Big Onion Walking Tours

The City Beautiful!

Few neighborhoods in the country can claim to be as architecturally splendid as Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Through the Gilded Age, wealthy New Yorkers competed with one another to build large, spectacular mansions to reflect their economic and social status, and to serve as a venue to host their balls and festivities, as well as to impress and intimidate one another with their décor, art, and cultural capital. This was part of a broader development in the United States known as the City Beautiful movement – a late 19th and early 20th century philosophy of urban planning and architecture that sought to beautify urban landscapes, endowing them with monumental grandeur to rival the ancient metropolises of Europe, like London and Paris. Through their architects, their interior decorators, their hired designers and craftsmen and more, New York City’s elite competed not only with one another, but with the aristocracies of the old world. In many respects, this was an era defined by tension and conflict – it’s what makes it such a particularly interesting neighborhood and history to explore!

Come learn more with us on our Upper East Side Walking Tour: A Clash of Titans this Saturday, June 20th at 1:00 pm. While many of the Gilded Age mansions that once lined Fifth Avenue are gone, there are many gorgeous mansions that you can still between Park Avenue and Fifth! We hope to see you there! Tickets and information are available on our website.

Take a moment and look at this photograph from 1922 – note the wide variety of architectural styles in very close quarters. As the Gilded Age progressed over decades, fashionable styles changed over time. Now the historic district of the Upper East Side is a kaleidoscope of varied architectural trends spanning over half a century, preserving the transforming tastes of high society for us to appreciate over a century later.

Image information: Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. "Manhattan: 74th Street (East) - Madison Avenue" New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Father’s Day is around the corner! Join us for our annual Father’s Day Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour!

If you’re looking for a fun family activity this weekend to celebrate the fathers in your life, join us this Sunday, June 21st at 1:00 pm, on our Original Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour of the Lower East Side. We offer a variety of delicious foods from vendors across the neighborhood to nosh on while our expert guides lead you not only through the city streets, but the histories of the immigrants who called them home.

Take a moment to appreciate this fabulous painting by the renown American artist Jerome Myers. Associated with the famous Ashcan School of American art, he was famous for his sympathetic, earnest depictions of Manhattan’s Lower East Side immigrant neighborhoods, and this one is a particular favorite! Note the dynamic energy of the painting’s subjects – the color, the motion, the vitality – it’s a veritable kaleidoscope of cultures, ages, ethnicities, and religions. The Lower East Side was, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the most diverse neighborhood in the United States. Today, the neighborhood is still a thriving immigrant enclave, rich with culture and incredible cuisine. Join us on Sunday’s tour to learn more – we hope to see you there! Tickets and information are available on our website.

If you’re unable to attend the walk, consider purchasing dad a digital gift certificate for the holiday! We offer them through our website, and they are valid for two years from the date of issue.

Image information: Jerome Myers, Life on the East Side, 1931, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2015.19.55

The City of Hudson and Town of Athens, 1891.

This fascinating map shows the various roads, districts, major industries, and significant landholders of the area immediately around Hudson, NY. Water depth within the Hudson River is indicated too.
Hudson had the steamboat landing for “27 Albany Day Line Steam’rs” and the rail lines that are now used by Amtrak. A well developed town, some will notice the old name for Columbia Street, back when it was Diamond Street.
Athens had a ferry to Hudson as well as six named ice houses, a brickyard, the Brickyard Wharf, and three additional docks. But no direct transport north or south.

Join us Saturday June 20 at 11 a.m. for our Historic Hudson walking tour. We will explore the long history of Hudson, a city with incredible architecture and its own industrial stories. The tour will conclude at Promenade Hill, looking across the Hudson River at Athens. Tour is featured on our homepage.
Originally scheduled for 1 p.m., we have adjusted the start time to accommodate the Annual Pride Parade that begins on Warren Street and ends with a festival at Promenade Hill.

Image: “Portion of Greene County. Portion of Columbia County,” Frederick W. Beers and Watson & Co., 1891. From the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill and Manhattan’s Harlem are two old neighborhoods with fascinating histories. Today and historically, both offer spectacular architectural views that inspire visitors and locals alike!

