Secrets of Bryant Park and the New York Public Library: A Walking Tour

A stroll through a park and around a library might seem a bit dull but Bryant Park is packed to the gills with riveting stories. It hasn’t been dubbed “the greatest public space on earth” for nothing. And, while other tourists wander aimlessly, you’ll walk through time – marveling at true tales, meeting colorful characters and learning hidden secrets.

This walking tour starts on Fountain Terrace next to the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain. There, you’ll be introduced to the small green space that’s less than the size of a single city block, yet attracts over twelve million visitors per year. As you make your way to the New York Public Library where our tour ends, I’ll show you the hidden escape hatch that leads from the library to the park. You’ll also see the Empire State building and hear about the night a B-25 Bomber crashed into it. Along the way, you’ll hear about the battle in which George Washington almost lost the Revolutionary War, and how Edgar Alan Poe used to walk around Reservoir Square before it became Bryant Park.

In just over an hour, you’ll:

• Gasp at Elijah Otis’ first demonstration of the ”elevator brake” at the historic Crystal Palace
• Meet four generations of Astors: from the immigrant who rose out of poverty to the richest man to go down with the Titanic
• Re-live the heart plummeting moment a woman fell 79-stories down an elevator shaft and survived!
• Discover the most powerful force on earth at the ‘Fountain of Truth’
• Hear how NYC’s notorious ‘Needle Park’ became the most successful public space on the planet
• Take in the Gertrude Stein statue as well as the William Cullen Bryant statue, and learn how they named the wrong park after him
• Weep at the tragic tale of eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, who fell madly in love with... a pigeon
• Decode the hidden symbolism behind the library’s statues and ornaments
• Learn how the library was born: a story of opium, cannabis and heartbreak
• Greet the library's famous lions, and call them by their original names
• Say “hullo” to the actual, original Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Kanga, Eeyore and Tigger
• Stand in awe at the scale of the Rose Reading room, perhaps America’s most inspiring interior, where knowledge is free to all
• See where Ripley’s Believe It Or Not found all its unbelievable facts
• Sit in the gorgeous periodicals room, at whose tables a visitor created the most successful magazine in history

By the end of this Bryant Park tour, you’ll have heard new secrets and stories, all brought vividly to life with masterful storytelling, actors, sound effects and music.

NOTE: The New York Public Library is open from 10am to 6pm Mon-Sat; 1-5pm Sun; CLOSED ON ALL MAJOR HOLIDAYS including the entire Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Schedules can change, so check their website at nypl.org/help/closings. Also, you may encounter some disruption as they install and remove the ice rink and Christmas Village each fall and spring, so you may need to use the map to navigate a bit; thanks for your understanding!

CREDITS: Additional voices add actual quotes, performed by actors: Peter Collery, Tom Eich, Mattie Goldberg, Matt Jones, Clara Marshall, Hugh Osborn, Paul Safsel, Jeremy & Jonah Saks, Terry & Susan Taylor, Bob Tracy, Lisa Wagner, Claudia Wallis, Josh Wallach, John Williams.