Discover the secrets of Riverside Drive with Ephemeral New York!

Riverside Drive is one of Manhattan’s most beautiful and dramatic avenues. It’s also a place of legend and mystery, especially during the Drive’s early decades in the Gilded Age.

Which mansion built in the early 1900s has a basement tunnel leading to the Hudson River? Where can you find the remnants of an 18th century colonial farm lane? Why is the Drive the only avenue in Manhattan that branches off into small carriage roads?

Which famous American writer came to a rock outcropping in Riverside Park every day to stare across the Hudson River? Who was the rich wife and mother so disturbed by tugboat horns on the riverfront that she formed a committee to suppress “unnecessary” noise?

Join Ephemeral New York on a breezy and fun walking tour this Sunday, June 4 that explores these mysteries and many more on this former millionaire’s mile—once home to the city’s Gilded Age elite and still the site of surviving mansions and spectacular monuments.

The tour starts at 1 p.m. and operates through the New York Adventure Club. Click here for tickets! There are still tickets available for this Sunday’s tour as well as the next Riverside Drive tour on Sunday, June 25.

[Top image: MCNY, 1913, X2011.34.4400; second image: MCNY, 1905, F2011.33.73; third image: MCNY, 1910, F2011.33.67]