Walker Hotels

The turn of the century marked New York City’s Golden Age. Structures were built, and torn down. Skyscrapers emerged as pillars of progress while electricity first lit the teeming streets below. On the screen, Chaplin challenged 19th century societal norms, while in bars and clubs, jazz revolutionized the musical world. It was a time, as Walt Whitman describes, of New York taking center stage —“a million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men.” Both thrilled and unsettled, early American Modernists reflected this energy. This spirit endures in the changing skylines and fault lines of New York City today.

Marked by pre-Civil War architecture and wrought iron window guards, Tribeca exists between things. It is home to purpose-built structures whose concrete facades tell stories from bygone eras. Brutalism abuts modernism. Beaux Arts borders deconstructivism. In the midst of this diverse architectural landscape, a 10-story, 120-year-old structure stands proud. Built in 1899 in the Renaissance Revival style and spanning three street frontages – Broadway, Walker, and Cortlandt Alley, 77 Walker was originally a button and ribbon factory. But like many of its neighbors, the building naturally evolved with the city around it.

This corner of Tribeca has transformed from Manhattan’s historic industrial hub into a bustling cultural center with renowned restaurants, exciting nightlife, luxury shopping, scenic parks along the Hudson River, and an internationally-acclaimed film festival. Today, the neighborhood is gaining new acclaim as the city’s art Mecca with a wave of high-profile art galleries relocating to Tribeca’s chic and spacious lofts.

It’s here where we launched The Walker Tribeca, a luxury boutique hotel inspired by the progressive spirit of New York and for the people who define it, today and tomorrow. 171 luxurious rooms with focused detail. Lounges thriving with energy. A restaurant from a dynamic new culinary voice. A rooftop overlooking an ever-changing skyline. All serving one purpose: to poise you to create what’s next.

In advance of its opening and after establishing identity work by Pentagram, Bridgeton Holdings asked us to refine the Walker Brand. by crafting a renewed strategy, refining its visual language, creative directing its interiors, and creating a new collateral package and web presence.

Inspired by Charles Scheeler and Paul Strand’s 1921 American modernist scenic ‘Manhatta’, we enlisted Adrian Gaut to capture the timeless energy, dynamic planes, vast scale, and quintessential beauty of Tribeca, linking Today to Yesterday and Tomorrow.

Within the hotel are six distinct food & beverage venues, including a rooftop bar, ground floor communal lobby / lounge, cellar reading room, sub-cellar speakeasy cocktail bar, Blue Bottle coffee shop, and a full-service restaurant by a James Beard award-winning chef. 

In the lobby, a mosaic of lasting and quintessential design elements are paired with modern furnishings like rosewood Osvaldo Borsani shelving loaded with art books from Assouline, vases of wildflowers, and conversational groupings of mid-century classics. 

Each of the 171 guest rooms has a timeless and progressive charm with luxury finishes and elevated details in efficient modern footprints, featuring tobacco leather professor chairs on herringbone wood floors next to lush beds piled with crisp percale linens. Carrara marble subway tiles line the bathrooms and rain showers can be found in every room. 

Walker Hotel branded collateral was designed to focus on the details while inspiring the notion of a blank canvas—platforming the guest’s experience instead of steering it. With simple designs, monochromatic colors and always elevated materials the guest uses the collateral as tools to help focus on what’s next in the hotel and NYC.

The Walker website is a digital lobby for the neighborhood of Tribeca and the city beyond. Loaded with localized content, the site platforms what guests are here for: the dynamic energy of New York while serving as a functional conversion tool for the hotel.