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Manhattan Unlocked Historical and Architectural Walking Tours

Discover hidden-in-plain-sight history and decode the streetscapes of Manhattan on our multi-faceted walking tours where history and architecture meld. Manhattan Unlocked answers the question every New Yorker has asked, "why is this building next to that building, and that building next to this building?" We take that question to its logical conclusion and let the built environment--the city itself--tell its own story!

We realized there's more to the million-and-one things to be seen on the surface of the city today. Manhattan Unlocked takes into account ancient geography and historic transit, in addition to commerce, architecture, immigration and everything else, to explain the city's growth and development. In fact, New York City can only be understood from an all-of-history, holistic point of view.

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Manhattan Unlocked is both a blog and a walking tour company. All tours begin and end at different locations in Manhattan.

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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 & the Civic Center (Foley Square)

Tenement Housing and Immigrant Life: A Lower East Side Story

Foley Square, Chinatown & The Lower East Side

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

Madison Square, Nomad, the Flatiron District & Chelsea

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Thursday, February 3, 2011

298 Grand Street, Then and Now

Just a quick fun post. Going through the Museum of the City of New York’s archives I found this 1932 picture of 298 Grand Street. The Federal-style home below was already 100 years old at the time (they'd stopped building dormer windows around 1840). By 1932, this was in the heart of the Jewish Lower East side, and textiles were the major industry—it looks like Haddad’s is selling Linens, Curtains, Bed Sets, Silk Underwear.

Most single family homes lasted just a few decades before becoming multiple family dwellings and/or businesses, such was the vortex-like growth of Manhattan’s population.

You can see the tracks of the Second Avenue railroad in the street. Horse-drawn cars ran south on Allen Street, west along Grand Street (below), and turned north up Second Avenue.