Plus, there are tons of photo ops throughout the space, including a life-sized Barbie box, a surf scene, and a beach scene complete with chairs and a giant sand castle, as well as exclusive merchandise available for purchase.

“We’re most excited for people to come in and have a really good time. Barbie is obviously a loved brand — it’s fun, it’s to provoke fun. We want people to come in here and be inspired,” said Berry. “Enjoy the food, immerse yourself in this. To me, it’s more than just a bunch of photo moments. It’s like a playground while you’re here, so just have a good time.”

The cafe is located at 19 Fulton St. in The Seaport. Tickets will be available online through Bucket Listers, with prices starting at early bird pricing at $39-49 for adults and $22-30 for kids, depending on your scheduled time.

Parking lots can live many lives. But deciding what kind of life exactly can lead to major gridlock. At least this is the case for one former parking lot in the South Seaport Historic District in lower Manhattan.

Plans to build an $850 million, 26-story tower at 250 Water St. came to a screeching halt when the state Supreme Court blocked further construction on the site late last week.

In his decision, Judge Arthur Engoron stated the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) regularly met with developer Howard Hughes Corporation to discuss how to provide “political cover” for the proposed building by linking its development with the survival of the South Street Seaport Museum. The court stated the public deserved better than this “quid pro quo.”

“LPC is tasked with a particular mission, to wit, to preserve the historical character of designated areas and buildings, and here, it abused that discretion by diverging from a prior practice without explaining why,” Engoron stated in the decision.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected proposals to develop a high-rise building at 250 Water St. at least four times in the past, according to court documents.

The proposal would “cause an abrupt change in scale within the district which would be disruptive of the district’s homogenous quality,” the LPC had previously stated.

Preservationists with the Seaport Coalition, Save Our Seaport and Children First NYC are celebrating the win and pushing their own plans for the future of the historic district, which is currently populated by early 19th-century buildings and cobblestone streets.

“We are thrilled,” said Joanne Gorman, a Seaport Coalition member. “It’s a positive and gratifying win.”

The coalition long fought against the proposal, brought by site owner Howard Hughes Corporation and subsidiary 250 Seaport District, stating the corporation improperly moved development rights from Pier 17 to the site “exactly like knights on a chess board: two squares up Fulton Street and one square over Water Street, and never mind what lies in between,” per court documents.

Children First NYC is vehemently opposed to developing the site, which is located across the street from P.S. 343 The Peck Slip School and Blue School.

“It really would have a massive impact on children,” said Megan Malvern with Children First NYC. “Their entire elementary school career could be next to a construction site.”

Howard Hughes Corporation says the development would bring $40 million in total for the South Street Seaport Museum, generate roughly $1 billion in economic impact, and create 3,300 permanent and construction jobs.

The city’s Planning Commission and City Council had previously approved the proposal in December 2021. The corporation began remediation to evaluate the air quality and collect soil and groundwater samples at 250 Water St. in 2022.

250 Water Street, pre- and during construction. Photos taken via Google Maps, screenshots by Sarah Belle Lin.

The Howard Hughes Corporation purchased the site in June 2018 and announced the project in 2020, describing it as a “visionary project” that would “propel the city’s economic recovery.”

The development builds 200 market-rate and 70 affordable — earning an average of 40% of the area median income, or roughly $45,000 for a family of four — apartments for rent, as well as office, retail, and community space. The corporation stressed the project would bring much-needed revenue to the Seaport Museum, which it said was “under the threat of permanent closure.”

“We worked hard to produce a design that is responsive to the Commission’s comments and preserves the project’s crucial benefits: deeply affordable housing in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods and meaningful funding for the South Street Seaport Museum, the heart of the Historic District,” Howard Hughes, President of the Howard Hughes Corporation New York Tri-State Region, told amNewYork Metro.

But other areas in the neighborhood should be prioritized for housing development, said Malvern of Children First NYC.

