IN DEPTH WALKING TOURS

Click Here for 2008 Tour Schedule

Walking Tour Series:  Revolutionary Manhattan  ****  Ayn Rand's New York

Single Tours:  Union Square,  Madison Square,  Ely Jacques Kahn's Art Deco New York,

Newspaper Row,  How New Yorkers Invented Christmas,  Manhattan's Colonial Roads

The Rialto: The Theaters of 1880,   Kensico Cemetery

THE AGE OF RAND:  IMAGINING AN OBJECTIVIST FUTURE WORLD, available from www.amazon.com. 

       Interview with Frederick Cookinham, author of The Age of Rand

Call 718-397-9019 (Home)  917-607-9019 (cell)   fcookinham@juno.com for information or to arrange private tours.

Frederick Cookinham earned his Bachelor's Degree in American History at Cortland State College in 1976, and his Master's at Brooklyn college in 1987.  He is the author of THE AGE OF RAND: IMAGINING AN OBJECTIVIST FUTURE WORLD, available from www.amazon.com. 

All scheduled tours are $20, $15 for those over 65, except where noted.  Private tours are available for $30 a person; just give Fred a call.  Tours begin at 11 a.m., except where indicated on the schedule page.

Fred has led tours for the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the New-York Historical Society, the Art Deco Society of New York, the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, and Grayline.

"The tour was super fantastic...erudite and passionate guide..."-- www.TinkertyTonk/OpenHouseNewYork/day2.com

"Lively...extraordinarily educational."--DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

"Fred is a kind of poet and street professor...."--Anne Heller, NEW YORK OBSERVER, 2-9-04.

"The trivia spat out fast as tickertape. ...inserts whole dates into his sentences." -- Laurie Gwen Shapiro, GRAND STREET NEWS.

SINGLE TOURS:

NEW!!  RO:  THE RIALTO: THE THEATERS OF 1880   Meet at Broadway and E. 13th Street, northwest corner.  Up Broadway to Times Square, you will see the theater district of Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Lillian Russell and Lillie Langtry. 

NEW!!  ARK:  KENSICO CEMETERY   Get a roundtrip ticket to Valhalla,  meet at info booth in Grand Central at 10:30 a.m. and take the train up to Valhalla to see the fall colors and the graves of Ayn Rand, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Tommy Dorsey, Lou Gehrig, Danny Kaye and others.

E:  ELY JACQUES KAHN'S ART DECO NEW YORK   Meet on the southwest corner of 7th Avenue and 45th St., in the heart of Times Square.  Kahn, more than any other single architect, gave New York the Art Deco skyscraper look we know and love today.  Three hours, with a break.

N:  NEWSPAPER ROW    Meet on the northeast corner of Broadway and Fulton St., downtown.  Fulton St. subway stops.  Circa 1900, Park Row was Newspaper Row.  Hearst, Pulitzer, Poe, Dickens and the dreaded Five Points slum (as seen in the recent movie "Gangs of New York").  New York's oldest surviving skyscrapers.

C:  HOW NEW YORKERS INVENTED CHRISTMAS    Meet on the northeast corner of Broadway and Wall St.  Yes, Christmas as we know it was largely started here, in the 19th Century.  Find out how, where, and why.  See where Virginia's letter was answered, where Washington Irving introduced Americans to Santa Claus and mistletoe, and meet Dickens' Wandering Spirits.  Fred will be joined by Michael Emyrs, authority on Dickens and "Peter Pan" creator J. M. Barrie.

MCR:  MANHATTAN'S COLONIAL ROADS    Meet at Fraunces Tavern, Pearl St. at Broad St., downtown.  Whitehall N and R subway stop.  An all-day hiking tour of 6 miles and 9 hours, with a one-hour lunch break and 2 rest stops.  Walk out of town, to the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, as folks did 200 years ago.  Pictures and maps will show you exactly what you would have seen as you strolled up the Bowery Lane and the Eastern Post Road past farms, ponds, hills and windmills.  $40, $30 for those over 65.

U: UNION SQUARE,    M: MADISON SQUARE:  Available on request.  The M on my schedule is my free 90-minute Madison Square tour sponsored by the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership.  My own Madison Square tour is 2 1/2 hours, costs $30, and covers much more.

TOUR SERIES:

REVOLUTIONARY MANHATTAN

R1:  REVOLUTION IN THE STREETS    Meet at Fraunces Tavern, Pearl St. at Broad St., downtown.  Whitehall N an R subway stop.  Little-known sites:  Taverns, riots, spies, conspiracies, in the midst of the transition of power from King to mob to congress.  The Washingtons of Cherry Street.

