Rooms for Rent in Tribeca, Manhattan, NY

Preguntas frecuentes

• How many rooms for rent are there in Tribeca, and why are so few advertised?

  Tribeca is a small triangle, bounded by Canal Street, Broadway and the Hudson, and it was rebuilt for owners more than for renters: most of its converted warehouses are condos and co-ops holding a handful of very large apartments each. Rooms for rent come from two places. One is a spare bedroom in a loft whose owner or leaseholder wants help with the monthly cost. The other is a share in the high-rises along Greenwich Street, above all Independence Plaza, whose three 39-story towers contain about 1,300 apartments. Roomster shows 1 rooms in and around Tribeca today. Because supply inside the triangle is thin, results reach into Chinatown, the Financial District and Battery Park City, so check each address.

• How much is a room for rent in Tribeca, and where are rooms under $2,000 nearby?

  A Tribeca room is priced off the apartment around it. Two-bedrooms here run from roughly $8,300 to $10,500 a month, so half of a loft costs $4,100 or more, while a share of an Independence Plaza two-bedroom, which lists near $6,000 to $6,300, comes to about $3,000 to $3,200. Rooms much below that are usually just outside the neighborhood, which is why Roomster listings across the wider search area average about $2,200. You can find rooms under $2,000 a month in Chinatown, a ten-minute walk east of Broadway, and around the South Street Seaport end of the Financial District. Newport in Jersey City, one PATH ride from the World Trade Center station, has rooms from about $1,500.

• Can I rent a room in Tribeca near Citigroup's headquarters or the Foley Square courts?

  Yes, and those two workplaces explain much of the demand. Citigroup's global headquarters stands at 388 Greenwich Street, at the north end of the neighborhood, with Goldman Sachs just across West Street at 200 West. The state and federal courthouses at Foley Square sit a few blocks east of Broadway. Junior bankers and court clerks both work long, irregular hours, so a walk home matters more to them than an extra subway stop would. Rooms on Greenwich, Hudson and North Moore Streets suit the bank; rooms near Church Street, or over the line in Chinatown, suit the courts. Say in your first message which one you are starting at and when, since both hire in annual classes that arrive in summer.

• Is a room for rent in a Tribeca loft always a legal bedroom?

  Not always, so look before you agree. Warehouse floors in Tribeca are deep, with windows only at the front and the back, and when a loft is divided the middle rooms can end up with none. Those are sometimes offered as an "interior room" or a "home office" at a lower rent, but New York requires a bedroom to have a window. Check, too, whether the partitions reach the ceiling, because walls that stop short carry every sound across a 12-foot-high room. Ask whether the loft is in a condo or co-op and whether the building knows a roommate is moving in, since many require every occupant to be registered. A sleeping platform over the kitchen is a storage shelf, not a room.

• Should I pick a room for rent near Chambers Street or near Canal Street?

  The two ends of Tribeca commute differently. Chambers Street, at the south, has the 1, 2 and 3, with the express reaching Times Square in three stops, plus the A and C, the E at World Trade Center and the PATH to New Jersey. Canal Street, at the north, has the 1 at Varick Street and the A, C and E at Sixth Avenue, and the local 1 also stops at Franklin Street in the middle. Noise is the other difference: Canal, Varick and Laight Streets carry Holland Tunnel traffic at most hours, while the blocks around Duane Park and Washington Market Park stay much calmer. If you sleep lightly, start your search south of Franklin Street.

• Can I rent a furnished room in Tribeca by the week or for a single month?

  By the month, yes; by the week, only in narrow cases. Furnished loft rooms do get advertised at weekly rates, one recently at $1,400 a week, aimed at consultants, visiting film crews and people between leases. New York City law, though, allows a stay of under 30 days only when the host is registered with the city, lives in the apartment and remains there during the visit, with no more than two guests. A stay of a month or longer avoids that rule. Many Tribeca condo buildings also set their own minimum lease terms, so ask the host whether the building permits the arrangement. Get the dates, the total cost and the deposit terms in writing before sending any money.