Private Tour of the Gilded Age City around Madison Square

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Private Tour of the Gilded Age City around Madison Square — Photos: the activity supplier, via Viator

Private Tour of the Gilded Age City around Madison Square, photo 2 — Photos: the activity supplier, via Viator

About this activity

What visitors will take away from this tour was just how small the Gilded Age city of New York was. Distrcits for shopping and theaters, for the upper and middle classes, were all a block or so away from each other. Not only that, but the apartment building, department store and office tower were all new innovations, and at their social heights in the same place around Madison Square just as telephones and electicty were coming on the scene.

Most fascinating will be the proximity all of these venues, from the carriage trade shops and the homes of familes like the Roosevelts, Astors, and Schermerhorns, were to the blocks of illiicit, often raucous nightlife activity in the old Tenderloin just a few blcoks away.

This is a tour de force of the Gilded Age City of NEw York around Madison Square.

Half-day Tours Private and Luxury Private Sightseeing Tours Historical Tours Walking Tours New Product Short term availability Weather Dependent - Moderate

At a glance

Duration: 3 hours
Confirmation: Instant confirmation
Ticket: Mobile or paper ticket accepted
Group: Your group only
People per booking: 1–9
Guide: English
Operated by: Manhattan Unlocked Historical and Architectural Walking Tours

What is included

Included

Included: Expert guide

Not included

Not included: Gratuities

Itinerary

Stop 1

15 min

We begin the tour with a general overview of history and the city's move uptown. Pictures help recreate the evolution of the area from farmland to a fashionable city center.

We learn the history of the Astors, the creation of the first Waldorf=Astoria, and their social interactions with families like the Vanderbilts of the new Industrial class wealth.
Madison Square

10 min

Pictures enhance a short walk and talk around Madison Square, including the hisotries of Met Life and the first Madison Square Gardens at the height of the Gilded Age.
Broadway Theatre

5 min Admission not included

We begin hte process of circumnavigating the ruins of the long forgotten city, when the telephone and electricity were brand new and not yet common to households. It was the age of the department store, hte apartment buildnig and the office towers, new ways of living, working and playing for a rising middle class. Each thoroughfare that crossed at Madison Square held a different class-based attraction of some form of commercia culture, including a redlight distrcit of blocks above 23rd Street and west of Broadway!

Here, we begin the tour with the carriage trade shops of upper class wealth along Broadway, including th old Lord & Taylor and Arnold Constable & Co buildings, among others.
Fifth Avenue

10 min

Fifth Avenue below 23rd Street has its own particular hisotry of development like no other place in hte city. Here, the Garment Distrcit was "diverted" from Midtown. The built environment here is different from any other blocks around.
Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas)

10 min

Sixth Avenue was the middle class shopping district and retains its spactacular array of buildings as the city moved from cast iron to steel frame construction. Some of the buidlings include: Seigel-Cooper, B. Altmans, Hugh O'Neill's, and Adams Dry Goods Store.
Broadway

20 min

Above 23rd Street history takes an abrupt turn as a few steps take us into the old tenderloin, blocks of concert-saloons, brothels and gambling halls from a time when the main form of entertainment in the house was the piano.
Flatiron District

20 min

We cross back to Fifth Avenue and again into a realm of substantial architecture. Here, early experimental forays into multiple family housing: apartment-hotels, French flats, bachelor flats, early coops are the featured buildign types. Some of the buildings include: the Wilbraham, Holland House, Seville and the Martha Washington.
Madison Square Park

15 min

We end the tour in Madison Square Park with some last interesting histories, inluding the Worth Monument, Delmonico's and the old Brunswick Club.