New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [14]
BUS TOURS
Gray Line New York (777 8th Ave., between 47th and 48th Sts., Midtown West | 800/669–0051 | www.graylinenewyork.com) runs a number of “hop-on, hop-off” double-decker bus tours in various languages, including a downtown Manhattan loop, upper Manhattan loop, Brooklyn loop, and evening tours of the city. Packages include entrance fees to attractions.
WALKING TOURS
Big Onion Walking Tours (212/439–1090 | www.bigonion.com) lead themed tours such as “Irish New York” and “Jewish Lower East Side,” as well as famous multiethnic eating tours and guided walks through every neighborhood from Harlem to the Financial District and Brooklyn. Tours run daily and cost $15; add $5 for tours that include stops to eat.
Joyce Gold (212/242–5762 | www.nyctours.com) has been conducting neighborhood walking tours since 1976. Her theme walks, such as “Gangs of New York and the Bloody Five Points,” and “Hell Ain’t Hot: This Here’s Hell’s Kitchen,” run on weekends and cost $15.
The Municipal Art Society (212/935–3960, 212/439–1049 recorded information | www.mas.org) conducts walking tours that emphasize architecture and history. The cost is $15 per person. MAS also runs two weekly tours: downtown Manhattan on Tuesday, and Grand Central Station on Wednesday. Weekly tours begin at 12:30; there’s a $10 suggested donation.
New York City Cultural Walking Tours (212/979–2388 | www.nycwalk.com) have covered such topics as buildings’ gargoyles and the Millionaire’s Mile of 5th Avenue. Two-hour public tours run on some Sundays from March to December, and are $15 per person (no reservations needed); private tours can be scheduled throughout the week at $60 per hour (most tours run about three hours).
New York Food Tours (917/617–7158 | www.foodtoursofny.com) offers walking tours for the foodie on the go. Options include “The Freakiest and Funniest Food” and a “Chinatown Discovery” tour. Prices start at $43 for 2½ hours of walking and noshing.
Previous Chapter | Beginning of Chapter | Next Chapter | Table of Contents
Main Table of Contents
Lower Manhattan: with Ground Zero
SoHo, NoLIta, and Little Italy
Lower East Side and the East Village
Greenwich Village, the West Village, Chelsea, and the Meatpacking District
Union Square, the Flatiron District, Gramercy Park, and Murray Hill
Midtown: With Times Square and Rockefeller Center
The Upper East Side
Central Park
The Upper West Side
Harlem
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Table of Contents
Planning
The Financial District and South Street Seaport: Top Touring Experiences | Worth Noting
Chinatown and TriBeCa: Top Touring Experiences | Top Attractions | Worth Noting
Updated by Arthur Bovino
Pirates, rogue politicians, upwardly mobile go-getters, robber barons, scrappy entrepreneurs, and roaming packs of pigs scouring the streets for garbage: what does this motley crew have in common? They’re the citizenry that built and inhabited the southern tip of Manhattan in various eras, and in varying combinations.
Lower Manhattan, or in the parlance of New Yorkers emphatically giving directions to tourists, “all the way downtown,” has long been where the action—or transaction—is. Back when the neighborhood was the village of New Amsterdam (1626–47), its director-general, Peter Minuit, made the quintessential deal on behalf of the Dutch, trading knives, tools, and cloth to an Algonquin tribe, the Canarsees, for all of Manhattan (that he bought it for $24 is more or less an urban myth).
In 1789, a year before New York City lost its title as America’s capital, George Washington was sworn in as the nation’s first president at Federal Hall, where, two years later, Congress ratified the Bill of Rights.
Little