PRIVATE TOURS — Information and Tour Descriptions
For a private tour, you can choose among dozens of different neighborhoods.
MANHATTAN:
Downtown Walking Tours (south of Houston Street to Battery Park)
Greenwich Village Walking Tours (between Houston Street & 14th
Street)
Midtown Walking Tours (from 14th Street to 59th Street)
Uptown Walking Tours (above 59th Street to Washington
Heights)
BROOKLYN WALKING TOURS
TOURS IN VEHICLES
If you want a broad overview of Manhattan, or several NYC neighborhoods together, you can chose a limousine, car, van, or bus to experience the great variety of New York City's neighborhoods.
Manhattan - Downtown Walking Tours (south of Houston Street to Battery Park)
WALL STREET: A COLONIAL MELTING POT WITH
HEARTY DUTCH INFLUENCE
Old New Amsterdam — a Dutch frontier town where people of the world came to buy low and sell high. These narrow streets convey many layers of Manhattan history.
THE DREAMS AND TERRORS OF ELLIS ISLAND
Discover the first experiences in America of the 17 million people who fled Europe in ship steerage in hopes of finding a new life in a strange but promising country.
GANGS OF NEW YORK AND THE BLOODY FIVE POINTS
A notorious 19th century immigrant neighborhood — the Five Points — with Paradise Square,
Cow Bay, Bottle Alley, and gangs — the Roach Guards, Plug Uglies, and Dead Rabbits.
DOWNTOWN GRAVEYARDS — WHERE THEY CAME TO REST
Why are graves of African slaves, the first Jewish settlers, and founders of the American
Republic still in the heart of the Financial District?
TRIBECA — NEW DIVERSITY FROM AN INDUSTRIAL PAST
This once gritty light-industrial district gives way to residential loft conversions and hot spots of food, film, and design artistry.
FROM LANDFILL TO LANDSCAPE: BATTERY PARK CITY
AND THE WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER
Learn about Manhattan's striking waterfront promenade. From world finance to desert palms.
WHEN ITALY MOVED TO NEW YORK
Immigrants, priests, politicians, gangsters — Little Italy and the diversity of the Italian experience.
WHEN CHINA AND ITALY BECAME NEIGHBORS
A look at the people who moved to the fast-changing Chinatown and Little Italy.
WHEN CHINA MOVED TO NEW YORK
Chinatown's bleak 19th century bachelor society of hard-working immigrants infuses the district today.
MORE TEEMING THAN BOMBAY:
THE OLD JEWISH LOWER EAST SIDE
New York's renowned melting pot — poignant history, and food with a rich heritage.
ETHNIC NOSHING — LEARN THE HISTORY, TASTE THE FOODS
This walk samples Jewish, Indian, Chinese, and Italian delicacies.
SOHO: CAST IRON COMMERCE ENLIVENED WITH ART
Nineteenth century cast-iron emporiums and 20th century "AIR" notices give way to
21st century boutiques — Soho's changing scene.
Greenwich Village Walking Tours (between Houston St & 14th Street)
THE FLAMBOYANT AND THE BOHEMIAN:
GREENWICH VILLAGE
AND HOW IT BECAME FAMOUS
Highlights of the Village — history, theater, architecture, women of renown, literary landmarks,
notorious personalities — NY's perennial Bohemia.
THE IMMIGRANT, RADICAL, NOTORIOUS WOMEN
OF WASHINGTON SQUARE
Factory workers, scholars, artists, radicals, aristocrats — women left their imprints on the
Washington Sq. neighborhood — and the world.
THE INTIMATE WEST VILLAGE WITH ITS SPECTACULAR WATERFRONT PARK
Winding streets, quirky shops, and the only NY park extending 800' into the Hudson River.
MACABRE GREENWICH VILLAGE
Murders, graveyards, hanging trees, and ghosts — the underside of Village history.
GREENWICH VILLAGE LITERARY WALK
English 101 on city streets — Walt Whitman, Henry James, Eugene O'Neill, Willa Cather,
Edith Wharton, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
OLD NEW YORK AT WASHINGTON SQUARE
Henry James, carriages, stable alleys, 19th century residences, and brooding poets —
it all happened here.
GREENWICH VILLAGE GAY AND PROUD
Visit this mecca of love, rebellion, and liberation.
HISTORIC DIVERSITY IN THE EAST VILLAGE — DUTCH FARM,
IRISH ALE HOUSE,
AND THE YIDDISH KING LEAR
Stuyvesant's 17th century bouwerie grew into the Irish Famine Church, a German
maritime tragedy, and the flourishing Yiddish theatre.
