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UPCOMING APPEARANCES Monday, May 27, 2013 At 11:00AM Memorial Day Walking Tour of Alexander Hamilton’s New York $15 per person for reservations made on or before Tuesday, May 21 $20 per person for reservations on or after Wednesday, May 22 This Memorial Day, join us for a walk through Lower Manhattan concentrating on our hometown Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton -- statesman, ladies man, architect of American finance, and lousy duelist. We will talk about New York in the years running up to the Revolutionary War, explore places Hamilton was stationed with his artillery company during the war, and visit the great man’s final resting place to honor his memory. To reserve: Email info@insidetheapple.net with your: Name Number of people in your party A cell phone where we can reach you before the tour in case of any changes The meeting place for the tour will be emailed to you as your confirmation. (We try to get confirmations out in about 24 hours.) Reservations will be taken on a first-come, first served basis and in order for everyone to see and hear, we are going to cap the number of people who can attend, so do reserve as soon as you can. You can pay by cash only at the start of the tour. If you cannot make this date and time, the tour is, of course, available for private bookings. Email us and we'll set something up for you & your group. Copies of Inside the Apple will be available for sale and signing. Hope to see you there! * * * As new walks, talks, and other events are added to our schedule, they will appear here as well as on our blog. To be sure you find out about them, you can subscribe to RSS feeds or our email newsletter. PAST APPEARANCES Friday, March 27, 2009 at 7:00PM at The National Arts Club We had a standing-room-only audience for our celebration of the release of Inside the Apple and New York City’s 400th birthday. Using period illustrations, vintage prints, and modern photographs, our illustrated lecture traced the story of the city from Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609 to the present day. Photos of this event are now online on the Inside the Apple Facebook page. Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 6:00PM at The New York Historical Society We presented an illustrated talk at New York’s oldest museum, sharing some of our favorite stories from Inside the Apple with a particular focus on the people and places associated with the New York Historical Society and its Upper West Side neighborhood. Photos of this event are online at the Inside the Apple Facebook page. The lecture was filmed by C-SPAN2 and shown on “Book TV” on May 30 and 31. Click here to watch it online. Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 4:00PM A Walking Tour of the Flatiron District followed by a Book Signing at Idlewild Books On this tour, we examined the history and mythology of such well-known landmarks as the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building. Was the Flatiron New York's first skyscraper? Did they really try to moor dirigibles to the Empire State Building? We also looked at lesser known figures, like politico Roscoe Conkling and General William Jenkins Worth, sharing stories unknown to many native New Yorkers. The event was sponsored by Idlewild Books, an independent travel bookstore on West 19th Street, where we ended for a signing and reception. Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 6:30PM at The Fraunces Tavern Museum The neighborhood surrounding Fraunces Tavern is steeped in New York history from the earliest traces of Dutch New Amsterdam to World Trade Center redevelopment. We presented an illustrated lecture to a full house that told the story of the city using the streets of Lower Manhattan as a backdrop. Saturday, May 16, 2009 A Walking Tour of Morningside Heights in partnership with openhousenewyork Best known for its major institutions, such as Columbia University and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Morningside Heights is full of intriguing historical architecture. In our tour, we examined remnants of its bucolic past as the site of the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum through the development and growth of Riverside and Morningside Parks and the establishment of the schools, hospitals, and churches in the late 19th century that give the neighborhood its character. Photos are now online at our Inside the Apple Facebook page. Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 5:00PM Walking Tour of Financial District architecture in conjunction with Borders bookstore at 100 Broadway. Despite the rain, an enthusiastic crowd turned out for our tour of the architecture of the Financial District. Focusing on such well-known buildings as Trinity Church and the New York Stock Exchange as well as often-overlooked gems like the Trinity Building and the old U.S. Custom House on Wall Street, the tour covered centuries of New York's history in just a few significant blocks. Photos are now online at our Inside the Apple Facebook page. Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 5:00PM Walking Tour of Revolutionary War New York in conjunction with Borders bookstore at 100 Broadway. We had a gorgeous day and a big turnout for our tour of sites associated with the American Revolution and the early Federal Period. Thanks to everyone who came! Sunday, September 13, 2009 A Knickerbocker’s Tour of New Amsterdam As part of the celebrations of Harbor Day—the official commemoration of Henry Hudson’s arrival in New York Harbor in 1609—James led tours of Dutch New Amsterdam, emphasizing his own roots as a Knickerbocker New Yorker (a descendant of the first Dutch settlers). One group even got to see the Crown Prince of the Netherlands. Monday, October 5, 2009 Lecture on Inside the Apple at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum A standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Tenement Museum’s visitor center to hear us share stories from Inside the Apple and take questions about New York’s history. A portion of the talk is now up as an audio file on the Tenment Museum’s website at http://www.tenement.org/vizcenter_events.php Sunday, October 11, 2009 Walking Tour of the Flatiron/Gramercy Park area for openousenewyork The highlight of this tour was a stop inside The National Arts Club on Gramercy Park. Originally built as two townhouses, the homes were bought by New York’s Governor (and 1876 Presidential candidate) Samuel J. Tilden and unified into one home by Calvert Vaux (half the team that built Central Park). We visited Tilden’s parlors and library. Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 6:00PM at St. Theresa’s Church, Kihei (Maui), Hawaii James addressed the Italian-American Social Club of Maui with a talk entitled: “1892: Christopher Columbus & the Making of Modern America.” built Central Park). We visited Tilden’s parlors and library. Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 4:00PM at Borders, Columbus Circle We led a 90-minute tour of the lower portion of Central Park, discussing the park’s creation in the 1850s and some of its outstanding architectural features including Tavern on the Green, Sheep Meadow, and the Mall. Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 4:00PM Walking Tour of the History & Architecture of the Upper West Side in conjunction with Borders bookstore at Columbus Circle. In May, we returned to Borders, Columbus Circle, to lead a free walking tour of the part of the Upper West Side just outside their front door. Participants learned about the history of Columbus Circle, walked up Broadway to Lincoln Center, and saw some great residential architecture, too. Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 4:00PM Walking Tour of the Historic Heart of Greenwich Village in conjunction with Shakespeare & Co. On Sunday, June 27, at 4:00 p.m., a group braved the heat to join us at Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers in Greenwich Village for a one-hour walking tour of the heart of this historic neighborhood. Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 3:00PM Talkback and Q&A following the matinee performance of One-Third of a Nation at the METROPOLITAN PLAYHOUSE As any New Yorker knows, one of the greatest challenges of living in the city is making the rent. And it probably comes as no surprise that this has been the case for a very long time. The Metropolitan Playhouse—a wonderful, small theater company in the East Village that is dedicated to exploring the forgotten nooks and crannies of the American theatrical canon—invited us to join them at a performance of the WPA-era play One-Third of a Nation, an exploration of landlords and tenants throughout New York’s history. One-Third of a Nation was written in 1938 by Arthur Arent as part of the Federal Theatre Project’s “Living Newspaper” unit. The Living Newspaper was designed to create jobs for out-of-work journalists, actors, and other theater professionals by telling stories that were “ripped from the headlines.” Though the narrator reminds the audience early on that this isn’t a specifically New York story, the action takes place exclusively in the city, beginning with a devastating tenement fire at 397 Madison Street, then taking the audience on a multimedia journey through the city’s housing history. The play was the Living Newspaper's biggest success and versions were produced around the country. *** Read the reviews in The New York Times and Backstage. *** Sunday, April 29, 2012 The House of Mirth at the Metropolitan Playhouse On Sunday, April 29, we joined director Alex Roe and the cast for a special talkback following a performance of Edith Wharton’s seldom-seen adaptation of her own novel, The House of Mirth. The play tells the story of social climber Lily Bart who is torn between her desire for money and her attempts to navigate the treacherous waters of New York high society in the 1890s. The play debuted on Broadway in 1906 (just one year after the novel became an overnight success) and masterfully condenses the action of the book for the confines of the stage. Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 4:00PM Walking Tour of the Architecture of SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown This walking tour that explored the rich architectural heritage of New York’s immigrant districts, covering such diverse topics as the rise of the cast iron department store, the City Beautiful movement, the aesthetics of tenement building, and 19^th-century urban planning. Architects whose work we saw include Stanford White, Richard Morris Hunt, and Calvert Vaux. Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 2:00PM Walking Tour West Chelsea James led an excursion through historic West Chelsea, encompassing everything from early 19th-century houses to industrial buildings and factories (including the birthplace of the Oreo). The walk finished up on the High Line.

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