I was fortunate enough to be in New York for 10 days last year on business. This unfortunately did mean that I was alone in the city when I was not at the offices.
Before I flew out I decided to see what the Internet had to offer in the way of advice and visitor excursions. While I was ... Read review
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Advantages: Its free, you get a local view. Disadvantages: You have to make a definate appointment.
I was fortunate enough to be in New York for 10 days last year on business. This unfortunately did mean that I was alone in the city when I was not at the offices.
Before I flew out I decided to see what the Internet had to offer in the way of advice and visitor excursions. While I was quite happy wandering around Tiffany's alone, exploring the winding roads of Greenwich Village alone seemed a little too daunting.
So ... ...free of charge personal escort service. They will usually cater for group from 1 to 6, though if you are a family of more they are willing to make exceptions.
The idea is you tell them where you are staying, when you are going to be there. This means that they can contact you through your hotel. Which day you would like your greeter on, so they can see who is available. Through the week is possible as the people are from all walks ... more
I was fortunate enough to be in New York for 10 days last year on business. This unfortunately did mean that I was alone in the city when I was not at the offices.
Before I flew out I decided to see what the Internet had to offer in the way of advice and visitor excursions. While I was quite happy wandering around Tiffany's alone, exploring the winding roads of Greenwich Village alone seemed a little too daunting.
So I visited the web site (www.bigapplegreeter.org). This is a free of charge personal escort service. They will usually cater for group from 1 to 6, though if you are a family of more they are willing to make exceptions.
The idea is you tell them where you are staying, when you are going to be there. This means that they can contact you through your hotel. Which day you would like your greeter on, so they can see who is available. Through the week is possible as the people are from all walks of life, mine was retired and loved Manhattan so much he wanted to share it with the visitors he could. Finally they need to know what you want to be guided around before you leave for the US. This is all filled in in one simple form on the web site.
The guides are available in languages other than English too. Obviously the more specific your request is the harder it may be for them to find someone to guide you. The guides are all volunteers and “Native New Yorkers”. They are offered the chance to guide you around their specified area and it is their choice of how long it lasts for. This isn’t to say that if you tell them what you want to do they will not accommodate you but rather that they have a planned rout to let you see the best they have to offer.
When I got to my hotel there was a message saying that my “Greeter” Gerry had called to confirm our outing the following day and that I should ring him back please. I did this and had a quick chat with him to arrange a place to meet the following day. (Usually in the hotel Lobby unless you prefer otherwise)
The greeters have a large white badge with “Greeter” on it so you can not miss them. After meeting he gave me a free 24 hour rail card for our outing for the day and a fold out map of the city, this makes your whole day’s travel free.
I stated that I would like my greeter to show me around their favourite part of New York. This is how I found myself in Greenwich Village with one of the Mayors neighbours (retired gentleman who saw this as one of his charitable gestures for the city!) He had lived their all his life and was previously working on Wall Street before his retirement so I was lucky enough to hear some fantastic stories about working there, how he came to live on the Upper East Side. What a “Brown Stone” is. How a “Co op building” works and where the best ice cream in Little Italy can be found.
He took me to Chumly’s and told me about the Speak easy’s during prohibition. The Mafia haunts in Little Italy from the hay day of racketeering and where you could get very good authentic Italian cooking for cheep prices. We also went into Prada and tried on the most expensive and hideous shoes I had ever seen in my life!
Now Gerry was willing and eager to join me for lunch in a restaurant but explained to me that the owning body very strictly controlled them. They can not except tips, donations and you can not even pay for a cup of coffee, let alone their dinner. However we sat down to a very pleasant meal and each paid for exactly what we had eaten and each tipped the bill. My tour lasted for about 4 hours and went through The Village, Little Italy, and China town, before we caught the underground back to the stop nearest my Hotel.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was the personal knowledge of the sights and the stories connected to them that made it fascinating for me. Gerry explained that he liked to meet people from other countries and find out about their lives as he went around as well as seeing their reaction to his city, the good and the bad. He pointed out the drug dealers in Washington Square and where the best bagels could be bought.
At the end of the tour Gerry accompanied me back on the train, we shook hands and I went back to my hotel to soak my aching feet and marvel at this “Old mans” stamina, Gerry went off to meet his Wife for a “Foundation meeting”. I feel very honoured that I got to meet him and if you get the chance to use this service hope that you get to meet him too!
This is a very useful service, they will aim to take you through about 3 sections of the city and tell you the history and anything else you would like to know. Ask lots of questions, take lots of photographs and do not be afraid to tell them what you would like to see. Imagine showing someone around your hometown. You show them the bits you want them to see and the bits that you think tourists want to see but unless that say they want to go to the local post office would you take them there?
You can as much from this service as you want. I would recommend that you give it a try. You wont regret it!
Advantages: So much to see and do Disadvantages: Exhausting if you try to. Might not want to come home, leading to forgetting to paying the mortgage and having the house re-possessed!
for its sidewalk vendors, pushing a wide variety of tasty snacks from hot pretzels (the real ones) to hot dogs so you don?t have to wait till you?re starving before partaking of some well-timed in-flight refuelling. In theory, this should keep the cost of your evening meal down. In practice, you just get fatter by eating both. I did, along with a lot of native New Yorkers too, by the looks of things!
For sheer value-for-money, we surpassed ourselves this year, with a huge Greek-style lunch at The Tramway Diner, near the Roosevelt Island Tramway. With drinks, this came to the equivalent of about £12 for two including 8% tax and that hefty 15% tip.
PEOPLE TO SEE, PLACES TO MEET
One little gem we stumbled upon before leaving for NewYork the first time was the ?BigAppleGreeter? organisation. They will assign you your own personal living ...
BNibbles 05.01.2003 (24.02.2004)
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