The Gilded Age World of Edith Wharton WALKING TOUR

An Insider's Look Through Gilded Age New York with Carl Raymond

(Best suited for adults 16+)

Duration

2 Hours

Overview

Join Carl Raymond, Bowery Boys Walks guide and host of The Gilded Gentleman History Podcast (produced by the Bowery Boys) for this unforgettable walking tour.

The great American novelist Edith Wharton was a New Yorker. Although she spent tremendous parts of her life traveling in Europe and ultimately settling in France, it was the Gilded Age metropolis of New York in which she set the majority of her major fiction and stories.

This unique tour will trace the life and quite literally the footsteps of Edith Wharton through the streets and neighborhoods she and her famous characters knew so well. Our explorations will include not only sites associated with Wharton’s life but also locations used as settings for her novels.

Beginning in the Flatiron district, we’ll explore down Broadway and Park Avenue South, through Gramercy Park, Union Square, Broadway and end in Washington Square Park.

In addition to sharing the roots and development of America’s opulent Gilded Age, tour guide Carl will includes stories of Edith’s life as well as tales of her notable friends, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Henry James, Stanford White, Edwin Booth and society’s greatest grande dame, the Mrs. Astor (Edith’s own cousin!).

Tour Highlights

• Wharton’s birthplace

• Madison Square Park – including a brief look at its history

• St. Sava’s Cathedral – the church (recently damaged by fire but still standing) where Edith married Teddy Wharton in 1895

• Calvary Church – the Park Avenue church Edith knew as a girl

• Gramercy Park – a tour around the park including histories of landmarks, such as the Player’s Club

• Union Square and Irving Place – including the Gilded Age site of Tiffany and Co.

• Grace Church – the society church where Edith was baptized and which she used as a setting in “The Age of Innocence”

• Broadway and Fifth Avenue – including a look at a few of the Gilded Age mansions that remain

• Washington Square – a stop at the home Edith and her mother shared in the 1880s.

Please Note

• This is an in-person tour that will happen rain or shine.