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Big Onion Walking Tours

Name: Big Onion Walking Tours
Address: New York, NY, US
Telephone: (212) 439-1090
Price range: $$
Rating: 4.8

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Big Onion Walking Tours

Walking Tours of New York City neighborhoods focusing on history & architecture. Lead by NYC licensed educator-guides with teaching & academic backgrounds.

w York" by New York Magazine (1998). We were named one of the "Best History Tours in the World" by Forbes.com (2010).

08/13/2025

Fort Greene’s Raymond Street Jail in 1923 on what is now Ashland Place (and Willoughby Street). Construction began on the facility in 1836, and until Brooklyn was incorporated as a borough of NYC in 1898, this was its primary prison. Originally a men’s facility, the prison was expanded in 1839 with a new women’s annex.

“Brooklyn’s Bastille” resembled a medieval fortress as it was modeled after West Point. Despite the effort that obviously went into its design, the architect’s of the first version of the jail forgot to include a front door in their plans and it had to be retroactively added and cut from the structure when it was nearing completion.

Although the jail went through multiple renovations over its 127 years, during which it was known by different names, it was always overcrowded, unsanitary, outdated, and generally unacceptable conditions. Mayor LaGuardia visited in 1936 and demanded the city plan to close and replace the prison, noting problems like lack of space, inhumane conditions, and long pretrial wait times. However, it took until 1963 for the city to finally close the Raymond Street Jail, moving the remaining inhabitants into other prisons and demolishing the old structure under Robert Moses’ Fort Greene Slum Clearance Plan.

Come learn more about the history of Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood with a Big Onion walking tour this Saturday, August 16th at 1PM! Tickets available on our website.

Images: (1) “Brooklyn: Ashland Place - Willoughby Street.” (1923). via ; (2-4) C.O. Peter J. Ledwith. (1961) via correctionhistory.org.

08/11/2025

Feeling hungry on the Lower East Side? You’re in luck: whether it’s 1934 or 2012 or 2025 there is probably a fruit cart nearby!

In the early 20th Century, carts full of produce and street food abounded in New York’s Lower East Side. First introduced to the city by 19th Century German immigrants, the practice of street vending was passed onto Eastern European and Italian immigrants in the densely populated LES at the turn of the century. While not insignificant, a two-wheeled pushcart was a more attainable upfront investment than other entrepreneurial activities, and purchasing food from street vendors was a convenient and affordable option for other working class residents in the neighborhood.

An official NYC Pushcart Commission was established in 1905, and after a year of studying the industry they produced a report outlining some of the challenges in the industry, including sanitation, regulation, and organization. In the 1930s, Mayor LaGuardia’s administration made a big push to shift carts and street vending into controlled environments, and off of the street. This, combined with other aspects of demographic change over time, largely regulated the LES’s robust pushcart markets out of existence.

But a few blocks away in Chinatown, their contemporary peers continue the tradition of selling affordable produce in strategic locations (think: close to the subway). While vendors are required to have a personal permit that is relatively easy to get, the city caps the number of cart permits today, making them prized commodities. Although various challenges to the practice of street vending like rising cost of living and the increase in grocery delivery services exist in the modern world, the Chinatown fruit stands are still going today.

Come learn more about the history of immigration to the Lower East Side with a Big Onion walking tour this weekend! Join us for Immigrant New York on Friday, 8/15 or the Multiethnic Eating tour on Saturday, 8/16, both at 11AM! Tickets available on our website.

Images: (1) “Occupations - Peddlers - Food - Fruit.” (1934) via ; (2) Lily J. (2012) via Yelp.

08/10/2025

Views of lower Manhattan’s Financial District from the Brooklyn Bridge - which NYC landmark came first?

The Brooklyn Bridge, constructed from 1870-1883, predates many of the skyscrapers we see on the NYC skyline now. In these photos from 1931, many of those new buildings are recent construction, enabled by turn of the century innovations like steel frames, which allowed architects to bring bigger and bolder visions to life! The cables that obstruct our view in these shots are also steel. The Brooklyn Bridge’s hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge design relies on the galvanized steel wire cables to help support the weight of the structure and all of the cars, people, and bicycles that cross it.

