I’ve always wondered about the plaque installed at 200 Hudson, and set it up as a Where in Tribeca? just to get me moving on it. It took me down an internet rabbit hole, landing on this great video celebrating the Dreadnought, Martin Guitar’s most famous instrument. It is so worth a watch to make this connection, even if it’s been nearly two centuries since C.F. Martin made Tribeca (long before it was) his home. The photo above was sent from Martin Guitar’s archivist and museum manager of the block in the 1920s where C.F. first started out — albeit nearly a century later.

But to start at the start: the plaque marks the site of the original Martin Guitar Co., founded there by German immigrant C.F. Martin Sr. in a three-story wooden building that was 196 Hudson in 1833. But the crowds and dirt of NYC sent him and his family to the rolling hills of Pennsylvania not long after, and the company remains there in Nazareth today. (You can tour the factory and museum in regular times, but they are still closed for covid.)

An organization called Tribeca Native, founded in 2003, added the plaque on the side of what is now 200 Hudson in 2014 and hosted the Martin family — the company has been passed through six generations — close to the company’s 175th anniversary.