(Photo: Courtesy of Food Tours of New York)

First-Timers | Return Visitors | Budding Gothamites | NYC Insiders

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TOURS FOR FIRST-TIMERS

Guided Sightseeing and Walking Tours with NYCVP
866-474-3247; Nycvp.com.
Ten-year-old New York City Vacation Packages started arranging informal tours of Ground Zero in January of 2002. It remains a subdued but informative encounter with the site: an opportunity to stand on the original floor of the World Trade Center and to view the FDNY 9/11 Memorial Wall—a 56-foot-long bronze sculpture on the side of the Ten House Fire Station. More upbeat excursions include one to the Statue of Liberty and another to Central Park.
Schedule: Check Website for details.
Reservations: Not required, but advance purchase recommended.
Duration: 3 hours.
Cost: $19–$25; children $15; Statue of Liberty $59 (includes admission).

NYC Discovery Walking Tours
212-465-3331; Ny.com.
With 75 itineraries, NYC Walking Tours prides itself on offering Manhattan’s largest selection. Choices range from a pre-marathon look at Central Park to a Taste of Chinatown (dim sum and green-tea ice cream) or Brooklyn Heights/Cobble Hill (egg creams and spinach pie). Guides emphasize quirky stuff, like the specific subway grate where Marilyn Monroe flashed her gams in The Seven Year Itch.
Schedule: Check Website for details.
Reservations: Recommended.
Duration: 2 hours.
Cost: $15–20 (tasting tours include food).

Joyce Gold History Tours of New York
212-242-5762; Nyctours.com
If you ask the concierge at the Four Seasons for a walking-tour recommendation, you’ll be directed to Joyce Gold, a 30-year vet of street-talking who teaches history at NYU and the New School. Need further credentials? Joyce was once praised by the Hollywood Reporter for “her ability to make the earliest Dutch settlement sound like a gripping miniseries.”
Schedule: Sat. or Sun. at 1 p.m.; check Website for schedule.
Reservations: Not required.
Duration: 2–2.5 hours. Private tours also available.
Cost: $15.

Big Onion Walking Tours
212-439-1090; Bigonion.com.
Seth Kamil’s fleet of wisecracking Ph.D. candidates (most studying history) lead well-attended daily excursions around town. On the Lower East Side, you’ve got the Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour; for a greater scope of downtown, there’s the Official Gangs of New York Tour, endorsed by none other than Martin Scorsese.
Schedule: Daily at 11 a.m. or 1 p.m.; check Website for details. Private tours also available.
Reservations: Recommended.
Duration: 2 hours.
Cost:$15; $12 seniors; $10 full-time students and members of the New-York Historical Society. Additional charge of $5 per person for the Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour.