SCHEDULED PUBLIC WALKING TOURS NYC - FALL 2023

September 10   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

HARLEM 1910 – THE WORLD’S THIRD MOST POPULATED JEWISH NEIGHBORHOOD

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MEET: NYS Office Building Plaza, W. 125th St. (MLK Blvd.) & Seventh Ave. (AC Powell Blvd.) Take #2 or #3 subway to W. 125th St. Walk west for 1 block.

In 1910, only Warsaw and the Lower East Side were home to larger numbers of Jews than New York City’s Harlem. More than 150,000 Jews listened to the great Yossele Rosenblatt chant Sabbath services and were terrified when gangsters like Lefty Louie Horowitz and Whitey Lewis fought gun battles on 125th St. They bought at Blumstein’s Department Store and saw teen-age singers Walter Winchell and George Jessel begin their careers.
 
The tour considers the following questions –
• Why did Jewish New Yorkers move to Harlem?
• What was their reception?
• How did they keep the children within the fold?
• Are any synagogues still active in Harlem?
 
Today still visible are –
• Stained-glass Stars of David
• Ten Commandments tablets
• Middle Eastern filigree
• A cornerstone that says built in “5668”
• Such vestiges of Orthodox Judaism as women’s balconies
 

September 17   SUNDAY  1 to 3 PM

GANGS OF NEW YORK AND THE BLOODY FIVE POINTS

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MEET: The Bowery & Bayard St. (1 block south of Canal St.) northwest corner at Bank of America at 50 Bayard St.

Just east of today's City Hall and Municipal Building, this was once a foul-smelling, disease-ridden district. Brought to life in the movie "Gangs of New York", it was a place of violence, gang wars, poverty, and corruption. The district evokes such places of notoriety as Paradise Square, Cow Bay, Bottle Alley, and such gangs as the Roach Guards, Plug Uglies, Shirt Tails, and Dead Rabbits.
 
Highlights include:
• Five Points visitors – Davy Crockett, Charles Dickens, and Abraham Lincoln
• A Five Points success story – Al Smith – Tammany Hall protégé, state governor, presidential candidate
• The oldest Jewish graveyard in North America
• The Roman Catholic church with Anglican, Cuban, Irish, Italian, Chinese, and Buddhist history
 

September 24   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE INTIMATE WEST VILLAGE WITH ITS SPECTACULAR HUDSON RIVER PARK

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MEET: Leroy St. & 7th Ave. South, southwest corner. Subway: #1 to Houston St., walk 2 blocks north on 7th Ave. South. 

The West Village is a 19th century preserve with its concealed-yet-open garden, complex web of streets, and a house 9½ feet wide. Classic 19th century 3-story townhouses set the stage. This is a community neighborhood of quirky angled streets with literary hang-outs, European-style coffeehouses, and Off-Broadway theatres – the quintessential American Bohemia. Its sites inspired Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven”, and O. Henry's “The Last Leaf.”
 
But one block west of its border, the neighborhood changes abruptly. Gone are the run-down remains of waterfront commerce – transient hotels, cheap bars, and old factories. Now new tall glass-covered buildings rise up with celebrity-filled condominiums and look out over a spectacular, transformed waterfront. Today the shoreline is alive again, this time with grassy playing fields, quiet lawns, children's playgrounds, and 800' long restored piers.
 

** NEW **

September 30   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

TUDOR CITY — A QUIET HAMLET IN A NOISY NEIGHBORHOOD

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MEET: 2nd Ave. and E. 43rd St., northeast corner.

When the grid plan of 1811 was implemented, the hill between 1st and 2nd Avenues, at East 42nd St. was not leveled. East 42nd St had to tunnel through the hill to reach 1st Avenue.
 
Today that elevated land gives Tudor City a remarkably quiet, verdant setting above noisy, congested Midtown.
 
Built as a middle class, walk-to-work development, most Tudor City’s apartments were small and efficiently designed. Tudor-style architecture and lush parks were chosen to create the feeling of English countryside. In addition, no thru traffic was allowed in the enclave. East 41st and East 43rd Sts. do not connect to First Avenue. Instead they were linked to form a U-shaped road that traversed the East 42nd St. tunnel, now a slender bridge.
 
