Hello!
My name is Ben and I am a lifelong New Yorker and licensed New York City tour guide.
My tours provide visitors a history of New York City that is enriched by my own experience working in commercial real estate and my academic background in urban planning.
My narratives weave together the iconic themes of New York history and culture – immigration, ambition, and rapid expansion – and contextualizes them to provide my guests with a richer understanding of how New York became New York.
Tours
Ben There Built That
The Financial District
How New York became the world’s financial capital
About this tour
Take a 400 year journey through New York City’s commercial history to see how a sparsely populated indigenous hunting ground became a region of 20 million people and an economic colossus.
We’ll unravel this transformation and discuss how New York’s built environment influenced its economic growth and vice versa. Join me as we explore the iconic sites of New York’s oldest neighborhood with an eye towards its unique architecture and real estate.
Start: Castle Clinton National Monument
End: One World Trade Center
Duration: 2.5 hours
Price: $200 for up to five guests; additional $10 per guest up to 15
Ben There Spent That
The Upper East Side
The homes and lives of New York’s Gilded Age
About this tour
For half a century, the lives of New York’s Gilded Age set filled newspapers with tales of salacity and scandal and captivated Americans with their glittering galas and wild personal and professional exploits. Many of these families are faded from memory but their legacies remain.
Join me as we discuss their stories, gaze upon their homes, and discuss how they built our modern society, before it left them behind.
Start: Pulitzer Fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel
End: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Duration: 2.5 hours
Price: $200 for up to five guests; additional $10 per guest up to 15
Ben There Strolled That
Central Park
The story of the world’s greatest urban park
About this tour
At the center of Manhattan’s two trillion dollars (yes, with a ‘t’) worth of real estate, sits 843 acres of impeccably landscaped parkland. An oasis of green at the center of of Manhattan’s endless urbanity. The Central Park, as 19th century New Yorkers referred to it, is a modern miracle of landscaping, engineering, and foresight.
Stroll among the lawns, forests, and fountains, and learn the incredible story of how Central Park came to be.
Start: General Sherman Statue at Grand Army Plaza (59th Street and Fifth Ave)
End: Rear of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Duration: 2 hours
Price: $150 for up to five guests; additional $10 per guest up to 15
Ben There Done That: NYC Walking Tours with Ben 