In case you haven't heard, Lower Manhattan is pretty cool. So cool in fact that it now has its own catch-phrase: "Down is what's up," uttered by bona-fide cool person, Questlove, in a new video promoting the area.
The drummer for the band The Roots lives Downtown (in the Gehry building), and can now add Lower Manhattan pitchman to his multi-hyphenate creative and professional pursuits.
The 44-year-old is featured in a new video marketing campaign organized by the Downtown Alliance, a longtime nonprofit advocacy group, which promotes all the change that's come — and that's still on its way — to the neighborhood.
Beautiful imagery of the Financial District — Wall Street, The World Trade Center, Stone Street, The Battery, The 9/11 Memorial — sweep by, as Questlove narrates in the various locales.
Lower Manhattan "is a New York you know of but haven't met yet," he says in the video, smiling. "New York's oldest neighborhood is new again ... A place to dream, a place to begin."
"Come to where it all began and where it's all beginning," he says in the close of the video. "It's the place where I live, and I want you to see Lower Manhattan — down is what's up."
The Downtown Alliance, which mainly targets Lower Manhattan below Chambers Street, is trying to hone the new image of Lower Manhattan, as more tech companies are making the neighborhood their hub, and media giants like Conde Nast and 21st Century Fox are making the World Trade Center their home.
The message seems obvious, Downtown isn't just for stodgy bankers anymore — if Questlove thinks it's cool, it's got to be.
