Jessica Ebelhar for The New York Times  CENTER SPLASH Radiating out from City Hall Park, the heart of the Civic Center neighborhood, are court buildings, museums, Chinese restaurants and a fair number of security barriers.  For visual nourishment, the visitors have architecture — and that they share with an increasing number of full-time residents. Two such transplants are Chad Scott, who sells software, and his girlfriend, Holly Loudon, a doctor. Since relocating from the Upper East Side in September, they have been reveling in the area’s grand relics of history, built notably by city leaders but also by entrepreneurs like F. W. Woolworth, whose 1913 headquarters building can be seen from most rooms in the couple’s two-bedroom two-bath co-op.  As Mr. Scott put it, only half-jokingly, “When we first moved in, I said, ‘There’s no way we should set up a TV, because we can just look out the windows.’ ”  The couple, interested in starting a family, left the Upper East Side for more space. After searching the blocks between Park Avenue and Central Park, Mr. Scott realized that historic high-rises in that area were far beyond his budget.  In Civic Center they found a similar antique feel; in fact, their wine-red Gothic-style building was declared a landmark. Their 1,500-square-foot apartment cost $1.14 million — about half of what they would have paid in their old neighborhood.  There was a concern, going in. Dr. Loudon remembered the low-tide-like odor from her years of residency at New York Downtown Hospital in the late 1990s. Then she learned that the Fulton Fish Market had moved to the Bronx in 2005.  “Before I got here, I was like, ‘Are we really going to be able live down here?’ ” Mr. Scott said. “But we like how it’s changed.”  Still, there are changes, and then there are changes. The terror threat has made itself strongly felt in the area ever since Sept. 11, 2001. Police barricades block certain streets; armed officers are a common sight. Safety concerns generated by the impending trials of five 9/11 conspirators recently led Community Board 1, which covers the area, to unanimously pass a resolution urging the city to move the proceedings elsewhere.  Then there are the broadcast news trucks that camp out during court proceedings involving high-profile defendants like Martha Stewart and Bernard Madoff. Shirley Chu, who lives in a three-bedroom two-bath apartment on Worth Street, finds them especially disruptive because they knock out her wireless connection.  “It happens when all those things stick up in the air,” said Ms. Chu, in a brief interview outside her home. As she spoke three fire department vehicles tore by, with their sirens screaming.  “That’s another problem with living here,” she said, after the trucks had passed. She explained that her apartment, in a building that used to be income-restricted, cost $50,000 in 1974. Since then it has become a market-rate co-op; today it could sell for $1.2 million, she added, basing her estimate on recent listings.  One great thing about her location: short ribs that she considers among the best in the city can be found at the many Chinese restaurants right around the corner. “It’s wonderful,” Ms. Chu said, “because I’m not a good cook.”  This neighborhood with its center at City Hall Park and its perimeter hugging the edges of Chinatown, TriBeCa and the financial district has about 20,000 residents — double the number of a decade ago, according to the Downtown Alliance, the local business improvement district.  Still, considering that it’s roughly 10 blocks long and 5 wide, the area is far less dense than most of Manhattan, where the average number of residents for an area that size is 35,000, according to census figures. One obvious reason for that is the presence of so many nonresidential institutions, as well as plazas and parks.  Starting in the late 1800s, developers in the area raced one another to erect skyscrapers that were then of record-breaking height, though beholding the buildings today around City Hall Park, one finds them fairly modest in size.  The double-domed 15 Park Row, at 387 feet, was the highest on record from 1899 to 1908. It added 200 rentals to the area when it was converted in 2001, though lower floors still have offices. The 21-story granite building at 150 Nassau Street, once the offices of a Bible printer, now has 142 condos. Lions’ heads adorn arches in its lobby.  Publishers clustered here in the 19th century, especially along Park Row. At No. 38, whose new co-op portion is known as 145 Nassau Street, type used to be set for The New York Press.  A poured foundation at Barclay and Church Streets is someday supposed to anchor an 80-story condo-hotel by Larry Silverstein. The project, stalled by financing problems, would be the city’s tallest residence, eclipsing Trump World Tower, which has 72 stories.  But the Beekman, a new rental building, may eclipse Trump first. Designed by Frank Gehry, the 76-story luxury high-rise had half of its windows in place in late January. Its sinuous metal facade recalls the chrome of a 1950s automobile.  In perhaps another sign of increasing neighborhood affluence, Southbridge Towers, a nine-building 1971 complex with 1,651 co-ops, awaits state approval to leave the Mitchell-Lama affordable-housing program and become market-rate housing.  It might be a good time to buy in. Prices have dropped about 20 percent here since the market’s peak, and sales have slowed.  In 2007, 73 co-ops and condos sold for an average price of $1.57 million, or about $960 a square foot, according to the Corcoran Group. Last year 61 sold, for an average of $1.27 million.  But values are expected to grow, says Garret Lepaw, a Corcoran broker from TriBeCa, particularly because of the promised development at the World Trade Center site.
Civic Center has an antique feel, Chinese restaurants and all the post-9/11 security that comes with the federal courts.