When traveling to New York City for the first time, there are many places worth going to but deciding on where to start can be a pretty confusing decision. New York has many buildings, landmarks, and monuments spanning an extensive era over three hundred years. They illustrate the image of the city that we know of today.
One of these notable historic landmark is City Hall of New York City, the oldest continuous operating city hall in the United States. Construction started in 1803 and was completed in 1811; it has three stories and is considered the “finest architectural achievements of its period.” This is definitely a place to see. While getting into the building requires an advanced appointment, you can nevertheless see that from its exterior, city hall maintains an quaint yet almost regal aura that recalls visitors to a New York from a much earlier era. Learn more about this building by going on New York City walking tours.
As you walk around the area around City Hall, you cannot miss one of the oldest and most recognizable skyscraper, the Woolworth Building. This building, the tallest in the world for seventeen years, is still on the list of the 50 tallest buildings in the country, even after 95 years. Since 1966, this “cathedral of commerce” skyscraper has been listed as a National Historic Landmark. It is also easily the most recognizable skyscraper in downtown Manhattan until they were overshadowed by the completion of the nearby World Trade Center. You can find out what famous building replaced it as the tallest building in the world in 1930 by taking one of these New York City walking tours. By joining one of these tours, you will learn facts such as how much owner, Frank W. Woolworth spent to build his skyscraper. These Walking tours of New York are a fun way to learn more about these landmarks than if going on your own.
The city hall district is full ofother notable buildings. Another magnificent Beaux Arts masterpiece is the 40 story tall Municipal Building. This early 20th century building is the city’s government center with all of the city’s five boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island represented here. With its nearly one million square feet of office space, the Municipal Building was extraordinarily influential in its day on the development of civic structures of other cities in the country. Built to incorporate all of the city’s agencies, it remains to this day one of the biggest government buildings in the world. If you see this building with a walking tour, you’ll learn about the various sculptures such as, “Civic Fame” that decorates building and hear about the stories behind this gilded creation.
Nearby City Hall, you’ll see some of the remaining structures of an area once known as Newspaper Row. Previously Newspaper Row was the center of the city’s newspaper publishing industry, and every major newspaper including the New York Times had their headquarters located here. Some of these notable remaining structures include George B. Post’s New York Times Building and the Potter Building.
Seeing all these places can be a lot of fun[spin] if you were to take a walking tour. Instead of aimless walking and [spin]trying to understand what you are looking at while going through a guide book, you can appreciate fully theobscure tidbits that a tour guide can offer while on a walking tour. New York City has much to offer and visiting the city without experiencing and seeing some of the fascinating aspects would be a deservice to oneself. Going on a walking tour is one of the best ways to see and truly appreciate everything there is to know about this wonderful city.
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