Ask Robert De Niro what first drew him to TriBeCa, a secluded neighbourhood in New York City, and the Oscar-winning actor is typically restrained. “I just liked the feeling of open space,” he says. “I liked the loft buildings in the area. To me, it was classic Lower Manhattan.”

De Niro may not be a natural salesman, but his sentiments neatly sum up TriBeCa’s low-key charms. In recent years, the neighbourhood has become one of New York’s most desirable residential areas, with cobblestone streets, large open-plan apartments and an old-fashioned atmosphere. Unlike most of downtown Manhattan, it remains largely tourist-free, making it a haven for residents and savvy visitors alike.

TriBeCa has evolved rapidly in recent years, and the architect of much of that change has been De Niro. His ongoing business ventures in the area have transformed TriBeCa from a crumbling industrial precinct into a magnet for celebrities and well-to-do families, and he is now considered the neighbourhood’s unofficial ambassador.

TriBeCa won me over some time ago, on an unseasonably mild Halloween afternoon. I had decided to stay in the neighbourhood partly because a new hotel, The Greenwich Hotel (377 Greenwich St.; +1 212 941 8900; www.thegreenwichhotel.com), was receiving rave reviews from my colleagues. But mostly, it was a journalist’s curiosity that propelled me: although I considered myself a seasoned visitor to New York, I couldn’t remember spending any time in this particular downtown enclave.

As my taxi exited busy Canal Street and pulled onto a cobblestone stretch of Greenwich Street at TriBeCa’s northern border, I was struck by a sudden change in mood. The neighbourhood’s old red-brick buildings topped out at half-a-dozen storeys; some had the ornate exterior features that I associated with nearby SoHo, but most were unadorned. On the wide, sunny sidewalks, parents walked their children home from school. Delivery men whizzed by on bicycles. The whole scene seemed far removed from the rough glamour of downtown.

Robert De Niro and his wife Grace Hightower hit the red carpet

In the days that followed, the weather turned cold. I stuck close to the hotel, taking short walks along TriBeCa’s quiet streets, trying out its quaint restaurants and getting a sense of the boundaries of the place. To the south, the Financial District loomed large; to the east, Chinatown overflowed with tourists. But in TriBeCa, there was calm. As I spent more time in the neighbourhood, I began to understand why this insular patch of downtown was quickly becoming one of the most desirable residential areas in New York City. And no matter whom I spoke to, one person was invariably cited as the reason for TriBeCa’s growing appeal: De Niro.

The actor owns or co-owns some of the best-known businesses in the neighbourhood, including The Greenwich Hotel and Tribeca Grill (375 Greenwich St,; +1 212 941 3900; www.myriadrestaurantgroup.com). For the past 20 years, he has promoted TriBeCa as a family-friendly haven, lending his support to entrepreneurs and educational institutions that align with his vision.

According to most locals, his development goals are laudable and display a high degree of sensitivity to the area’s industrial and artistic past. I meet De Niro in the drawing room of The Greenwich and, over coffee, have a lively discussion about the changes that the area has undergone in recent decades.

Growing up in Manhattan in the 1940s and ‘50s, De Niro remembers visiting the neighbourhood only occasionally. “Back then, it was an industrial area,” he says. “You only went to TriBeCa to visit the businesses that operated out of the warehouses there. It was like the area that is now called SoHo: it was a no-man’s land.”

In the 1960s, logistical and economic factors began to drive businesses out of Manhattan and into New York’s outer boroughs. Industrial parts of the so-called Lower West Side (which encompassed Greenwich Village, Chinatown and the areas that would soon be known as SoHo and TriBeCa) emptied out, and creative types gradually began setting up workspaces, attracted by the high ceilings and the low rents.

By the late ‘70s, De Niro was an acclaimed actor whose leading role in Taxi Driver had established him as an iconic New York figure. Meanwhile, the term “TriBeCa” (a portmanteau from “Triangle Below Canal Street”) had gained traction. One summer, De Niro decided to revisit the area. “I was down there looking for a space to set up a training gym for Raging Bull,” he says. “I found this great loft space, but I liked it so much that I wound up living there. I did my training at a regular gym on 14th Street instead.”

For De Niro, the appeal of TriBeCa in the ‘80s was simple. “It was basically the idea of having a big loft with very few broken-up rooms,” he says. “There was a feeling of open space in TriBeCa, and plenty of light. That suited artists especially.”