“The Seaport Coalition is also hugely supportive of and working toward having as much affordable housing placed at the World Trade Center and 5 World Trade Center,” said Malvern.

The Howard Hughes Corporation still lists 250 Water Street as a coming-soon project on its website, advertising “27 Floors of Residential, Office, Retail and Community Space in the Seaport along the East River in Lower Manhattan.”

As noted last week, some of the most exciting and stylish new restaurants in New York are Mexican, and Americans’ familiarity with the food and conviviality is always part of the draw. Let’s face it, the mere idea that there will be a margarita and a bowl of chips in front of you soon after you sit down (not something you expect at a sushi bar) is magnetic enough, and the food in even Tex-Mex places is easy to love.

When a new place like Casa TuLuM adds to the expectations a striking décor, exceptional service and authentic Mexican food that has been refined but is not intimidating—no grasshoppers or worms on the menu—it is well worth a trip to the increasingly delightful South Street Seaport neighborhood.

There is a clear personal touch to everything that Managing Partner Luis Villanueva and Chef/Partner Rodrigo Abrajan (from Puebla, Mexico, starting in New York with an East Harlem taco cart) bring to TuLuM, whose décor resembles a swank beach house in the Yucatán with effulgent hanging plants, natural wood slats, leather chairs and videos of Gulf of Mexico beach scenes. And, much to my applause, tablecloths. When I visited the noise level was moderate, with just 55 seats and 15 at the bar, especially the anteroom to the rear. At the bar some booming music intrudes.

The menu is in three sections, beginning with very good traditional guacamole with freshly made corn chips ($16); even better is the King guacamole ($20) that incorporates crabmeat, crisp jicama and habanero chilies. These are made for the whole table.

What makes TuLuM distinctive is not so much novelty as it is the fine tuning with the best imported ingredients and an attention to layers of flavors and textures not easily found elsewhere in New York.

A fine example is the aguachile ($31) of both raw and cooked shrimp, octopus, cherry stone clams, lime juice and seven dried chilies with red onions cucumbers and avocado that you scoop up and get waves of tastes on your pallet. Ceviche TuLuM ($20) is similar but simpler, with raw Gulf shrimp with avocado, habanero and cilantro.

Lobster ceviche ($31) is worth every penny—every dish here is meant to be shared—marrying good morsels of lobster with passion fruit and litchi, Mango, chile arbol, crunchy, sweet pomegranate seeds and baked multi-grain tostados, which makes my claim about the textures quite clear. In the pincho tacos section you definitely should order the “Governador” ($24), two tortillas bulked up with both shrimp and steak, Chihuahua cheese gratin, and chiltepin tomato salsa. The choice of different chilies for their sweetness, toastiness, smokiness and heat, is critical to Abrajan’s cooking and makes all the difference.

Dishes get still heartier in the Los Platos Fuertes section starting with traditional enchiladas suizas ($26) made with juicy chicken (so often it comes dry) with tomatillo, Serrano creamy salsa, and a blend of melted cheeses. Pescado Zarandeado ($36) is a simply grilled branzino that takes on savory sparks from a marinade of annatto and guajillo chilies, while a duck mole ($41) begins the bird marinated with coffee-flavored sauce. and then made more delicious with plantains and Mexican rice. One of the most identifiable Yucatán dishes is cochinita pibil ($32), pork shoulder roasted for a long time in banana leaves with achiote paste, cured lime, onion till very tender cured lime, onion, habanero chili tetemado.

Even with a big appetite, you may find yourself sated by then, but do share a sumptuous dessert, especially any made with Mexican chocolate.

I haven’t been to America’s southwestern cities recently to see if they are getting more Mexican restaurants at Casa TuLum’s level of innovation, but it’s indicative of the unending variety of New York’s gastronomy that food and décor of this caliber is down at the once sleepy South Street Seaport.

CASA TuLuM

229 Front Street

212-433-5800

Open nightly for dinner.