• Collect Pond Park - The transformation of Collect Pond from a pristine freshwater pond with a park to a polluted swamp and eventually a landfill will be explored. This location will also cover discussions about The Tombs, also known as the Halls of Justice.
• Columbus Park - The tour will pause just east of Columbus Park on Worth Street. Here, the historical significance and tales of Paradise Square, The Old Brewery, Cow Bay, and the street intersections that named the Five Points neighborhood will be shared.
• Chinatown - The tour will proceed through the historic Five Points area, stopping at former sites such as Donovan’s Alley, Chatham Theatre, Chatham Square, Park Street, Mulberry Bend, Bandit’s Roost, and Bottle Alley. The tour will include a visit to a former infamous brothel site and the oldest tenement in New York City. Discussions will cover topics like sewage, sex, and sickness in the Five Points from 1800 to 1900.

• Walking tour

• Bottled water

This two hour walking tour is a deep dive into the dirty history of the Five Points neighborhood in NYC, once called “the foul core of New York City’s slums” and an area of “moral leprosy.” In a way, it’s also a ghost tour, as we’ll be exploring a geography (streets and natural features) erased by development and redevelopment. We will uncover the lives of the people who lived in this area (now Chinatown) from 1800 - 1900, discussing how sewage, sex, and sickness pervaded a neighborhood filled with the “poorest of the poor” until it was razed and rebuilt starting in 1897. This is not a tour for the faint of heart!

Your guide for this tour is a graduate of the Sanitation Foundation’s Trash Academy and has a Master’s of Public Administration from Columbia University. This topic is her passion!

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.