Afoot in New York Seeking the Sole of the City

The best way to see a big city is on foot, and in New York--the city that never sleeps--knowledgeable tour guides are available practically around the clock.

Is 6 a.m. too early to get started?

That’s the departure time for one of the most unusual guided tours of New York, a look at lower Manhattan’s bustling Fulton Fish Market. Throughout the night, fresh fish by the ton is hauled in truckloads to the historic old marketplace.

There, in the predawn hours, as many as 600 varieties of seafood--including clams, oysters, halibut and salmon--are sold daily to the city’s restaurateurs, shopkeepers and distributors.

In a setting reminiscent of the last century, you watch vocal fishmongers negotiating the day’s price with buyers from throughout the city.

Take care, however, that you are not run over by carts piled high with the catch. Later, you can take a peek inside one of the processing plants, where the fish are filleted by hand. Afterward, try one of the market area’s cafes for breakfast.

The fish market tour, offered twice monthly by the South Street Seaport Museum, is just one of a variety of walking tours available to New York residents and visitors alike.

Perhaps 6 p.m. is an hour more to your liking?

That’s the bewitching hour for “Ghosts After Sunset,” a series of evening walking tours exploring the haunted byways of Greenwich Village, SoHo and Wall Street.

Among the reputed ghosts of the area are Aaron Burr, who lived there, and Alexander Hamilton, who died there after his famous duel with Burr.

In June, the tour company Sidewalks of New York expects to offer “Ghosts of the Great White Way,” a nostalgic tour of New York’s theater district.

Between dawn and dusk, other escorted walking tours will take you in search of historical footnotes, unusual architecture, attractive neighborhoods and some of the city’s best snack foods. Among the possibilities:

--A visit to the oldest and most unusual bookshops of Greenwich Village.

--A new look at old Harlem. “Harlem is nicer than you think,” said Larcelia Kebe, founder of “Harlem, Your Way,” a tour company.

--A tour through Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach area, which has become known as “Little Odessa” because of the influx of Soviet immigrants in the past decade.

--A chat with some of the neighborhood folks in the Gramercy Park Historic District, one of Manhattan’s loveliest residential enclaves.

--A historical look at New York’s large and colorful Chinatown district.

--A food-lover’s feast on the Lower East Side, once primarily a Jewish neighborhood but now very much a melting pot. Sample Polish blueberry blintzes, Viennese pastries, Italian cheeses and Chinese dim sum . . . just for starters!

Many of the walking tours are offered by public institutions, such as New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

The city’s “urban park rangers” lead weekend hikes in parks in all of New York’s boroughs. On May 20 at 2 p.m., for example, visitors can join a ranger program highlighting the Conservatory Garden in Central Park. The department’s walks are free. Similarly, the 92nd Street Y offers a schedule of walking tours, although it charges a fee.

Also, private companies and individuals offer specialized tours. Oscar Israelowitz, the author of “A Guide to Jewish New York City,” leads a two-hour walk every Sunday at 11 a.m. through the Lower East Side. One stop is at Guss’ Pickles, featured in the movie “Crossing Delancy.”

In September, Israelowitz expects to lead regular tours to Ellis Island, where many of the early immigrants to America first set foot ashore. Israelowitz charges $12 per person for his tours.

Tour itineraries and starting times can vary from week to week, since a number of walking tours are organized around seasonal events or historic anniversaries.

And since many tours are limited in size, reservations often are necessary. As soon as you know when you will be in New York, phone ahead to at least a few of the tour organizers to see what is available during your visit.

A good source of current tour offerings is New York magazine, which lists walking tours in its weekly entertainment guide. Look for “Tours” under the category “Other Events” at the back of the magazine.

Among the organizations offering walking tours of New York are these:

--Adventures on a Shoestring: Howard Goldberg has been leading weekend tours in New York’s diverse neighborhoods for 27 years, rain or shine. He has a large and faithful clientele, who, apparently, appreciate the effort he makes to introduce them to the local folk in each community. “I’ve never felt you get to know an area simply by walking by outside,” Goldberg said.

He also points out good but inexpensive restaurants and other bargains in entertainment, which is particularly helpful to out-of-towners.

On May 13, Goldberg will lead a walk through Beekman Place and Sutton Place, two of New York’s posh neighborhoods. The tours, each about 90 minutes, cost $5 per person. For more information, contact Goldberg at 300 W. 53rd St., New York 10019, (212) 265-2663.

