Private Fifth Avenue Gilded Age Mansions Walk, Plaza Hotel to 92nd Street

Fifth Avenue was a good address from the country's early years, but Central Park turned it into the address. Once the park went in, the rich lined up along its eastern edge and hired the best architects they could find to outbuild each other. More than a century later, what is left is a street full of art, gossip and some very funny stories. This is a private walk of about two and a half hours for your group only, up to 15 people per booking. It starts at the Pulitzer Fountain beside the Plaza Hotel, at the southeast corner of Central Park, and works its way north on Fifth Avenue, with detours into the park and onto the side streets. On the way: Temple Emanu-El, one of the largest synagogues in North America, on the site where Mrs. Astor's mansion stood and where an invitation meant you had arrived in New York society. The old military arsenal in Central Park, one of the few buildings kept in the park's design, and the zoo that grew up there from exotic pets the rich of Fifth Avenue released once they got bored of them. The Alice in Wonderland statue. C.P.H. Gilbert's French Gothic mansion, now the Ukrainian Institute, a style copied across Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Neue Galerie and the story of how its Klimt paintings survived the 20th century. Andrew Carnegie's mansion, which he thought of as a garden cottage. The view across the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. And finally the Warburg mansion, now the Jewish Museum, at 92nd Street. The guide is included and tips are not. The route is wheelchair and stroller accessible and suits all fitness levels. Buildings are seen from outside, with no museum entry.