New York Talks & Walks

Went on the Brooklyn Bridge New Year’s tour last night and it was excellent. Our guide was super-​knowledgeable and entertaining (he recited Shakespeare for us impromptu after we passed the site of, I believe, the first performance of a Shakespearean play in NYC).
Great tour of downtown NYC buildings, covering all my personal faves (I’m from NY, did the tour mainly for the novelty of crossing the Bridge on New Year’s). Would definitely recommend for anyone.

For me, my experience with this outfit is Exhibit A in why those online coupons aren’t always a great deal.
Like the other reviewer, my guide also had the Victorian-​era black cape/​coat and a top hat, but I wasn’t so charmed by him. I got an awkward/​creepy vibe.
It was a pleasant enough day to walk around, and he took us to some interesting sites, but I’m not sure it was worth the $ 10 I paid. At one point, we’re stopped in front of a building, and he either can’t find the right spot in his notes or forgot, and says, before he starts lecturing, something like: «Oh, what the heck, I’ll just make it up you guys won’t know the difference.»
I also found out that he’s not the Dr. Phil Schoenburg of CUNY that’s associated with this tour. I don’t think he has any credentials at all, might as well be some guy they grabbed off the street to ramble for two hours.
I did have one experience with Dr. Phil though. He called and left a muddle-​mouthed message about the tour being cancelled because there weren’t enough people. Then a day later, he called back and said it was still on.
Customer service and presentation were lacking. Lesson learned, I guess.

We took two tours with New York Talks & Walks, one was a personal Presidential Promenade tour and the other was a Ghosts of Grand Central tour.
The Presidential Promenade tour was great! Gabe filled the tour with historical presidential information and absolutely knew the area and details like the back of his hand. The only fact in question was the story of where Lincoln purchased a bowler hat (did Lincoln wear bowlers??? We Googled it and got nowhere on that), but overall we really enjoyed the tour and would highly recommend it.
The Ghosts of Grand Central tour was good as well. Not in the same realm as the presidential tour, but good. Our guide (I didn’t catch his name, which is my fault as I am better with faces) was outfitted for the occasion in a Victorian-​era black cape/​coat and a top hat, and truly looked the part of a historical ghost. The tough part about this tour was that while we focused both on ghosts and history, there were parts of the tour where our guide would digress to point out or mention bits of trivia and information that pertained to celebrities and the present, which is not the tour we signed up for and were looking forward to. To be fair, we had previously taken another general Grand Central tour that was fantastic but still, we signed up for this tour for the history and ghost aspect of it. It appears that there are some kinks to be worked out in this tour but if our previous NYT&W tour is any indication, they’ll get there soon.