The view of the New York skyline from the Staten Island Ferry is spectacular, but to get to know the main borough better, you might want to partake a free walking tour. From the Lower East Side to Central Park, there are several non-profit organizations willing to take your through Times Square or even Grand Central Station. A good time awaits, as you learn a little bit about how the "Big Apple" really operates.
This free walking tour begins at one of the city's great delicatessens, so you might want to come early and enjoy the fine cooking and coffee at Katz's. The tour is offered once a week from April until December. Walkers can meet in front of the restaurant on East Houston on Sundays at 11 a.m. The tour takes two hours as it winds through the old garment district, which is now filled with numerous retail outlets. Highlights include an umbrella factory, a Romanian-Ukranian Church and a former public bath house.
Across the bridge in Brooklyn, there is an active beer brewery called the Brooklyn Brewery. Every Saturday running from noon till 8 p.m., this Williamsburg manufacturer opens its doors to free tours of the beer making facilities. The tours last only an hour, but includes a free sample for those, who are 21 or older.
One way to enjoy this popular park is to take one of the free walking tours that are offered by the Central Park Conservancy. This group leads a variety of two hour walks that are offered during the entire course of the year. Only holidays and extreme weather will prevent a tour from happening. Each tour covers a different part of the park and will vary in the degree of walking difficulty. There are easy strolling tours that wind through the park gardens and slightly more difficult hikes that cover outlying areas of the park. Some of the highlights include Belvedere Castle and Seneca Village, which is a former NYC African-American neighborhood. Also present is the Central Park forest, where the park designer, Frederick Olmstead, attempted to recreate portions the Adirondacks landscape in uptown Manhattan.
With an excess of 2 million visitors a day, Times Square has to be one of the busiest intersections in the country. This human beehive is home to 40 theaters, 12,000 hotel rooms and two police stations. To find out more about this central Manhattan locale take one of the free tours offered by the Times Square Business Improvement District. They depart every Friday at noon from the Times Square Visitor Center and the walk lasts approximately two hours.
If you like money, you can visit the Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty Street, which is located in the heart of the financial district. These one hour tours are offered Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m. and each one lasts about an hour. Due to the popularity of this tour, reservations are recommended. Once inside you will get to view the underground gold vault, plus several exhibitions and of course the interior of the bank building. Taking of souvenirs during the tour is strictly forbidden, but tour guests do receive a free sample of shredded paper at the end of the visit.
