Manhattan Unlocked Historical and Architectural Walking Tours: Pawn Stars, Carlo Gambino & SGS Associates

"No other city is so spitefully incoherent"

--James Baldwin

Welcome to Manhattan Unlocked Walking Tours

Discover hidden-in-plain-sight history and have fun decoding the streetwalls of the city on our multi-faceted walking tours. Manhattan Unlocked answers the question every New Yorker and visitor has asked at some point: "why is this building next to that building?" We take that question to the nth degree and ultimately let the built environment--the city itself--tell its own story, and it's an incredible story to tell! In addition to the million-and-one things on the surface of the island (architecture, history, culture, commerce, immigration, etc.), we look at how ancient geographic features, and long gone and forgotten transit systems, had everything to do with how the city would grow and develop.

About Us

Manhattan Unlocked began as a blog over a decade ago as an effort to decode and make sense of the streetwalls of the city. What most people consider New York City is an architectural complex, and constellation of neighborhoods, stretching almost 5 miles from the Battery to Central Park. Yet, what looks like a jumble of buildings on almost any given blockfront, I realized long ago, couldn't be random. There had to be reasons, there had to be patterns. Neighborhoods too, whether made up of cast iron buildings or skyscrapers, had to be part of some greater, overarching narrative that described the city's development. There had to be some way that Tribeca and Museum Mile were part of the same story.

I soon realized taking on the search for the single-story--the "unified theory"--behind New York's instantly recognizable yet wholly enigmatic built environment, I needed to hit the pavement so to speak. Manhattan Unlocked walking tours began. I had to discontinue the blog long ago, but hope to start posting again soon. Join us on a walking tour, or wait for the book, Build: The History of of New York City on the Island of Manhattan.

Our Walking Tours

Join Us on a Walking Tour...Click the big blue button below for details, or to book any of the following tours (don't forget to read our TripAdvisor reviews!):

Midtown Manhattan Art and Architecture Walking Tour

Midtown west, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Park Avenue

Holdouts! Based on the Book by Alpern & Durst

Midtown east, Grand Central, Rockefeller Center

Recreate the Most Requested Walking Tour of 1840s New York

Astor Place, NoHo, SoHo, Chinatown, Foley Square

A Disastrous History of Housing the Poor

Foley Square, Chinatown and The Lower East Side

Explore the Ruins of a Forgotten City in the Middle of Manhattan

Madison Square, Nomad, the Flatiron District, Chelsea

In the meantime, the old blog for "testing the waters" remains below.

Click Here to See Tours

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Pawn Stars, Carlo Gambino & SGS Associates

Just a quick, fun post. I was watching Pawn Stars and a guy walked in with a canceled check signed by Carlo Gambino from 1962. It was from S.G.S. Associates, and you could see the address on the check: 141 East 44th Street. So I Google Earthed it…The Fitzpatrick Grand Hotel. I originally thought the flag out front was Italian--my bad, it's the Irish flag. Still, they're close (orange instead of a red stripe).