Book on Tribeca Architecture Released

Detail from combined photographs by Robert Ripps in "Tribeca & Its Architecture: An Illustrated History."

It was thanks to a group of local activists back in the late 1980s that the city came to designate Tribeca’s four historic districts, preserving and protecting a swath of the neighborhood’s 19th century architectural past. They presented their persuasive evidence in “The Texture of Tribeca,” a book of photographs of the area’s many gems, with text on Tribeca history and the significance of its architecture by Andrew Dolkart, professor of architectural history at Columbia University. 

Long out of print, the book has taken on new life and a redesign as “Tribeca & Its Architecture: An Illustrated History,” updated with new contemporary photos by Robert Ripps, additional historic pictures, and an introduction by Lynn Ellsworth, whose organization Tribeca Trust [1] published the volume and has continued the fight to save many of Tribeca’s still-unprotected buildings. 

“As you walk around Tribeca with the knowledge that this book provides, you can see this neighborhood with new eyes,” Ellsworth writes. “You will become connected to history, rather than living apart from it. You will see beauty too, the kind that cannot be replicated.”

The book can be purchased for $40, tax and shipping included, from the Tribeca Trust website [2], and from the Mysterious Bookstore, 58 Warren St.