--Harlem, Your Way! Tours Unlimited: “Many people don’t know how beautiful Harlem is,” said Larcelia Kebe, who offers both a daily walking tour of Harlem’s historic and cultural sites and a Sunday visit to a local church to hear gospel singing. Most of her customers are Europeans who may not have been frightened away from Harlem by what she calls its “bad press.”

Harlem is an urban residential community, she says, “which is as safe as any place in New York.”

The two-hour sightseeing tours begin daily at 12:30 p.m. at the firm’s office, 129 West 130th St. Among the stops along the way are the Abyssinian Baptist Church, founded by Adam Clayton Powell Sr.; the Liberation Book Store, a center for black literature; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which has an art gallery; the famous Apollo Theater, where the group might sit in on a radio talk show, and Len’s Doll and Toy Museum. The gospel tour forms at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and is followed by a walking tour of 125th Street.

The price for each tour is $25 per person. For more information, contact the company at 129 West 103rd St., New York 10027, (212) 690-1687.

--New York Chinatown History Project: New York’s Chinatown mushroomed in the 1870s, says project spokesman Charles Chin, when Chinese laborers who had been building the transcontinental railway were chased out of the American West after the work was completed. Ironically, the laborers sought sanctuary by traveling east over the same tracks they had helped lay.

Guided tours of the Old Chinatown that they established at the southern end of Manhattan Island are offered daily. Among the sights are Buddhist temples and the area’s large, open-air fruit and vegetable market. The Chinatown History Project is a community organization that documents the history of Chinatown and the Chinese presence in this country.

Tours depart from the project’s headquarters at 70 Mulberry St., one block south of Canal Street. The schedule is 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The program consists of a short talk on the Chinese in North America, a 20-minute slide presentation and a one-hour walk; reservations are necessary. The charge is $8 per person. For information: 70 Mulberry St., Second Floor, New York 10013, (212) 619-4785.

--Sidewalks of New York: Sam Stafford, a New York enthusiast who grew up in Kansas, says he tries to put together tours “where no tour guide has gone before.” In practice, this means he focuses on a lighter side of the city. Historic architecture very definitely is not his passion. “In my opinion, too many guides think New York history is made up only of brick and mortar,”he said.

Instead, Stafford says, he offers “fun tours, not lectures.” For example, he or one of his staff of six guides will lead you on a walking tour of New York’s “Famous Murder Sites.” Macabre as it may sound, it is one of the most popular of his itineraries. “A Tour Named Jackie” traces the Manhattan footsteps of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

“Ghosts After Sunset,” evening rambles in various neighborhoods, is another of his off-beat creations. On his “Hollywood on the Hudson” tour, he will take you to the homes or apartments of movie stars, but you only get the view from the outside. And each Saturday night at 6, you can join a tour of the four oldest taverns in Greenwich Village. Most tours last two hours; the pub crawl may stretch out for five. Tours on weekdays are by advance appointment. Weekend tours are open without reservation. The cost is $15 per person or $25 for two. A recorded message describes upcoming tours for the week. For information: 33 Alan Terrace, Suite 2, Jersey City, N.J. 07306, (212) 517-0201.

--The Museum of the City of New York: The museum, as you might expect, schedules tours of a considerably more serious nature that explore New York’s rich historical and architectural heritage. A program of six tours, for which reservations are necessary, is planned for this spring and summer.

The initial tour, visiting the Lower East Side, was conducted earlier this month. Others in the series are “Roosevelt--New York’s Other Island,” next Sunday; “Radical New York,” as seen in the history and architecture of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side, May 20; “The West Village--Where Greenwich Began,” June 24; “The South Village--Where Greenwich Diversified,” July 22, and “The East Village--Where Greenwich Reinvented Itself,” Aug. 26. The charge is $15 per person. For information: Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, New York 10029, (212) 534-1672, Ext. 206.

--92d Street Young Men’s-Young Women’s Hebrew Assn.: “We’re the queen of New York walking tours,” said Batia Ploch, the Y’s tour organizer. No false modesty here, and none really needed. The number and diversity of Ploch’s walking tours is amazing. Four to eight itineraries are planned for each weekend, and others are offered weekdays.

It is the Y that created the “Old and Unusual Bookstores of Greenwich Village” tour as part of a literary series. The next one is scheduled for May 22.

