Explore the Ruins of a Forgotten City in the Middle of Manhattan
This 2-3 hour guided walking tour around Madison Square Park seeks out what's left to be found of the Gilded Age city. On this tour we read the architecture and decode the street walls in a neighborhood that was once the New York's city center at the height of the Gilded Age. Where the city came from (Soho), and where it moved to (Times Square, Museum Mile, and the shops of Fifth Avenue) is integral to understanding how New York, and Madison Square, developed. You’ll learn answers to questions you didn’t know you had about New York City, and leave with the deeply satisfying sense of understanding a city that author James Baldwin called 'spitefully incoherent'.
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What's included in Explore the Ruins of a Forgotten City in the Middle of Manhattan
(Subject to Option Inclusions)Itinerary
Flatiron Building
This walking tour looks at the Gilded Age that flourished in this neighborhood as a fashionable world class city center between the 1860s to the 1920s. We spend a few minutes giving context to the greater history of the city, and the role Madison Square played in its development.
Madison Square Park
Where Fifth Avenue, Broadway and 23rd Street all meet was the center of the Gilded Age. It was just becoming the new social, political, and cultural hub when the economy leapt forward in the Industrial Age (and wealth). The former patriarchy and landed elite like the Astors were out-spent by the new Industrial wealth like the Vanderbilts by a long-shot; Madison Square center stage for that social overthrow. In addition to the social-cultural history that shone during the Gilded Age, the era and buildings that replaced it are also worth exploring, and we'll find they, too have a fascinating history and commercial business buildings that overran everything in their path. There is a logic to the history that makes the buildings of New York make sense.
Fifth Avenue
We walk the blocks of Fifth Avenue between 23rd and 18th Streets, decoding the buildings as we go, understanding the order of development. What buildings were built when, for who, and how did they changed? Here, New York's "signature" building-type that can be found almost anywhere: the late 19th-century "state-of-the-art" steel-frame, manufacturing loft building, often in the "elongated" Beaux Arts style are examined in detail. Later known as Paternaster Row for the home mission office buildings and their publishing operations, it was a street of class and wealth converted to office buildings that included publishers, architects, textile manufacturers, and piano salerooms. A long forgotten business district in an even longer forgotten upper class neighborhood.
Inclusions
- Professional guide
- Gratuities
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
Meet
Pickup and Dropoff
You will make your own way to the meeting points
Meeting / End Points
- Meet on the Broadway-side of the triangle-shaped building
Redeem
Ticket Redemption
• Comfortable walking shoes are recommended