Fans of strolls and deep dives into New York City minutiae can look forward to Jane’s Walk NYC, an annual weekend event with more than 190 free walking tours in all five boroughs.
“What’s really unique about these walking conversations is they’re given by regular New Yorkers,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the Municipal Art Society, which organizes the event.
This year’s edition takes place May 3-5 and includes offerings like “Greenpoint Polish History Walk,” “Urban Forest Care in Hell’s Kitchen” and “From Mecca to Manhattan: An Intro to Muslim New York.”
The full list of walks is available here.
Photo by Aslan Chalom / Courtesy Municipal Art Society
The majority of walk leaders are regular New Yorkers who are passionate about some aspect of the city — such as Brutalist architecture or the “Scandals of Riverside Drive” — and volunteered an idea, according to Goldstein.
Others are licensed local tour guides, historians and architects who are deeply knowledgeable about their walk’s topic.
Daniel Pecoraro is a professional tour guide who has been leading Jane’s Walks since 2017 and has two this year: “Quenching Gotham’s Thirst: New York Before the Croton Era,” in Lower Manhattan, and “Ray Carney’s Harlem: 1959-1976,” based on the real Harlem of the fictional main character from Colson Whitehead’s novels “Harlem Shuffle” and “Crook Manifesto.”
Photo by Aslan Chalom / Courtesy Municipal Art Society
For the Harlem tour, Pecoraro will visit the historic Hotel Theresa, the Apollo Theater, Striver’s Row, Marcus Garvey Park and other locations where the action in the novels happens.
“As a tour guide, Jane’s Walk is where I get to do the fun stuff or pilot some things that are in my head or put together an unauthorized tour about spots in two novels I really love,” he said.
Jane’s Walk was named after the legendary urbanist Jane Jacobs and started in Toronto in 2006, where Jacobs spent her final years. It expanded to New York City the next year. New York City’s chapter is now the largest, with walks happening in multiple cities and countries around the world, according to Goldstein.
Photo by Aslan Chalom / Courtesy Municipal Art Society
Goldstein said she’s never led a walk herself, because she’s always too excited to go on as many as possible throughout the weekend. This year she’s especially interested in a walking tour that discusses the early Scandinavian immigrants to Sunset Park, who brought along some of the first cooperative housing models in New York.
As Jacobs wrote in her essay “Downtown is for People,” the everyday citizen is the ultimate expert on making a city fun — provided they have “an observant eye, curiosity about people and a willingness to walk.”
Jane’s Walks are all free but require registration online here.