Highlights include:
• Tudor details of leaded stained-glass windows, and mythical creature details.
• Slender bridge over 42nd St. and landscaped parks
• A steeply sloping garden that highlights the elevation
• The Scharansky Steps
• Abdulghani al Jahmi’s Café
 

October 3   TUESDAY   11 AM to 1 PM

FAR WEST 70s — THE ANSONIA, THE APTHORP AND THE ARCONIA

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MEET: 160 W. 71st St. just east of Broadway. Subway: #1, #2, #3 to 72nd St.

The far West 70s of the Upper West Side long exhibited a pull between opposing identities.
• It sported imposing mansions, many of which were later converted into rooming houses.
• It offered beautiful Hudson River vistas, which vied with saloons, coal yards, and smoke from steam railroads along the river.
• A statue of Eleanor Roosevelt graces Riverside Park 1 ½ miles from where her alcoholic father died.
• The center of America’s drug addiction in the 1970’s bumped up against apartments of America’s cultural icons.
• Developers changed street names to raise the neighborhood image, but impressive real estate was rejected for being on the “wrong side of Central Park”.
 
Highlights include a statue built to inspire young Italian-Americans, residences by some of New York’s most illustrious architects, and a neighborhood that has taken hold of its identity to be a much sought-after residential enclave.
 

October 7   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE GILDED AGE — GRANDIOSE YEARNINGS FROM UNTAXED EARNINGS

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MEET: E. 78th St. & Madison Ave., southwest corner at 38 E. 78th St.

Rivalry between "old money" & "new money" filled the gossip pages of the Gilded Age newspapers. Old money dated from Dutch & British colonial times; new money flowed from the industrialization beginning with the Civil War.
 
The HBO series "The Gilded Age" presents a "new money" family - the Russells - and their disruptive attacks on "old money" Society. Joining this tour you will learn whom the Russells portray.
 
Between 78th Street and 86th Street, Fifth Avenue still has a concentration of formidable Gilded Age mansions. The industrial age moguls who built these city chateaux were vying to outdo one another & flaunting their wealth & worthiness for all to see. Women of the new-monied class competed for social standing with clothing, parties, and aristocratic connections.
 
Highlights of the tour:
• Vanderbilts, Astors, and Guggenheims
• "Poor little rich girl"
• Architectural masterpieces by C.P.H.Gilbert, Stanford White and Richard Morris Hunt
• "Dollar princesses"
• The Age of Shoddy
• H.M.S. Titanic
 

** NEW **

October 15   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE FORTY YEARS MANHATTAN WAS DUTCH

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MEET: Trinity Church, Broadway & Wall St.

Beginning in 1624, the Dutch West India Company transformed an edge of Manhattan wilderness into the colonial city of New Amsterdam. They controlled Manhattan for only 40 years, until 1664, when the British took over. And yet the Dutch influence set the character of New York for the next 400 years, particularly in its money orientation, and tolerance for ethnic and religious diversity.
 
By 1644 the roughly 500 inhabitants of New Amsterdam included a wide variety of Europeans, Blacks both enslaved and free, and native Lenapes. Over 18 languages were heard on the streets. There were Dutch Reform adherents, Catholics, Quakers, and Anglicans. The first Jewish settlers in North America came to these streets in 1654.
 
Highlights include –
• New York’s first cash crop
• Bronze relief map of the New Amsterdam colony
• Dutch street patterns and street names that exist today
• Governors Willem Kieft and Peter Stuyvesant
• Jews and Quakers limit Stuyvesant’s power
 

** NEW **

October 22   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

TURTLE BAY AND BEEKMAN PLACE — Power and Its Limits

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MEET: E. 52nd St. & First Avenue, northeast corner.

In the far East 40’s and 50’s, Turtle Bay and Beekman Place owe some of their caché to their geography. Perched on a high hill over the East River, the property afforded great views and healthful breezes. James Beekman built his country house at the top of the slope in 1763. By 1776, the British took over the house and used it as their headquarters until the end of the Revolutionary War. Nathan Hale was condemned to die here and was hanged nearby.
 