Sadly, not everything was preserved. One example is the St. Ann Catholic Church building that was at 251 Front Street and Gold Street. It was dedicated in 1861, the same year the Civil War began, and was demolished in 1992. It was a prominent Roman Catholic church that served the predominantly Irish-American community that lived in Vinegar Hill, a neighborhood that in the 19th century was commonly known as "Irishtown.” This photograph from 1940 is from the NYC Municipal archives, and captures the Church surrounded by the trappings of industry and neighborhood transition. In 1986, St. Ann's Church was merged into St. George's Church, located at 203 York Street, and renamed St. Ann-St. George's Church. If you want to learn more about this fascinating neighborhood, join us this Saturday, June 20th at 11:00 am, on our DUMBO & Vinegar Hill Walking Tour!

Thankfully, many of New York City’s historic churches still stand! The second photograph is a 1936 snapshot of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Founded in 1808, the congregation consolidated after African American parishioners left the First Baptist Church in lower Manhattan due to racially segregated seating. The congregation moved several times over the 19th century, ultimately moving to West 138th Street in 1923. The church is spectacular, designed by Charles W. Bolton & Son in the Collegiate Gothic style. This move happened alongside, and helped to perpetuate, the Harlem Renaissance. Join us this Friday, on Juneteenth at 1:00 pm, on our Historic Harlem Walking Tour to learn more about the history of Harlem!

We hope to see you soon! Tickets and information are available on our website.

Image info: 1) NYC Municipal Archives; 2) NYPL Digital Collections.

Who is this handsome devil?

This is one of the few known photographs of James T. Ellison, commonly known by his nickname “Biff” Ellison; “Biff” was period slang for a punch or a hit, and it reveals something about his character and profession.

Biff Ellison was a notorious gangster – early in his underworld career, he was affiliated with the Five Points Gang and was later one of the leaders of the Gopher Gang. Dapper and foppish, Ellison was proprietor of a number of illicit or clandestine establishments, including Paresis Hall, a gay bar (Happy Pride Month!) and brothel that operated in the late 19th century. Wealthy from his criminal ventures, Ellison was also physically powerful; an intimidating enforcer, Ellison engaged in brawls with bar patrons, other gangs’ members, and the police. His reputation is so cemented in the legends of New York City’s gangs that he appeared as a secondary antagonist in Caleb Carr’s 1994 novel “The Alienist.” Through his networks, Ellison had connections with both crime syndicates as well as Tammany Hall, the political machine that had a chokehold on New York City’s politics during the late 19th century. Ultimately, Ellison would face justice after being tried before the Criminal Branch of the New York Supreme Court in 1911, where he was found guilty and sent to Sing Sing Prison.

The 2nd image is a photograph of a 1926 article published in The New Yorker titled “Memories of a Criminal – III: Odyssey of Biff Ellison” which was published soon after his death; it reveals more about who he was as a person. The 3rd image is from 1924, showing the Five Points area – a neighborhood defined in many respects by gang life and violence. Ellison would have been intimately familiar with this neighborhood.

Join us this Thursday, June 18th at 1:00pm, on our Gangs of New York public tour to learn more about the fascinating histories of gang warfare and culture in New York City! We hope to see you there. Tickets and information are available on our website.

Image info: 1) Biff Ellison as appearing in Herbert Asbury's 1926 book "The Gangs of New York”; 2) The New Yorker “Memories of a Criminal”; 3) NYPL Digital Collections.

Grocery shopping at 94 Rivington Street in 1937 (1) versus 2009 (2).

The earlier photo shows The Reliable Mushroom Co., presumably selling mushrooms as both the name and display merchandise would suggest. This somewhat specialized business would have been one of the many small, family owned businesses on the Lower East Side at this point of the early 20th Century. The LES was known for its dense, hardworking immigrant populations, who opened and operated a number of shops and restaurants selling ingredients and a variety of foods not previously common in the USA!

Over time the LES has changed, as has the nature of its grocery shopping. By the turn of the 21st century, shops such as the Rivington Deli and Grocery, pictured in the second photo, became more common in the area rather than the more specialized offerings. As the median income on the LES has continued to increase over the last few decades, we’re seeing a return to specialized food and beverage offerings - but at a higher price point to reflect the demographic change.