Property prices in TriBeCa rose during the ‘80s, and by the end of the decade many of its artists had relocated to cheaper neighbourhoods. The area’s residential appeal was growing, but TriBeCa lacked the restaurants and cultural institutions that made nearby areas such as the Village hugely popular with affluent urbanites.

Then, in 1989, De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal established TriBeCa Productions, a film and television company, and headquartered it in Greenwich Street. De Niro could see the beginnings of a new downtown district taking shape. Next on his agenda: a high-profile restaurant.

In 1990, Tribeca Grill opened. “The neighbourhood was still pretty quiet then,” De Niro says. “We had moved into the Film Center on Greenwich Street, and I had a few buildings around there that I wanted to make use of. I thought, ‘The one thing we must have is a restaurant’. So I went to Drew Nieporent, who at that time had Montrachet, a three-star restaurant downtown. Drew lived in the neighbourhood, so I thought he might be interested in starting something new. That’s how the Grill got going.”

In the 1990s, the TriBeCa that exists today really began to take shape. Fine-dining restaurants such as Nobu (another De Niro venture) opened alongside Tribeca Grill, creating a culinary buzz. Developers snapped up warehouses and began creating scores of high-end apartments. And a modest retail scene began to develop, focused primarily on art, fashion and interior design.

Today, some of New York’s most interesting shopping can be done in TriBeCa, thanks to edgy clothing boutiques such as Patron of the New (151 Franklin St,; +1 212 966 7144; www.patronofthenew.us) and an artfully designed outpost of the Detroit luxury-goods manufacturer Shinola (177 Franklin St.; +1 917 728 3000; www.shinola.com).

Charming TriBeCa, the historic NYC neighbourhood Robert De Niro calls home

A few of the original ‘90s stores are still operating, too. De Niro singles out one that he felt summed up the scene: Urban Archaeology (143 Franklin St.; +1 212 431 4646; www.urbanarchaeology.com), which restores and repurposes salvaged homewares. “I remember when Urban Archaeology opened, years ago,” he said. “It was a pioneering store, definitely, but it was also the perfect kind of store to open in TriBeCa as the neighbourhood was becoming more residential. I bought stuff from them for my TriBeCa loft, and I still go there from time to time – not necessarily to buy anything, but just to look around.”

The opening of The Greenwich Hotel in 2008 gave TriBeCa an injection of sophistication. In conjunction with hotelier Ira Drukier, De Niro conceived a venue that honoured the area’s industrial past (reclaimed materials feature prominently) and paid homage to downtown Manhattan’s artistic heritage (the walls are hung with paintings by De Niro’s father).

The hotel’s simple Italian restaurant, Locanda Verde, quickly became a local meeting place. “I think of The Greenwich as a kind of oasis in the city,” De Niro says. “Ira and I wanted to create something warm and inviting: A low-key and tasteful place, not something that stuck out and said, ‘Look at me, I’m a hip new hotel’.” Today, The Greenwich is a favoured haunt of A-listers who appreciate its understated ambience.

Not everyone is a fan of the new TriBeCa. Some New Yorkers say the area is a prime example of everything that is wrong with Manhattan in 2015: an offensively affluent neighbourhood that fetishises remnants of “old New York” but does nothing to preserve diversity in the city today. Detractors point to the area’s celebrity residents, such as Taylor Swift and Jay Z, as proof that TriBeCa is somehow inauthentic.

These opinions may be valid, but the area’s buildings have been meticulously preserved, even as they have been rezoned as residences, making a walk along TriBeCa’s streets fascinating for anyone with an interest in architecture or history. The lack of high-rises gives the place a sense of spaciousness, and the deviations from Manhattan’s grid-system streets create an off-kilter charm. Yes, many wealthy people live in TriBeCa, but there is none of the showiness that defines certain sidewalks on the Upper East Side, for example. And, because the area is less commercially oriented than SoHo, there is much less foot traffic.

As our conversation draws to a close, I ask De Niro if there is a hidden corner of TriBeCa that captured the essence of the area. He nods. “There is a very narrow street between Harrison Street and Duane Street that has a little bridge across it – a bridge that goes between the buildings – and cobblestones on the street, and there’s a little park down the end. It’s really classic Lower Manhattan, and you’d hardly know it was there.”

After we say goodbye, I walk down to the area that De Niro had mentioned. The street is, indeed, incredibly narrow. It’s also undeniably beautiful and utterly deserted. TriBeCa may no longer fly under the radar, but it retains a sense of seclusion that has the capacity to captivate.