Today, while looking up at the looming skyline of Manhattan while walking around the Battery at the city’s southern tip, it is easy to be swept up by the grandeur of the vista.  From the well-kept park you can see the towering Whitehall Building, the monolithic rear-end of the entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the elegant buildings of lower Broadway, the stately U.S. Custom House, and the imposing office buildings of State Street; all monuments to wealth, power, and the progressive forces of modernity.  To the Southwest, the Statue of Liberty brandishes her famous torch, her closed lips promising freedom and prosperity, and all around you—among well trimmed bushes, trees, and rows of benches—are monuments to the heroic dead.  The whole scene conjures up images of a promising future, a prosperous present, and a glorious past.  Behind this façade of progress and order, however, there is a history that is every bit as sordid as it is colorful and inspiring.

The Cradle of Sin, the first multimedia walking tour offered by RUSTY GUTS TOURS LLC, explores the role of the Rusty Guts Five Themes in the development of New York City.  As New York City expanded northward, so did its growing underworld, but everything began in Downtown Manhattan. Beginning in front of Castle Clinton in Battery Park and wrapping up at the North end of Columbus Park in China Town, the tour takes participants to some of the most important and infamous sites in the history of New York City, and offers a glimpse into the shady underbelly of the City’s past. 

At this time tours are available on demand only. Contact Us today to schedule an exclusive private tour!