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NYC Encounters

Walking & Virtual Tours
Art, Architecture, History & Trivia

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Upcoming Tours & Webinars

Please register for programs through the links provided in each description.
Can't make the date?
Consider a private tour! 
Scroll down for rates.
Email for available dates & arrangements: ginnypoleman@gmail.com.

  • Oct 17, 2024, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
    Location is TBD
    Tour 72nd Street up to 89th Street to view gilded age mansions by renowned architects such as C.P.H. Gilbert and Clarence True, as well as the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument and the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument, among other memorial statues on the way.
  • Oct 18, 2024, 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
    New York, 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
    FREE with Museum admission. No registration necessary. This cross-collection tour looks at fashion — clothes, hair, jewelry, etc —  using sculpture, paintings, and decorative objects in the museum's collection. Meet in Gallery 534, the Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco.
  • Oct 22, 2024, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
    Webinar
    On the virtual program, learn how a 18th c. parcel of land on Manhattan’s westside transform from an estate owned by poet Clement Clarke Moore; the site where the Oreo was invented; and how NYC’s elevated park — the High Line — come about.
  • Oct 29, 2024, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
    Location is TBD
    Historic Chelsea may have been known as the birthplace of Clement Clark Moore's poem "The Night Before Christmas," but today, Chelsea is known for its Halloween celebrations. While admiring the decorations, learn about the history of this revitalized district & the High Line.
  • Nov 01, 2024, 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
    New York, 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
    FREE with Museum admission. No registration necessary. This cross-collection tour looks at fashion — clothes, hair, jewelry, etc —  using sculpture, paintings, and decorative objects in the museum's collection. Meet in Gallery 534, the Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco.
  • Nov 05, 2024, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
    Location is TBD
    Explore Carnegie Hill nestled upper 80s/lower 90s on the UES, full of historic architecture: the former Andrew Carnegie mansion, (the Cooper-Hewitt Museum); the former Otto H. Kahn House, (the Convent of the Sacred Heart); & the former Warburg Mansion, (the Jewish Museum).
  • Nov 15, 2024, 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
    New York, 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
    FREE with Museum admission. No registration necessary. This cross-collection tour looks at fashion — clothes, hair, jewelry, etc —  using sculpture, paintings, and decorative objects in the museum's collection. Meet in Gallery 534, the Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco.
  • Dec 13, 2024, 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
    New York, 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
    FREE with Museum admission. No registration necessary. This cross-collection tour looks at fashion — clothes, hair, jewelry, etc —  using sculpture, paintings, and decorative objects in the museum's collection. Meet in Gallery 534, the Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco.

Private Walking Tours

Visiting NYC?

Book a private tour! Choose from a selection of in-person

walking tours for your group. 

 Two-hour Walking Tour

$200 for up to 4 people. 

$40 for each additional attendee, max of 15 people 

 

Other neighborhoods, Street Art, Art Gallery, or Art Museums tours 

can be customized for your group! 

Two-hour Custom Tour

$300 for up to 4 people

$50 for each additional attendee, max of 15 people 

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The Slow Down Tour of

Grand Central Terminal

2-hr Walking Tour

No need to rush through Grand Central Terminal on this slow down tour exploring the history, architecture, and stories of NYC's landmarked Beaux Arts jewel.

Gilded Age Mansions
of Museum Mile

2-hr Walking Tour

Stroll up Fifth Avenue from the Frick Collection to the Cooper Hewitt Museum seeing the turn-of-the-20th century homes and hearing the stories of their wealthy owners, familiar names like Pulitzer, Whitney, Carnegie, and more!

Highlights of

Central Park

2-hr Walking Tour

Hitting the major attractions of Central Park, this tour will highlight the structures, sculptures, and history of this magnificent urban space within Manhattan.

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Gilded Age Department Stores
of Ladies Mile

2-hr Walking Tour

As we take the steps of women of the 1890s who window shopped on 6th Avenue, we'll look up at the magnificent architecture of the department stores of the Gilded Age with names long gone, like Siegel-Cooper, and some still hanging on, like Macy’s.

