World Trade Center and Downtown Walking Tour

Downtown Manhattan Skyline and Waterfront

Contact: Email: nyctransported@gmail.com or call 917-226-6914

Tour Summary: Take an exciting journey through downtown Manhattan. Explore a wide-range of historical and contemporary sites and topics including: the World Trade Center, Dutch New Amsterdam, the American Revolution, the great New York Port, the immigrant experience, Battery Park City, Battery Park, urban farming, military fortifications, green buildings and the architecture of lower Manhattan.

During this informative and lively tour, you will also take in the spectacular views of the harbor and explore the parks, monuments, memorials and public art that dot the landscape.

Duration: 2 hours or longer.

Tour leader: Doug Fox is a Manhattan native and a licensed New York City tour guide. He has explored the far corners of the City by foot, bike and boat (read NYC Transported to view posts and pictures of his many urban adventures). Doug is passionate about New York and enjoys sharing his broad range of interests with visitors and locales alike.

Sites and topics we can visit and explore during this walking tour:

• 1 World Trade Center (formally known as Freedom Tower) is already transforming the skyline and the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum will open on the upcoming 10th anniversary
• The Immigrant Experience: The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Castle Clinton
• The growth and transformation of the New York port and harbor: From crowded finger piers that surrounded Manhattan to the massive container ships and terminals of today
• Dutch New Amsterdam and the new Peter Minuit Plaza
• An innovative urban farming experiment that has just launched in Battery Park
• Battery Park City, a planned residential and business community built on landfill from the World Trade Center site, features a wonderful esplanade, green spaces, monuments and public art
• The Hudson River revitalized: A cleaner river has created new opportunities for water-based leisure, commercial and educational activities
• Eco-friendly architecture: New downtown residential and office buildings incorporate the most advanced green and sustainable features and designs
• American revolutionaries: Following the reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776, New Yorkers stormed Bowling Green and toppled the equestrian statue of George III
• Military fortifications encircle New York Harbor: In anticipation of a British attack that never came, the US built a circle of forts on lower Manhattan and the surrounding islands just before the War of 1812
• The Alexander Hamilton Custom House and how duties from the prosperous New York port helped fund the federal government