Jack Eichenbaum holds a Ph.D. in urban geography. He’s a lifelong observer of New York City and other large cities around the world. In 2010, he was appointed Queens Borough Historian, and today works closely with the Borough President concerning the preservation and promotion of Queens history. His personal website can be found here. Below, find a listing of several exciting tours that he will be offering early this year.
Author Archive
Tour Queens and Manhattan with a Historian
3 Upcoming NYC Tours
Public Housing’s Fertile Crescent Thanksgiving
Friday, November 23 11am-1pm
Have attitudes about publicly and philanthropically assisted housing changed? Most huge housing projects were designed to maximize off-street open space that is open to the public and provides light and air to the residents. The walk concentrates on the benign allees of vast projects that parallel the East River bend from the Brooklyn Bridge to 14 St in Manhattan. Commentary centers on the socio-political history and geography nurturing these projects. The tour ends in the East Village at the site of New York City’s first public housing project.
>Sponsored by MAS Go to http://mas.org/tours/ to register.
Keeping Off Midtown Streets (East Side) – Grand Central Terminal to Bloomingdales
Saturday, December 29 11am-1pm
In the “post-modernist era”, NYC planning principles encouraged innovative new public spaces to be maintained by private entities. These new spaces typically offer shelter and shortcuts and add to the connections already provided by transit, stores, and hotels. We’ll beat winter by connecting public atriums, passageways, building lobbies, and walkways that reveal a more intimate side of Midtown.
>Sponsored by MAS Go to http://mas.org/tours/ to register.
Keeping Off Midtown Streets (West Side) – Time Warner to Times Square
Sunday, January 27, 2013 11am-1pm
In the “post-modernist era”, NYC planning principles encouraged innovative new public spaces to be maintained by private entities. These new spaces typically offer shelter and shortcuts and add to the connections already provided by transit, stores, and hotels. We’ll beat winter by connecting public atriums, passageways, building lobbies, and walkways that reveal a more intimate side of Midtown.
>Sponsored by MAS Go to http://mas.org/tours/ to register.
New York City Feature Attraction: Top of the Rock
What’s famous enough to be considered a New York City attraction, but not so tourist-y that it’s a cliché? The answer is simply the Rockefeller Center Observatory.
Springtime in Manhattan, Places to Explore
Spring has finally arrived with sunny days, budding trees, and rising temperatures. It’s the time of year when people go outside not only because they have to get somewhere, but because they actually enjoy being out and about. The warmer weather brings great opportunities for taking a friend or a loved one out for a fun day in the city.
The World of the #7 Train – a Queens Tour
This series of six walks and connecting rides along North Queens’ transportation corridor is Jack Eichenbaum’s signature tour. The focus is on what the #7 train has done to and for surrounding neighborhoods since it began service in 1914. Walks take place in Long Island City, Sunnyside, Flushing, Corona, Woodside and Jackson Heights. Lunch is in Flushing’s Asiatown.
The tour runs from 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 30th.
Tour fee: $39
Preregistration is required.
Can an experienced New York City visitor get anything out of a tour?
I adopted the role of guinea pig and took a tour with NYCVP to find out.
What’s great about New York City is that it’s ever-changing; people of different cultures come and go, trends cycle through at a rapid pace, and there is always something new to experience. This virtue can also be a vice, however, as it’s easy to get wrapped up in the moment and forget about the past that has built the present.
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