In the 1850’s, the coming of the grid plan of numbered streets and avenues upset the bucolic setting. The picturesque cove called Turtle Bay was filled in and the area’s brownstones were converted to tenements for the working class. But in the 1920’s creative people saw residential possibilities near the river, and soon impressive new homes started to appear.
 
In addition to creative and artistic people – like Bogart and Garbo - some residents of Turtle Bay were at the pinnacle of industry and government. The publisher of Time Magazine and Life Magazine Henry Luce, mogul and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wielded much power and influence. Did it get them what they wanted? When did it not?
 
Highlights include:
• River House
• Panhellenic, a hotel built for sorority alumnae
• Amster Yard
• Turtle Bay Gardens
 

** NEW **

October 26   THURSDAY   11 AM to 1 PM

TUDOR CITY — A QUIET HAMLET IN A NOISY NEIGHBORHOOD

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MEET: 2nd Ave. and E. 43rd St., northeast corner.

When the grid plan of 1811 was implemented, the hill between 1st and 2nd Avenues, at East 42nd St. was not leveled. East 42nd St had to tunnel through the hill to reach 1st Avenue.
 
Today that elevated land gives Tudor City a remarkably quiet, verdant setting above noisy, congested Midtown.
 
Built as a middle class, walk-to-work development, most Tudor City’s apartments were small and efficiently designed. Tudor-style architecture and lush parks were chosen to create the feeling of English countryside. In addition, no thru traffic was allowed in the enclave. East 41st and East 43rd Sts. do not connect to First Avenue. Instead they were linked to form a U-shaped road that traversed the East 42nd St. tunnel, now a slender bridge.
 
Highlights include:
• Tudor details of leaded stained-glass windows, and mythical creature details.
• Slender bridge over 42nd St. and landscaped parks
• A steeply sloping garden that highlights the elevation
• The Scharansky Steps
• Abdulghani al Jahmi’s Café
 

October 29   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

MACABRE GREENWICH VILLAGE

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MEET: Washington Sq. Arch, 5th Ave. 1 block south of 8th St.

Celebrate the Halloween season with some of the spookiest stories in New York — murders, hangings, explosions, famous missing persons, specters, hauntings, and ghosts. Death lies in plain view —if you know where to look.
 Highlights include:
• Washington Square Park graveyard
• The 19th century Jewish graveyard
• Newgate prison
• The murdered architect
• The tale of the haunting artist
• Whatever happened to Judge Crater?
• Hangings, and the hangman's house
• Edgar Allan Poe's home and his inspiration for The Raven
• The day the music died
 

** NEW **

November 5   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

TUDOR CITY — A QUIET HAMLET IN A NOISY NEIGHBORHOOD

VIEW MAP

MEET: 2nd Ave. and E. 43rd St., northeast corner.

When the grid plan of 1811 was implemented, the hill between 1st and 2nd Avenues, at East 42nd St. was not leveled. East 42nd St had to tunnel through the hill to reach 1st Avenue.
 
Today that elevated land gives Tudor City a remarkably quiet, verdant setting above noisy, congested Midtown.
 
Built as a middle class, walk-to-work development, most Tudor City’s apartments were small and efficiently designed. Tudor-style architecture and lush parks were chosen to create the feeling of English countryside. In addition, no thru traffic was allowed in the enclave. East 41st and East 43rd Sts. do not connect to First Avenue. Instead they were linked to form a U-shaped road that traversed the East 42nd St. tunnel, now a slender bridge.
 
Highlights include:
• Tudor details of leaded stained-glass windows, and mythical creature details.
• Slender bridge over 42nd St. and landscaped parks
• A steeply sloping garden that highlights the elevation
• The Scharansky Steps
• Abdulghani al Jahmi’s Café
 

November 11   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

NoMad — Jailbirds & Geniuses, Notoriety & Innocence, Museum of Sex & the Power of Positive Thinking

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MEET: Redbury Hotel, 29 E. 29th St.

NoMad has long been a district of unexpected contrasts. In the area north of Madison Square, homes of moneyed New Yorkers were next to a safe house of the Underground Railroad. A snooty church was just around the corner from the Gay ‘90s scene of frequent assignations and colorful goings on.
 
