Private Gilded Age Mansions Walk on Fifth Avenue with a Local Guide

Book this one and the guide works for your group only. One booking covers up to 30 people, which makes it a practical choice for a family reunion, a class or a company outing that wants two hours on Fifth Avenue without strangers tagging along. The subject is the Gilded Age, when the avenue beside Central Park filled up with private palaces. Most of them are gone. The walk begins at the gold statue of General Sherman at 59th Street and works north past what survives and where the rest stood, including the footprint of one of the largest private houses ever built in Manhattan. You hear the history of the Frick Collection as you pass it, look into a bookshop that now occupies a Fifth Avenue mansion, and find one of the last houses on the avenue still built as a single residence, plus the oldest building on Millionaire's Row. The stories are about wealth and what it paid for: architecture, art collections and a good deal of showing off. Temple Emanu-El, the Arsenal, the edge of Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are all on the route. Entry to the museums, the zoo and other buildings along the way is not included. The guide is a local New Yorker, and earpieces are provided so everyone can hear. Tips are extra. The route is wheelchair and stroller accessible and suits all fitness levels. It ends at 975 Fifth Avenue.