The Amazing Three Squares Walking Tour: Union Square, Gramercy Park and Madison Square

This is tour is free with optional donation to your guide (pay what you wish). Meeting place is outside the Barnes and Noble.  Arrive early to use the restrooms (2nd and 3rd floor).

Required:  Proof of full vaccination.

We'll start out at Union Square with a visit to the four freedoms monuments (Lincoln, Gandhi, Washington and Lafayette). Union Square was at one time the city's most popular entertainment district and was used for parades, marches and political rallies (and still is on occasion).

At Gramercy Park, one of NYC's first planned neighborhoods in the 1830s, we'll learn about the actor Edwin Booth, who founded The Players Club (and brother of the Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth), and the see the former mansion of NY State Governor Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden has figured prominently in history not only as because he helped establish the NY Public Library but as a candidate for President in whose election defeat in 1876 is perhaps the most controversial in American History (along with Bush v. Gore in 2000).

En route to Madison Square, we'll see some of the spectacular architecture of the Ladies Mile Historic District. We'll finish with a lively stroll around Madison Square Park to learn about the iconic buildings there, including the Flatiron Building, Metropolitan Life Tower, and the New York Life building which occupies the site of the original building known as Madison Square Garden. The park itself has an interesting history that includes the story of a famous architect who was murdered inside one of his creations.