Want to learn more about the history and evolution of the LES while eating snacks? Join Big Onion’s Multiethnic Eating Tour this Thursday, June 11 at 1pm! Tickets available on our website.

Images: (1) Manhattan: Rivington Street - Ludlow Street (1937) by PL Sperr via ; (2) Google Earth Screenshot of 94 Rivington Street (2009).

June is National LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Celebrated every June, the month culminates with a parade and commemoration at The Stonewall Inn, the site of the June 28, 1969, Stonewall Uprising.
New York City has been at the center of the long battle for equality for many marginalized people in American society. On this walk we will explore the theme of Social Justice and Equality over the past 200 years. The Stonewall Uprising will be contextualized within the broader history of the Villages. We will explore the 19th and early 20th century labor movement; the battle for women gaining the right to vote; the 20th century anti-war movements; the early 1960s Folksingers “Riot,’ and more.
Join us on Saturday June 6 at 1 p.m. or throughout the year on this unique and thought provoking walking tour! The walk is called “The History of Social Justice in the Villages Walking Tour” and is featured on our homepage.

Images: Christopher Street Liberation Day March, June 28, 1970. Credit: Michael Evans, The New York Times; Musicians in Washington Square, April 26, 1962. Credit: The Museum of the City of New York; The Declaration for “The Free and Independent Republic of Washington Square,” January 23, 1917. Credit: Delaware Art Museum; The Strike of the 20,000, November 22, 1909 Credit: Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Behold this view of the Bowery going south from Canal Street in lower Manhattan!

This 1927 photo captures various aspects of life on the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th Century: the elevated train, the cramped tenement buildings, and in the distance the new skyscrapers rising from further downtown. While this view make look glamorous, life in these neighborhoods was not (or at least not yet).

The tenement buildings would have been filled with working class immigrants, largely from southern and Eastern Europe, as well as Chinese immigrants moving further southwest, who did not have the resources to seek out any nicer housing. Although they were constantly grinding to get by, these immigrant populations have left the neighborhood with a rich historical and cultural legacy, still evident in the buildings, landmarks, and even the food scene of the LES!

No longer standing today, the elevated train tracks caused a number of issues for the community: environmental and noise pollution, obstruction of light from the city streets, and reportedly as a space where criminality could thrive. Particularly in the mid-19th Century, the Bowery and nearby Five Points neighborhood were known as epicenters of gang activity. These networks conducted their criminal enterprises and feuds with each other with local impunity, as they also provided support and protection to the denizens of the neighborhood. The streets under the train were seen as some of the more dangerous areas to hang out, as the elevated tracks and loud noise shielded the activities below from view.

Want to learn more about the history of this area? Big Onion has TWO tours for you this weekend! Join us for Gangs of New York on Saturday, May 23, and/or the Multiethnic Eating tour on Sunday, May 24, both at 1pm! Tickets available on our website.

Image: “Manhattan: Bowery - Canal Street” (1927), Ewing Galloway c/o

On this day, May 17, in 1792, 24 merchants signed a document outside of 68 Wall Street (2). Known as the Buttonwood Agreement, this paper established a brief set of rules to govern the emergent securities trade. The brokers consented to two key provisions: they would trade only directly with each other, and they would cap commissions at 0.25%.

This unassuming, brief document became the foundation of the New York Stock Exchange (1), which is today the largest stock exchange in the world. They have since introduced a few more regulations, but this institution would go on to drive NYC’s financial sector, which has itself been so influential on the city that we named the whole neighborhood after it!

Much of the early financial business in the post-Revolutionary War era was conducted in establishments such as the Tontine Coffee House on Wall and Water Streets; the official NYSE building wasn’t constructed until 1903!

To learn more about the early days of NYC, join a Big Onion walking tour this holiday weekend! Take the Historic Lower Manhattan walk on Friday, May 22 at 1pm, or the Revolutionary New York walk on Monday, May 25 at 1pm. Tickets available on our website.

Images: (1)  New York Stock Exchange and Wilks Buillding, Irving Underhill; (2) New York City. Stock Exchange, Buttonwood diorama, Museum of the City of NY. Both images via