Upcoming tours include a walk through Little Italy in the South Bronx, which has a number of good Italian restaurants, May 10; a historical look at the precincts of Tammany Hall, May 13; a visit to Brighton Beach, where Soviet music and food predominate on Sunday afternoons, May 20, and an introduction to Battery Park City, New York’s newest village, June 4.

The price varies from $15 to $20 per person. For information: 1395 Lexington Ave., New York 10128, (212) 996-1100.

--Municipal Art Society: City planning and preservation issues are the focus of the society’s walking tours. Its best-known tour locally is a stroll through Grand Central Station, a building it took an important role in preserving. The hourlong tour, now in its 15th year, is offered Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. It begins at the Commuter Express Branch of the Chemical Bank on the Main Concourse Level. There is no charge.

Next Saturday, the society will spotlight Sutton Place, an upscale Manhattan neighborhood that once used to be an industrial center full of cigar factories and breweries. The theme to be discussed is how the transformation came about. Price is $13 per person. For information: Municipal Art Society, 457 Madison Ave., New York 10022, (212) 421-0109.

--South Street Seaport Museum: The museum’s 6 a.m. tour of the Fulton Fish Market, the nation’s oldest and largest fish market, is offered on the first and third Thursday of the month from April through October. Reservations are required. The meeting spot is 165 John St., and the tour lasts about two hours. Cost is $10 per person. For information: 207 Front St., New York 10038, (212) 669-9416.

--Jewish New York: Oscar Israelowitz is a storyteller, and he has a full reservoir of tales about the Jewish experience on the Lower East Side. The first large wave of immigrants arrived from Germany in the 1830s and 1840s, he says, and was followed in the 1880s by Jews from Eastern Europe, driven from their homes by pogroms. At one time, the neighborhood had more than 300 synagogues, many of them in rented storefronts. His two-hour walking tour, tracing this heritage, is offered on Sundays at 11 a.m. Reservations are necessary. Cost is $12 per person. For information: (718) 951-7072.

--River to River Walking Tour: The name should be taken literally. Ruth Alscher-Green conducts a two-hour tour that crosses the narrow southern tip of Manhattan, from the Hudson River to the East River. The route passes through some of New York’s oldest neighborhoods and its newest, Battery Park City.

Hers is partly a historical tour and partly architectural appreciation. But mostly, she makes quite clear, it is a gossipy tour, full of the kind of insider’s anecdotes that rarely make it into the history books. The two-hour tour is offered by appointment at a mutually convenient time. The price is $35 for one person and $50 for two. For information: 375 South End Ave., Apt. 19U, New York 10280, (212) 321-2823.

--Urban Park Rangers: One of the ideas behind the urban park rangers program “is to bring people into the parks who might be afraid to use them,” says Stuart Desmond, a spokesman for New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation. Not surprisingly, Central Park is featured prominently, although park walks are offered throughout the city. In addition to the May 20 tour of the Conservatory Garden, there is a woodland walk in the north end of Central Park next Saturday at 2 p.m., and a tour of Central Park’s Strawberry Fields, named in honor of John Lennon, on May 13 at 2 p.m. A night hike of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is scheduled for May 11 at 7 p.m. There is no charge. To find out what’s available, contact each borough’s Urban Park Ranger program: Brooklyn, (718) 287-3400; Bronx, (212) 548-7070; Queens, (718) 699-4204; Manhattan, (212) 427-4040, and Staten Island, (718) 667-6042.

--Lou Singer’s Tours: Lou Singer’s “Noshing Tours” of the Lower East Side are legendary. On a six-hour outing, you make 10 or 11 stops to sample ethnic goodies. And that doesn’t include time out for a long lunch at a prominent deli.

Singer sighs audibly when describing a Viennese pastry called an Othello, available at an early stop on the tour. It is a small, cookie-sized treat that is filled with chocolate mousse, covered with a crisp bittersweet chocolate and topped with nuts.

The tour begins at 10 a.m. and takes in Chinese and Italian cafes, a coffeehouse, Manhattan’s last winery, a spice shop and an old-fashioned candy store. Time is alloted for food shopping. The noshing tour is offered several times weekly. The tour price is $25 per person, and a set fee for food, tax and tips is an additional $21 per person. A minimum of six persons is required. For information: 130 St. Edward St., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201, (718) 875-9084 after 7 p.m. EST.