However, one could argue that while the bridge is indeed older than the buildings we see in this photo, the neighborhood those buildings are in qualifies as the oldest landmark in these photos! Lower Manhattan, which we now usually refer to as the Financial District, officially dates back to 1624, over 200 years before the Brooklyn Bridge. Established on lands originally inhabited by the Native American Lenape people, the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam built structures including military forts, houses, and yes, windmills, as they imposed their residential trading post on the island.

While the physical traces of New Amsterdam have largely disappeared and been replaced by newer buildings, we do recognize the Financial District as New York’s oldest surviving neighborhood. One piece of visible evidence is the layout of the streets, which predate the 1811 grid plan, and remind us that the contemporary development of this part of the city did begin centuries ago, beating out the Brooklyn Bridge as the oldest landmark in these photos!

Come learn more about the history of the Brooklyn Bridge (and Brooklyn Heights!) with Big Onion at 11AM on Thursday, August 14th, or (and?) the history of lower Manhattan at 11AM on Sunday, August 18th! Tickets for both walking tours available now on our website.

Images: “East River - Shore and skyline - Lower Manhattan - South Ferry - Williamsburg Bridge - Maiden Lane.” (1931) via NYPL

08/06/2025

Why St. Mark’s Place and not East 8th Street?

When laying out the street grid for Manhattan, the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 envisioned 8th Street running from Greenwich Lane/Avenue, to First Avenue. There was meant to be a wholesale food market, similar to Washington or Greenwich Markets, to the east of First Avenue. The market scheme was dropped in 1824 and 8th Street extended to the East River.
As parts of the East Village developed into a wealthy enclave, especially around Bond, Bleecker, Great Jones & Lafayette Streets, English-born real estate developer Thomas Davis saw an opportunity and sought to develop part of 8th Street. The first step was, in 1835, renaming it to “St. Mark’s Place.” One of the few remaining Davis-built homes is No. 20, The Daniel LeRoy House, built 1832. LeRoy was a trader and merchant based on South Street in Lower Manhattan.
The most significant home is No. 4 St Mark’s Place. Built in 1831 by Davis, it was home to Eliza Hamilton, widow of Alexander Hamilton (yes, that Alexander Hamilton) between 1833 and 1842. Jump ahead a century and a half, it was where Ray Goodman opened his store Trash & Vaudeville in 1975. Goodman’s store was the heart of the punk and “counter culture” clothing experience in New York City. It was one of the first stores in America to stock Doc Martens boots! The Clash, Ramones, Debbie Harry, even Springsteen shopped here until it moved in 2019. Anyone remember the pinball parlor in the basement?
Join us on Saturday August 9 @ 11 a.m. for our East Village walking tour to reminisce and learn more about the neighborhood. Tour is featured on our homepage.
Image: Trash and Vaudeville, 4 St. Mark’s Place. Date unknown. Getty Images.

08/05/2025

What is Lower Manhattan’s first suburb? The common answer is Brooklyn Heights. But is that accurate?

Brooklyn Heights was the focus of Hezekiah B. Pierrepont in the first decade of the 19th century. He laid out a grid plan for development. But was this a copy of John Randel Jr.’s older grid along the West Side of Manhattan? Pierrepont set a standard house lot as 25x100 feet. Also, similar to Manhattan. The oldest surviving house in the Heights is the 1824 house at 24 Middagh Street. It is a lovely Federal style wood-framed home.

Meanwhile, Greenwich Village was a rural hamlet a century earlier, by 1713. With the cholera and yellow fever outbreaks of 1799, 1803, 1805, 1821, the area became more popular for those wishing to flee Lower Manhattan. It was 1822 that the seasonal hamlet became a place of permanent settlement by the wealthy population. The oldest house in all of Manhattan, the Isaacs-Hendricks House at 77 Bedford was built in 1799. It is brick rather than the wood used in Brooklyn Heights.

Brooklyn Heights had a dedicated steam-powered ferry in 1814, when Robert Fulton launched The Nassau, a commuter boat. Greenwich Village required an overland journey.

Both are incredibly historic and architecturally significant neighborhoods! Brooklyn Heights is New York City’s first Landmark District, declared so on November 23, 1965. Greenwich Village was named a Landmark District on April 29, 1969.

