Walking New York Manhattan History on Foot

by Taillon, Keith

• ISBN13: 9781784889708
• ISBN10: 1784889709
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-04-15
• Publisher: Hardie Grant Books

Summary

“There is no city like New York and no better tour guide to it than Keith Taillon! I’m a lifelong New Yorker but he has taught me things about each neighborhood and every block I never knew before. Keith brings the ‘city that never sleeps’ alive in a way no one else can.” – Anderson Cooper

In Walking New York, Harlem local Keith Taillon invites you to join him on 12 of his most popular walking tour routes, examining in depth the various neighborhoods of Manhattan, their history, and the intricacies of their formation.

He traces the evolution of the Big Apple back to some of its early seeds, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries—a window in which New York City transformed from a small provincial port town into a global metropolis. Keith covers everything from the completion of the Erie Canal and Croton Aqueduct to some of the notorious characters behind the city’s Gilded Age.

Each chapter features a suggested walking route, with a detailed map and notes on the route’s length and time. Throughout each walk, readers are encouraged to pause and absorb the streetscape. Filled with interesting facts and timelines, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of why the city looks and feels the way it does.

Perfect for tourists, locals and armchair travelers alike, you will see New York in a new way, learning to look up, look around, and appreciate this truly special place anew.

Author Biography

Keith Taillon is a New York City historian focused primarily on the city’s growth and development in the 19th century. His Instagram account, @KeithYorkCity, boasts more than 55k followers who tune in daily for his deep-cut posts about topics as varied as the Vanderbilt family mansions, the city’s water supply system, and Central Park’s stone walls (the reason for those walls: when the park began construction in the 1850s, goats and other free-roaming farm animals would wander into the park and nibble its plantings). He and his work have been featured in The Times of London, The New Yorker, The Australian, Conde Nast Traveller, Elle Decor, and Surface Magazine. Born in upstate New York, he has lived in Manhattan since 2010, currently residing in Harlem with his partner.