Tribeca is the neighborhood right above us. If you're staying at 17 John Street and want a change of pace from the office towers of the Financial District, it's the easiest walk you'll make all trip: head north and in about 15 minutes the streets get lower, quieter, and more residential. The name is short for Triangle Below Canal, and it covers the stretch roughly from Chambers Street up to Canal, between Broadway and the Hudson.
What you'll notice first is the scale. Where the FiDi goes straight up, Tribeca stays low. A lot of the buildings are old cast-iron and brick warehouses that got turned into lofts, so the blocks feel wide and calm. There are cobblestones on some of the side streets. It's a good place to walk with no particular plan, and it's a short enough hop that you can wander over for dinner and be back at your suite in twenty minutes.
Here's how to get there and a few spots worth pointing you toward.