SCHEDULED PUBLIC WALKING TOURS NYC - 2024

July 14   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

FAR WEST 70s — THE APTHORP, THE ANSONIA, AND MASONIC SYMBOLISM

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MEET: 160 W. 71st St. just east of Broadway.

The far West 70s of the Upper West Side long has exhibited a pull between opposing identities. It sported imposing mansions, many of which were later converted into ordinary rooming houses. Along the Hudson River, it offered beautiful vistas, but the views were marred by saloons, coal yards, and smoke from steam railroads.
 
In the 1880’s, developers pressed city officials to raise the neighborhood’s image by changing numbered avenues - from 8thAve to 11th Ave. – to Central Park West to West End Ave. Along Broadway, great apartment houses by prestigious architects sprang up and attracted upwardly mobile middle class families. Nevertheless, the west side can still be rejected for being on the “wrong side of Central Park”.
 
Highlights include:
• Riverside Park and Riverside Drive
• Ira and George Gershwin
• Rivalry between Freemasons and Shriners
• Contemplative statue of Eleanor Roosevelt (the 4th of only 6 statues of a real women in Manhattan)
• Home of Miles Davis & Cecily Tyson
 

** NEW **

July 20   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

CARNEGIE HILL FIFTH AVENUE — SUCCESSFUL IMMIGRANTS ACHIEVE MORE THAN WEALTH

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MEET: Fifth Avenue and E. 86th St, northeast corner.

When Andrew Carnegie decided to retire to upper Fifth Avenue in 1901, he purchased land well beyond the property for his own mansion to control who could live near him. He chose to sell to people with cultured and philanthropic interests, including a successful Jewish banker.
 
The Carnegie Hill district now covers 86th Street to 98th Street from Central Park on the west, and in places almost to Third Avenue on the east. This tour will stay on 5th Avenue from 86th Street to 94th Street.
 
Highlight include:
• Otto Kahn and his rescue of the Metropolitan Opera
• The wealthiest woman in America and her 54-room penthouse
• John Hammond and his advocacy of music created by African-Americans
• Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington and the Hispanic Acropolis of New York
• Where the bodies were buried
 

July 28   SUNDAY  1 to 3 PM

NOMAD — NAUGHTY AND NICE WITH WORLD-CLASS PARK WHERE BASEBALL BEGAN

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MEET: 30 E. 29th St. between Madison Ave. and Park Ave.

NoMad was a patchwork of characters in the 19th century. In the area north of Madison Square, homes of moneyed New Yorkers were next to a safe house of the Underground Railroad. A snobbish church was just around the corner from the Gay ‘90s scene of colorful goings on and frequent assignations.
 
Today NoMad features whole blocks of Classical Revival architecture including a Beaux-Arts masterpiece. The dense vegetation of beautiful Madison Square Park shields quiet space for children’s play, art installations, 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
• Tin Pan Alley and its place in the theatrical neighborhood
• The Murder of the Century
• The announcement at dawn, “You are now the President of the United States”
 

August 3   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

CRIMES OF THE FIFTH AVENUE GOLD COAST

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MEET: East 70th St. on the west side of Fifth Ave.

Fraud, procuring, and murders most foul, all on the New York avenue of wealth and privilege. The American Dream and its dark side reside even on Fifth Avenue. 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. But as the wealth moved in, so did chicanery and violence. Great historic mansions housed both perpetrators and victims, sometimes both living together.
 
Highlights include
•  American tycoons with aristocratic yearnings
•  Grandiose homes and what happened in them
•  Landmarked district one mile long
•  Private armies, criminal intent, financial skullduggery  

August 11   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE BOWERY — IRVING BERLIN, SKID ROW, AND NEW HOTELS COOL AND HIP

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MEET: The hotel at 50 Bowery, (not The Bowery Hotel) just south of Canal St. & north of Bayard St.

From gaudy district of vaudeville, minstrel shows and operettas, to raucous saloons, bare-knuckle boxing, and Skid Row, the still-changing Bowery has seen it all.
 
Rural to the 1800s, the street evolved into a flashy entertainment district for the working class. During the Civil War the Bowery was a center of New York's theatrical life. Here vaudeville began and minstrel shows became popular. H.M.S. Pinafore and the stage version of Uncle Tom's Cabin debuted on the Bowery. By the 1870s raucous saloons combined socializing and bare-knuckled boxing for entertainment. Though the street's fortunes declined, its venues at the turn of the last century were the early training grounds for such greats as Irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor, and George M. Cohan.
 
The 1892 The Bowery song with its humorous view of a tourist's being ripped off popularized the street as a disreputable place. The Depression of the 1930s cemented its reputation as Skid Row for people who had lost all hope. With the late CBGB home of Underground Rock, and more recently the luxury Bowery Hotel and the New Museum, the Bowery's identity is changing again.
 

August 18   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE GILDED AGE — GRANDIOSE YEARNINGS FROM UNTAXED EARNINGS

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

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
 

September 8   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

FIFTH AVENUE GOLD COAST

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MEET: E. 70 St. on west side of Fifth Ave.

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
 

September 14   SATURDAY   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:
• Sites of the 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
 

No public tours the weekend of September 21 & 22.

September 28   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

TURTLE BAY AND BEEKMAN PLACE — Power and Its Limits

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MEET: E. 52nd St. & First Ave., 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
 

October 6   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE GILDED AGE — GRANDIOSE YEARNINGS FROM UNTAXED EARNINGS

VIEW MAP

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
 

October 13  SUNDAY  1 to 3 PM

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — GEORGE WASHINGTON’S GREAT ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK’S FIRST SUBURB

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MEET: Orange and Henry Sts. in Brooklyn Heights. Best subway: #2/3 to Clark St.