Join us on Saturday August 9 at 1 p.m. for our Historic Brooklyn Heights walking tour and/or Sunday August 10 at 11 a.m. for Greenwich Village. Both are featured on our homepage. Come see the similarities and differences! You can decide which was the first suburb!

Images: A view of Brooklyn Heights, circa 1850. Courtesy Museum of the City of New York; Otto Boetticher, “National Guard, 7th Regiment N.Y.S.M.”, 1851. Courtesy New York Public Library

08/04/2025

216-220 Warren Street, Hudson, NY

Built around 1790, it was the largest and grandest of the Proprietors Houses, the homes of the first landowners of Hudson. It was built by Thomas Jenkins, the wealthier brother of the predominant founding family. They, and others, migrated from Nantucket, Cape Cod, and Rhode Island, under post-Revolutionary circumstances. The Jenkins were Quakers and Thomas was criticized for the grand home and preference for walking about town with a gold-tipped cane.

Thomas Jenkins died in 1808 and his home was soon after divided into two living spaces. Within 220 Warren Street a young lawyer from Kinderhook, Martin Van Buren, took up residence. Some of his early clients included Hudson Valley tenant farmers who were resisting the near feudal landlease arrangements that dated from before Independence. These “rent agitators” sought greater control over the land they farmed. Van Buren, along with the legendary lawyer, Thomas Addis Emmet, argued the landmark “Yates v. Lansing” decision of 1811 - arguing successfully that once cannot use a court to issue an arrest warrant outside the jurisdiction of that court.

The more traditional Proprietors Houses were two-stories, five windows wide, and had chimneys on the ends of the buildings. They are far from “simple” or “plain.” We will see many of these houses on our Historic Hudson walking tour - including the 1795 Seth Jenkins Jr. and 1811 Robert Jenkins homes just a block away.

Join us on Saturday August 9 at 11 a.m. or Sunday August 31 at 11 a.m. for our Historic Hudson walking tour. Come explore the layered history and architecture of this special Hudson Valley, Columbia County, city. Tour is featured on our homepage.

Images: 216-220 Warren Street, August 3, 2025, taken by Big Onion Walking Tours; Painting of Martin Van Buren, circa 1810 (age 27 years) by Thomas Sully. From the Estate of John Strawbridge Lloyd.

08/01/2025

Art, Music, & NYC

Manhattan has long been a center of innovation in art, music, and culture. This weekend, we have three tours that shed light on how our city has been a major driver in the arts world. We have selected 3 photos for this post to underscore this legacy.

The first image is of the Academy of Music, taken in 1909. The Academy was an opera house that opened in 1854, following the Astor Place Riot and closure of the Astor Opera House. It catered to the most elite New Yorkers and gave a stage for new operas coming from Europe. The Academy of Music building was demolished in 1926, nearly a century ago, but its legacy lives on! Learn more about music and entertainment on our Art, S*x and Rock & Roll: New York on the Cultural Edge Walking Tour this Saturday, 8/2.

The second image is of the Savoy Ballroom interior, with Dizzy Gillespie conducting in the late 1940s. The Savoy was a space for music and dancing in Harlem - one of the most famous and impactful of the many performance halls that captivated thousands during the Harlem Renaissance. To learn more about nightlife and entertainment in Harlem, join our Historic Harlem Walking Tour, also this Saturday.

The final image is of the Breuer Building at 945 Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side. Designed by Marcel Breuer and completed in 1966, this brutalist structure stands out on Madison Avenue and was intended to house the collection of The Whitney Museum of American Art. Today, the building is occupied by Sotheby’s, but its legacy in the arts landscape of NYC cannot be understated. Join our Sunday, 8/3 Upper East Side Walking Tour: A Clash of Titans to learn more!

Tickets and information are available on our website.

Image info: 1) Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The NYPL. "Manhattan: Irving Place - 14th Street (East)" NYPL Digital Collections. 2) William Gottlieb, LOC, public domain. 3) Ajay Suresh, Flickr, Creative Commons domain.

07/31/2025

Brooklyn Bridge and Heights Tour

Join us tomorrow for a historically rich and visually stunning walking tour that begins with the iconic Brooklyn Bridge and culminates in one of New York City's most architecturally and culturally significant neighborhoods, Brooklyn Heights.