R2:  THE LEGEND OF MARGARET CORBIN    Meet on the northwest corner of Broadway and 207th St., far northern Manhattan.  "A" Train to 207th St.  The battle for Fort Washington, camp life, the historic Dyckman House.  The first woman to fight in the U.S. Army.  Reading a battle map.  Who were the Hessians?

R3:  THE SURRENDER OF FORT WASHINGTON    Meet at the south entrance of Fort Tryon Park, on Margaret Corbin Plaza, at the north end of Ft. Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights.  Take the "A" Train to 190th St. and take the elevator in the subway station to the top of the hill.  Manhattan's own major Revolutionary War battle, but very little known.  Stand on the ramparts of the "Alamo of the Revolution."  Eighteenth Century honor.  Fort Washington Park, the George Washington Bridge, and the Little Red Lighthouse.  How not to build a fort.  Howe to take one.

R4:  THE BATTLES IN WASHINGTON HEIGHTS    Meet on the southeast corner of Ft. Washington Avenue and 181st St.  "A" Train to 181st St.  Where Washington warred and Burr wooed.  John James Audubon, Malcolm X, Clement C. Moore, Mrs. Astor, Billy Sunday, Freddie Prinz, Maria Callas, Gen. Knyphausen and the Hessians, Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers.  INCLUDES FREE ADMISSION TO MORRIS-JUMEL MANSION!

R5:  DOWN WITH KING GEORGE!    Meet on the steps of the Museum of The American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, Broadway at Battery Place, downtown.  Bowling Green or Whitehall subway stops.  Revolution in the capital of colonial America.  African Burial Ground.  How New York declared its independence.  Sgt. Champe's mission:  Kidnap Benedict Arnold!

TOUR SERIES:

AYN RAND'S NEW YORK

ARP:  AYN RAND'S PARK AVENUE    Meet on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and E. 45th St.  Grand Central subway stops.  Where Rand lived and held her salons.  Scenes from Atlas Shrugged.  Where Rand learned about architecture from Ely Jacques Kahn, in his own masterpiece Art Deco building.

ARF:  SKYSCRAPERS OF THE FOUNTAINHEAD    Meet at Number 1 Broadway, at Battery Place.  Bowling Green subway stop.  The changing styles in architecture -- from Beaux Arts to Art Deco to International Style -- that form the background to the story of Roark's struggle.  Was Roark Wright? -- the real-life models for Rand's characters.

ARB:  AYN RAND ON BROADWAY    Meet on the northeast corner of Broadway and W. 49th St.  Skyscrapers, newspapers, Broadway and books.  DeMille, Hellman, and where Alan Greenspan played sax.  Where "The Night of January 16th," "The Unconquered," and "Think Twice" were produced.  Isabel Paterson at the Herald Tribune.  Patricia Neal, the Shuberts, the Gershwins, and of course more Art Deco.

ARV:  AYN RAND'S FIFTH AVENUE    Meet at the Columbus statue in Columbus Circle.  Columbus Circle subway stops.  Art and architecture in the glamour shopping district of the Twentieth Century world.   Central Park South, Rockefeller Center, the Stork Club, and where Random House published Atlas Shrugged.  Where Rand bought her paintings, clothes, and fancy dinners.

Saturday, February 2, 2008    ARA:   AYN RAND'S PARK AVENUE:  CENTENNIAL-PLUS-THREE BIRTHDAY TOUR!  A Park Avenue tour for Ayn's 103rd birthday.  Meet at 11 a.m. on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and E. 45th Street.  Grand Central subway stops.

Tour Schedule for 2008

 TOURS START AT 11:00 a.m., EXCEPT MANHATTAN'S COLONIAL ROADS, 9 a.m., Saturday, June 21, and others where indicated here.

CODES:

Madison Square: M, Union Square:  U ,   Newspaper Row:  N,  Rialto: RO

Ely Jacques Kahn's Art Deco New York:  EJK

Revolutionary Manhattan:  Rev1, Rev2, Rev3, Rev4, Rev5

Ayn Rand's New York:  ARP, ARF, ARB, ARV, ARA, ARK

How New Yorkers Invented Christmas:  C

Manhattan's Colonial Roads:  MCR

2008 Tour Schedule

Some Saturdays and Sundays are still open--call me for a special tour!

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In Depth Walking Tours--Frederick Cookinham--41-07 53rd St., #3A--Woodside, NY 11377-4259

718-397-9019 (Home)       917-607-9019 (cell)           fcookinham@juno.com

American Revolution fans, join us at the American Revolution Roundtable:  www.arrt-ny.org.  For Objectivist-Libertarian monthly discussions, www.nycjunto.com.  Rand fans, find goods and services, or meet singles, at www.theatlasphere.com and www.atlassociety.com.