THE NEW MEAT MARKET — BUTCHERS, BAKERS,
AND ART SCENE MAKERS
Three shifts of a typical day — meatpackers unloading sides of beef, to fashions and galleries, to the gritty club scene. How did it all come about?
Manhattan - Midtown Walking Tours (from 14th Street to 59th Street)
FROM UNION SQUARE TO MADISON SQUARE —
BASEBALL, TAMMANY HALL, AND THE GIRL ON THE RED VELVET SWING
Hubs of political chicanery, Union Square and Madison Square were gathering places
for sports fans, anarchists, vaudevillians, and 19th century fashionistas.
HIDDEN CHARMS OF CHELSEA
Federal, Greek-Revival, and Italianate townhouses preserved in a pastoral setting,
with art galleries, high fashion, and a waterfront transformed.
THE GENIUS AND ELEGANCE OF GRAMERCY PARK
Discover a London Square that became home to creative minds, elegant salons,
and the taste-setting Lady Mendl.
MURRAY HILL:
FROM "THE RESTRICTION" TO J.P. MORGAN AND FRIENDS
A residential enclave with tales of the Quaker Grammarian, Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt,
and the man who tried to upstage "JP."
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL:
"CROSSROADS OF A MILLION PRIVATE LIVES"
Monument to movement, and a thrilling symbol of New York's commerce, physical strength,
and intellectual energy.
"HELL AIN'T HOT — THIS HERE'S HELL'S KITCHEN!"
Whatever happened to the lurid district of One-Lung Curran, bloody slaughterhouses,
and the sweaty old Madison Square Garden?
GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY —
THE DAZZLE OF THE GREAT WHITE WAY
The lore, tradition, and new excitement of the Times Square Theatre District.
GREAT SKYSCRAPERS OF MIDTOWN
The great buildings of New York — Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center,
Trump Tower, the Plaza Hotel, St. Patrick's Cathedral — and the people who helped create them.
ROOSEVELT ISLAND — FROM MADMEN TO LEAFY MAIN STREET
From the old Blackwell farmhouse to the newest apartments, this island thrives
300 feet and more than a few decibels from Manhattan Island.
Manhattan – Uptown Walking Tours (above 59th Street to Washington Heights)
CENTRAL PARK — THE BIG BACK YARD OF THE CITY
150 years ago these 843 acres were manually restructured from a "filthy, squalid, and
disgusting" site into a work of art at the heart of Manhattan. Olmsted and Vaux's first masterpiece of
urban landscape design.
FIFTH AVENUE GOLD COAST
Tycoons, Central Park, and great mansions created the New York avenue "paved with gold."
CENTRAL PARK WEST — ARTISTS, REAL ESTATE LAW, AND AN EXPANDING
UPPER MIDDLE CLASS
Astute landowners kept property off the market until the 1880s when new transportation opened up
the neighborhood. New laws and construction techniques produced the modern apartment concept.
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS — FROM THE BLOOMINGDALE INSANE ASYLUM TO THE
ACROPOLIS OF NEW YORK
During the 19th century, this neighborhood, once farmland and a battlefield, began its
transformation into a center for learning, healing, and spirituality.
HARLEM — KEYSTONE OF AFRICAN AMERICA
20th century hub of black culture and struggle. History, homes, music, churches, artists, leaders,
and today's economic renaissance.
JEWISH HARLEM
When Harlem was home to 100,000 Jewish people, it was the third largest Jewish settlement in the world.
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — NEW YORK'S ACROPOLIS OF MANSIONS, NATURAL HISTORY,
AND WAR STRATEGIES
Here's where John James Audubon found exotic birds and George Washington confronted the
overpowering British. His headquarters still stands — the oldest building in Manhattan.
THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
THE WONDER THAT JOINED 2 CITIES
The tour begins at the Manhattan side of the bridge once called the "Eighth Wonder
of the World". Subject of poems, stories, art, and movies, the Brooklyn Bridge
is a dramatic entryway to 2 great parts of town.
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS AS 19TH CENTURY SUBURB: THE GENTRY ACROSS THE BRIDGE
Visit the promenade, personalities, and patrician architecture of this intimate
neighborhood.
DUMBO — WALLED CITY OF BROOKLYN
A tiny waterfront district of Civil War-era factories and warehouses, attracting artists, creative businesses, and competing visions for its future.
BRIGHTON BEACH — LITTLE ODESSA BY THE SEA
A remarkable concentration of immigrants has transformed this seaside corner
of Brooklyn into a Russian village.
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