Our walk begins in Manhattan and then leads over the Brooklyn Bridge, where participants are treated to gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline. From there, we make our way into Brooklyn Heights, a historic district long recognized for its cultural significance and preserved architectural landscape.

Originally known as Brooklyn Village, this neighborhood has held a position of prominence since Brooklyn began to grow in the early 19th century. Today, Brooklyn Heights remains a rare gem in urban America, remarkable for its collection of antebellum architecture, including Federal-style wooden frame houses and brownstone rowhouses that predate the Civil War. These enduring structures serve as tangible reminders of 19th-century urban life and middle-class domesticity.

We invite you to pause and reflect on these two photographs. The first, taken a century ago in 1925, captures a moment on Middagh Street. Pay particular attention to the home featuring Doric columns flanking its entrance—an element of classical design that still graces the neighborhood today. This same building is visible in the joining contemporary image. However, note that the adjacent structure seen in the 1925 image has since been demolished, its place now occupied by a modern parking zone.

Our tour concludes in Brooklyn Heights, and we encourage you to linger, explore, and immerse yourself further in the extraordinary neighborhood.

We invite you to join us tomorrow, August 1st, for our next scheduled tour! Tickets and additional information are available on our website. With the recent heatwave finally behind us, conditions seem to be ideal for a thoughtful and engaging walk through history!

Photo info: 1) Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. "Brooklyn: Middagh Street - Hicks Street" New York Public Library Digital Collections. 2) Google Maps

07/29/2025

History and Heritage: The General Theological Seminary in Chelsea

Founded in 1817, the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church is the oldest seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City. A small academic institution (there are less than half a dozen full time faculty and approximately 50 students), the GTS has nonetheless played an important role in New York City’s spiritual and educational landscapes.

Located in the Chelsea Historic District, the GTS is on the former site of Clement Clarke Moore’s apple orchard; Moore’s manor house “Chelsea” – for which the Manhattan neighborhood was named – was close to the location and has not survived to the present. A devout episcopalian, scholar, and writer in his own right (you might be familiar with his work “A Visit from St. Nicholas”), Moore didn’t only donate the land to establish the seminary (built years later in 1827) but also taught there as a professor of “Oriental and Greek Literature,” as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning.

Take a moment and appreciate these two images of the GTS. The first is an illustration by an unknown artist showing the 9th Avenue entrance to the seminary circa 1890. The second is a 1927 photograph showing West 20th Street, viewing the north side, giving a west-facing view of the GTS from Ninth Avenue.

To learn more about the GTS and the surrounding Chelsea neighborhood, join us on our Chelsea and The High Line Walking Tour this Thursday, July 31. Tickets and information are available on our website.

Image information: 1) 1890 illustration by unknown author, public domain, courtesy of the NYPL; 2) Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. "Manhattan: 20th Street (West) - 9th Avenue" New York Public Library Digital Collections.

07/25/2025

Step Back in Time Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge

When the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883, it towered over one of the busiest maritime corridors in the world. Today, while ferries and barges still traverse the East River, the scale of ship traffic is a faint echo of what once defined New York’s waterfront. In the late 19th century, both the East and Hudson Rivers were teeming with a remarkable mix of steamships and sailing vessels, reflective of the city’s industrial and mercantile might.

Take a closer look at these two archival photographs from the early 1880s, captured while the bridge was still under construction. They offer a glimpse into a bygone era, when the waterfront bustled with life and commerce.

To explore the historical transformation of the Brooklyn waterfront—from a dense hub of shipping and industry to the vibrant urban landscape we know today—join our Brooklyn Bridge and Heights Walking Tour this Saturday, July 26 at 11:00 AM. Today's heatwave will have broken, it will be the perfect time to explore over 140 years of architectural and urban evolution.

Visit our website for details and registration. Don’t miss this opportunity to walk through history!