Just across the Brooklyn Bridge from Wall Street, Brooklyn Heights is one of the most beautiful and charming in the city. It was the first district in New York to be awarded landmarks designation protection.
 
Highlights include:
• the locale of important activity in the American Revolution
• Plymouth Church—once the headquarters of Henry Ward Beecher and his Abolitionist preaching, now home to Tiffany windows
• some of the finest examples in town of 19th century townhouses
• Ebuildings where such great writers as Walt Whitman, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur Miller, and Norman Mailer have lived
• a great vantage point in town to see Manhattan’s Financial District
 

No public tours the weekend of October 19 & 20.

October 27   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
• America's most famous missing person
• Hangings, and the hangman's house
• Edgar Allan Poe's home and his inspiration for The Raven
• The day the music died
 

November 3   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE GENIUS AND ELEGANCE OF GRAMERCY PARK

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MEET: Gramercy Park, Lexington Ave. & 21st St. 

Discover a London Square that became home to creative minds, elegant salons, and the taste-setting Lady Mendl. Samuel Ruggles, lawyer, developer, and urban design visionary, purchased a piece of marshland in 1831 in order to create a park for local citizens. Over the next several decades, a private London square emerged, surrounded by substantial homes. This landmarked district became home to some of America's greatest inventors, architects, actors, doctors, diarists, publishers, writers, painters, and losing and winning presidential candidates.
 
Highlights include:
•  Manhattan's only private park
•  The National Arts Club
•  The Players Club
•  The Salon of Elizabeth Marbury and Elsie de Wolfe
•  O. Henry's home and bar
•  Homes of Peter Cooper, Edwin Booth, and Stanford White
 

November 9   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR IN NEW YORK

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MEET: Cooper Union, at the south end of the brown Foundation Building. (7 E. 7th St., btw 3rd & 4th Aves.) Subways: #6, N, or R to 8th St./Astor Place

As the inevitability of the Civil War increased, New York faced conflicts within its varied population. Family connections with the South brought personal strife for some. Business interests dreaded the potential loss of Southern markets for finished goods. Ever-present ethnic and class tensions increased and erupted.
 
Once war was declared, New York supported the Northern cause. NYC industries—banking, shipbuilding, medical supplies, and garment manufacturing—rapidly grew to meet the demands of the Union war effort. Women joined together to raise funds to support the US Sanitary Commission, forerunner of the American Red Cross. By the war’s end the city’s growth in wealth and influence put it near par with London and Paris.
 
Highlights include:
• Abraham Lincoln, the candidate and president
• Newspaper publishing and Horace Greeley, the abolitionist editor
• Confederate plot to burn down New York
• Draft Riots
• New York shipbuilding and The Monitor  

** NEW **

November 17   SUNDAY   1 to 3 PM

CARNEGIE HILL FIFTH AVENUE — SUCCESSFUL IMMIGRANTS ACHIEVE MORE THAN WEALTH

VIEW MAP

MEET: Fifth Avenue and E. 86th St, southeast corner.

When Andrew Carnegie decided to retire to upper Fifth Avenue in 1901, he purchased land well beyond the property for his own mansion to control who could live near him. He chose to sell to people with cultured and philanthropic interests, including a successful Jewish banker.
 
The Carnegie Hill district now covers 86th Street to 98th Street from Central Park on the west, and in places almost to Third Avenue on the east. This tour will stay on 5th Avenue from 86th Street to 94th Street.
 
Highlight include:
• Otto Kahn and his rescue of the Metropolitan Opera
• The wealthiest woman in America and her 54-room penthouse
• John Hammond and his advocacy of music created by African-Americans
• Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington and the Hispanic Acropolis of New York
• Where the bodies were buried
 

November 23   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

FLAMBOYANT AND BOHEMIAN — GREENWICH VILLAGE AND HOW IT BECAME FAMOUS

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

In its earliest years Greenwich Village was a refuge from the yellow fever epidemic downtown. By the early 20th century, the Village had become home to artists, writers, and playwrights looking for an unconventional environment and creative freedom. Protesters came here in their struggles for the vote for women, better working conditions, opposition to war, and gay and feminist rights.
 
Highlights include:
•  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and the labor movement
•  Literary figures — Henry James, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Willa Cather, Eugene O'Neill
•  Mabel Dodge’s salon and her shocking guests
•  19th century residential architecture as a social document
•  The Minetta trout stream and street design
•  Landmarking and preservation controversies
 

No public tours the weekend of November 30 & December 1.

December 7   SATURDAY   1 to 3 PM

THE SOUTH STREET SEAPORT — SALOONS, COUNTING HOUSES, AND GEORGE WASHINGTON’S WHITE HOUSE

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MEET: Lighthouse at the intersection of Fulton and Water Streets.

In the heyday of the clipper ships, 12 blocks around South Street comprised one of the great seaports of the world. Wide slips, solid brick houses, and the Belgian block streets we walk today evoke an earlier time in Manhattan, when seafaring trades created great wealth.
 
Twelve blocks of brick buildings once contained stores, saloons, counting houses, shipping offices, and mercantile exchanges. Discovering today’s businesses in these historic settings offers us an unusual delight.
 
Highlights of this tour of the district include:
•  Landfill and its effect on buildings
•  The third oldest building in Manhattan
•  Details that help date New York’s oldest structures
•   A structure built to resemble a stolen building
•  Recent additions in the seaport’s revival

Next public walking tours will start in March.