Today NoMad still features whole blocks of Classical Revival architecture including a Beaux-Arts masterpiece. The dense vegetation of beautiful Madison Square Park shields quiet space for art installations, children’s play, and a popular outdoor eatery.
 
Highlights include
• Winston Churchill’s Iroquois ancestor
• The Southerner who became a hero of the Yankee cause
• Where Madonna got her start
• The Murder of the Century
• The announcement at dawn, “You are now the President of the United States”
 

No public tour the weekend of November 18-19.

November 21   TUESDAY   11 AM to 1 PM

THE INTIMATE WEST VILLAGE WITH ITS SPECTACULAR HUDSON RIVER PARK

VIEW MAP

MEET: Leroy St. & 7th Ave. South, southwest corner. Subway: #1 to Houston St., walk 2 blocks north on 7th Ave. South. 

The West Village is a 19th century preserve with its concealed-yet-open garden, complex web of streets, and a house 9½ feet wide. Classic 19th century 3-story townhouses set the stage. This is a community neighborhood of quirky angled streets with literary hang-outs, European-style coffeehouses, and Off-Broadway theatres – the quintessential American Bohemia. Its sites inspired Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven”, and O. Henry's “The Last Leaf.”
 
But one block west of its border, the neighborhood changes abruptly. Gone are the run-down remains of waterfront commerce — transient hotels, cheap bars, and old factories. Now new tall glass-covered buildings rise up with celebrity-filled condominiums and look out over a spectacular, transformed waterfront. Today the shoreline is alive again, this time with grassy playing fields, quiet lawns, children's playgrounds, and 800' long restored piers.
 

No public tour Thanksgiving weekend..

December 3   SUNDAY   1 to 3:30 PM

HARLEM HISTORY WALK — MEDLEY OF ARCHITECTURE, SUGAR HILL ACHIEVERS, AND SCHOMBERG’S DREAM

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MEET: City College, 138th St. & Amsterdam Ave. Subway: #1 train to 137th St. station; walk to 138th St., then 1 block up the 138th St. hill.

In the 1880s, the new elevated railroad converted Harlem from a rural district into tracts of beautiful homes for wealthy New Yorkers. By the 1920s, downtown development and the new subway changed the neighborhood into one of the nation's most famous African-American communities.
 
Highlights of the tour include:
• Artistic and literary Harlem Renaissance
• Alexander Hamilton's last home
• Strivers Row, Sugar Hill, and Hamilton Heights
• Abyssinian Baptist Church
• One of world's greatest collections dedicated to the study of black culture
 

** NEW **

December 9   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

SUTTON PLACE — AVANT-GUARD WOMEN CREATE NEW ENCLAVE

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MEET: E. 57th St. & Sutton Place, southeast corner.

Starting in the 1920s, creative and influential women of means saw an intriguing alternative to Fifth Avenue residences. Together, Anne Morgan, Elisabeth Marbury, and Anne Vanderbilt chose to totally renovate townhouses on one far Eastside block between 57th and 58th Sts. called Sutton Place. The area had a checkered past of middle-class residences pushed out by industry and the working poor. These 3 women thoroughly changed that block, beginning the creation of the beautiful, off-the-beaten-path neighborhood of today.
 
Highlights include:
• “Amazon Enclave”
• Society women who first enter professions
• Stories of actors, writers, musicians and other creative people who chose the neighborhood
• A private road east of Sutton Place
• Small public parks facing the East River
 

December 17   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

FIFTH AVENUE GOLD COAST

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MEET: E. 70 St. & Fifth Ave., northeast corner.

The creation of Central Park in the 1870s destined Fifth Avenue — the park’s eastern border — to become one of New York’s most elegant addresses. Great historic mansions, including those of Henry Clay Frick and James B. Duke, began to line the avenue. Much of the wealth that created this Gold Coast was earned rather than inherited.
 
Highlights include:
• The American Dream and its dark side
• American tycoons with aristocratic yearnings
• Grandiose homes and what happened to them
• Landmarked district 1 mile long