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New York City Urban Tour
Is there anything more iconic than fall in Central Park? Our New York City urban tour will allow you to experience it first hand from our home base at The Pierre Hotel—a luxury Taj Hotel—on 5th Avenue overlooking the Park. During this trip you will spend four days with The Trust for Public Land exploring New York City where we have created more than 290 parks, playgrounds, and community gardens. Throughout the city, The Trust for Public Land is transforming neglected spaces into vibrant playgrounds and community parks, helping ensure that every child in the city has a safe outdoor play space within a ten-minute walk.
Our tour begins with a trip across the East River to check out possibly the coolest place to play in NYC—Public School 164 where you will see a green infrastructure schoolyard playground and community park designed “for kids by kids.” After PS 164, we’ll stop by 6/15 Green Community Garden, a citywide leader in the urban sustainability movement. Lunch at the Michelin starred River Café will afford gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge Park, a world-class park revitalizing a deteriorated waterfront space. From the East River to the Hudson, and a short flight of steps up—we are on the High Line, a public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. An extraordinary open space transformation that The Trust for Public Land is replicating in cities nationwide.
The next day, we hop aboard a private charter for a cruise south from the Battery, around the statue of Liberty and beyond to Staten Island and the Kill Van Kull. While on board we enjoy a gourmet picnic lunch while learning how, parcel-by-parcel, The Trust for Public Land is working to reclaim public access to the waterfront, protect the last remaining natural lands in the area, and increase parkland in one of the country’s most densely populated urban areas—including the Harbor Herons Complex, a breeding site for nine species of colonial waterbirds and supporting large proportions of the state’s wading birds.
In the afternoon, bring out your map and your walking shoes to enjoy some free time in the city before heading back to The Pierre to depart for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Once there you will enjoy a private dinner with your host for the evening, New York Advisory Board member, Tom Javits. Our three other evenings together, we will enjoy sumptuous dinners at gorgeous private residences (Upper East and West Side abodes) of our local donors.
On our final touring day, we enjoy a riveting morning walking tour of Central Park with Adrian Benepe, The Trust for Public Land’s Director of City Park Development and former New York City Commissioner of Parks and Recreation. Following our walk, we head to the Bank of America Tower and One Bryant Park for lunch with a view featuring a magnificent vista of lower Manhattan. Over lunch you will hear about the ‘nuts and bolts’ behind building one of the largest energy efficient and ecologically friendly buildings in the world. Step out of the Bank of America Tower and sink your toes into the lush green grass at New York’s finest reclaimed park, Bryant Park, with Bryant Park Corporation Co-founder, Dan Biederman, who will share with us what it took to complete this park’s monumental transformation.
TRIP DETAILS Dates: October 2-6, 2013 |
