Holdouts! A Midtown Walking Tour Based on the Book by Alpern & Durst

Join us!

Hear the remarkable stories of holdouts, people whose steadfastness against developers permanently changed the cityscape, and often in unsuspecting ways! These holdouts in particular were the result of the city’s high-pressure real estate market of the 1960s around Grand Central; buildings in the Modern and post-Modern, and through a series of zoning law changes.

On this tour we will encounter 16 captivating examples of property owners and leaseholders who steadfastly refused to sell to developers, compelling them to rethink their plans, and forever altered the urban landscape. These stories reveal the human side of an otherwise transactional real estate world; the lady who cherished the comfort and memories of her brownstone home; or the poker player-like landlord who overplayed his hand and lost out on a tidy profit (and one caused a skyscraper to be shifted 60’); or the restaurateur whose long-term lease justifiably commanded budget-busting sums.

We'll learn the reasons for haphazard entrances; odd angles and with peculiar facades; multi-story notches that were not part of the original plans; even a 19th Century brownstone whose nearly every brick was fully absorbed within a 20th Century skyscraper.