TriBeCa, one of the most expensive ZIP codes in the country, features luxury lofts and condos and great public schools.

Neighborhood Boundaries: Downtown Manhattan from Canal Street on the north to Vesey Street on the south, West Side Highway on the west to Broadway on the east

The triangle below Canal Street is longhand for Tri-Be-Ca. Despite the fact that it is now one of the most expensive ZIP codes in the entire country, it still maintains its discreet charm. Until the 1980s and '90s, the more established New York, aka Uptown, thought that moving to TriBeCa was slumming it, even more so than the already artist-discovered SoHo, which at one point also was not a neighborhood in which the average wealthy New Yorker would dare establish residence.

The area was subtly transformed from the desolate days of the 1970s and '80s, when creative artists looking for studio space and locally grown filmmakers like Robert De Niro helped turn the commercial warehouses into living and work spaces. De Niro established the Tribeca Film Center after moving downtown. Its annual Tribeca Film Festival is a testament to the blossoming neighborhood. TriBeCa is deceptively understated, unpretentious and comfortable city living where native New Yorkers easily mix with the more well-known.

Just around the corner from De Niro's uber-chic restaurant Nobu is Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee's sprawling loft. Albee was an early TriBeCa-ite along with people like avant-garde performance artist Laurie Anderson. Before he died, JFK Jr. called a TriBeCa loft his home. Like many TriBeCa dwellers, Bubby's on Hudson Street was one of the places you would see him ride up to on his bike, like any regular guy, to hang out with the rest of the locals.

With a newly opened Whole Foods nearby, its many new condo buildings and a great public school, the area has become popular with families, retirees, foreign visitors looking for pied-a-terres and singles who can afford the new luxury lofts and condos that have replaced the funky warehouse spaces.

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