Photo information: Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. (1880 - 1883). Bridges - Brooklyn Bridge - [Manhattan end of the bridge, while under construction.] Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/43a8a4b0-c55e-012f-db15-58d385a7bc34

07/23/2025

One of the benefits of vacationing in Manhattan as opposed to many other places in the world is how easy our streets are to navigate! Streets run east-west, intersecting north-south avenues at convenient right angles and if you walk in the wrong direction you’ll realize quickly thanks to the numbered streets! However, there are a couple of neighborhoods that present more challenges…

Two of Manhattan’s oldest surviving neighborhoods, the Financial District and Greenwich Village, predate the 1811 plan that gave us our fail-proof numbered streets and avenues on most of the rest of the island. The Financial District, at the southernmost point on our 1836 map, was the heart of New Amsterdam, officially colonized from the native Lenni Lenape people in 1624, nearly 200 years earlier. Today, it’s comprised of many smaller, named streets that don’t all conform to the pattern of straight lines and right angles, such as the intersection of South William and Broad Streets (2).

Greenwich Village, the northwestern-most area on the map, similarly doesn’t conform. Previously used by the Lenape people as a planting and fishing settlement, the area that is now Greenwich Village was violently conquered by Dutch settlers in the 1630s, cleared of its natural vegetation and made into farmland, and later became home to the colony’s African community. As the area evolved independently with no central planning, it too developed into its own unique, non-gridline street patterns. However, in the early 20th Century the city did eventually have to disrupt some of that organic organization by tearing up some streets to put in 6th and 7th Avenues, which hit the smaller, older streets at different angles - see the more open intersection at Carmine St. and 6th Ave.

To learn more about NYC’s old neighborhoods, join a Big Onion walking tour! Choose from Historic Lower Manhattan at 11am and Greenwich Village at 1pm, both this Saturday July 26th! Tickets available on our website.

Images: (1) “New-York” map (1836); (2) Manhattan: South William Street - Broad Street (1900), Brown Brothers; (3) Manhattan: Carmine Street - 6th Avenue (1928), Percy Loomis Sperr all via

07/22/2025

Many of us have received a complimentary pot of tea when dining at a Chinese restaurant, a testament to the importance of the beverage in Chinese cuisine and culture. Teahouses have provided public space for tea drinkers to congregate and consume wide varieties of tea in China for centuries, so it’s unsurprising that Chinese immigrant communities started opening them in their new neighborhoods in NYC!

The Nom Wah Tea Parlor (1) opened on Doyers St. in 1920, and while today it’s one of the city’s most popular dim sum restaurants, it was originally a tea shop and bakery. Tea houses were not the only option to drink tea in Chinatown however - importers like Sun Kwong On Co. (2) sold tea leaves and supplies for customers to brew at home at their leisure.

Although many of the mid-20th Century restaurants and businesses in Chinatown have evolved or changed, tea consumption continues! In addition to the old school restaurants, importers and traditional medicine practitioners who can concoct a medicinal tea for you, modern bubble tea shops dot the streets of Chinatown today. Don’t feel like drinking your tea? No problem - pick up a tea-flavored baked good, ice cream, or even look for tea infused skincare products!

To learn more about NYC’s immigrant communities and their lives on the Lower East Side, join the Big Onion Multiethnic Eating tour this Sunday, July 27th at 1PM! Tickets available on our website.

Images: (1) Nom What Tea Parlor (1955), Angelo Rizutto via ; Mott Street #28 (1952) via

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New York, NY

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 6pm
Tuesday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Thursday	9am - 6pm
Friday	9am - 6pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm
Sunday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

(212) 439-1090

Website

http://www.bigonion.com/

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Since 1991, Big Onion has been leading award winning walking tours of New York's historic districts and ethnic neighborhoods. All our guides are fully licensed with teaching backgrounds! We lead more than 25 different tours throughout Manhattan & Brooklyn. We offer public "show up" tours, every day, year-round. All of our walks are also available for private bookings. Big Onion has been called "The Best in New York" by New York Magazine (1998). We were named one of the "Best History Tours in the World" by Forbes.com (2010). The Village Voice called us the “Best Place to Take Out-of-Town Guests” (2014). We have been awarded a “Certificate of Excellence” by TripAdvisor annually since 2014 (first year award was granted).

UPDATED APRIL 2019: Big Onion Walking Tours is very proud to expand to the historically & architecturally significant Hudson River Town of Hudson, NY.