Poems, Oreos, & Cowboys: History of Chelsea & the High Line

2-hr Walking Tour

What do the Night Before Christmas, Oreos, and cowboys in New York City have in common? Learn that and much more as you take this two-hour walk through the history of Chelsea and the High Line listening to the stories of this revitalized area of restaurants, high-end shops, art galleries and mid-19th century brownstones.

The 1915 Farley Post Office

& new Moynihan Train Hall

2-hr Walking Tour

The old Farley Post Office is one of the last vestiges of McKim, Mead, & White’s architectural designs in the old Penn Station neighborhood. See how this Beaux Arts beauty was painstaking conserved to its former glory, and how the rest of the building was repurposed as the new, modern train hall, honoring the original Penn Station.

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Explore South Street Seaport!

2-hr Walking Tour

Come explore the largest concentration of restored early 19th-century commercial buildings in the city, and the newly repurposed Tin Building as a culinary marketplace by Chef Jean-Georges. With vintage photographs, this tour will show how the Seaport has evolved from one of the first and busiest streets in Manhattan to today’s tourist destination featuring the South Street Seaport Museum and its fleet of historical ships, Schermerhorn Row, the Titanic Memorial, and the revitalized Pier 17. And of course, great photo spots of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Custom Neighborhood, Art Gallery, 

Art Museum, or

Street Art Tours

2-hr Art Tour

Specially developed for your group including the latest exhibitions, you can choose a tour of galleries, an art museum (MoMA, Whitney, Frick, Guggenheim), or neighborhood street art (Chelsea, Greenwich Village). This tour can be customized for families with kids 10-years and up.

Rockefeller Center —
City within a City

2-hr Walking Tour

Using his own money, John D Rockefeller Jr. envisioned an ambitious 22-acre city-within-a-city of 19 buildings with offices, restaurants, TV studios, theater, all during the Great Depression. On this walking tour, discover the magnificent Art Deco architecture, view some of its site-specific art installations, and hear the story behind the most famous Christmas tree and how it came there at Rockefeller Center.

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Midtown Fifth Avenue

Then & Now

2-hr Walking Tour

What was once 5th Avenue’s Millionaire Row at the turn of the 20th century, with neighbors named Vanderbilt and Whitney, is now a canyon of Manhattan’s finest hotels, high rises, and retail. What remains? You'll see some of the finest Gilded Age churches, hotels, private clubs (designed by McKim, Mead, & White), and repurposed mansions like Cartier and Gucci.

SoHo Architecture

2-hr Walking Tour

Rediscover South of Houston (SoHo), once a high-end residential neighborhood, then commercial district, and now a destination for shopping and entertainment. Travel back in time to early 19th century and then see brand new architecture. Visit SoHo’s historical cast iron district; see a building designed by the renowned architectural firm, McKim, Mead, and White; and admire the Beaux Arts beauty of the former 1909 NYPD police headquarters.

The Gems of Bryant Park 

2-hr Walking Tour

Take a stroll around this 9.6-acre park while viewing vintage photographs and listening to the stories of the history, sculptures, library, and neighboring buildings of Bryant Park, including the landmarked American Radiator Building. Named after newspaperman and abolitionist, William Cullen Bryant, the park shares the block with the New York Public Library and has become Manhattan’s midtown’s square with year-around events and free public activities.

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Riverside Drive:

the Other Millionaires Row

Two, 2-hr Walking Tours

Split into two unique walking tours, your choice of Riverside south from 72nd to 90th Streets, or Riverside north from Grant's Tomb to 103rd Street. Both tours cover the gilded age mansions, turn-of-the-century luxury apartment buildings, and the statutory of Riverside Drive Park.

Gems of Madison Square Park & the Flatiron District

2-hr Walking Tour

Today, Madison Square Park serves as a meeting place for New Yorkers and tourists with green space, playground, and annual site-specific art installations. Come explore the history of the park and its surrounding historical buildings like Metropolitan Life North Building, the NY Life Building, and the perennial favorite, the Flatiron Building. Using vintage photographs, see the district then and in person, while listening to many stories of these sights.

Gilded Age Mansions
of Murray Hill