Second Avenue is rich in cultural history. You’ll stroll down the historic street of the famed “Yiddish Rialto,” and explore the connections between what is now the East Village and the Lower East Side, with Urban Historian, Elissa Sampson.

You’ll see names of many famous performers of the Yiddish theater on the Second Avenue “Starwalk.”

Visit Community Synagogue, originally St. Marks Lutheran Church, spiritual home of the German congregation that lost 1,000 parishioners in the General Slocum disaster. Hear about citizen activism at a selection of charming “hidden” gardens.

Elissa, a visiting scholar and lecturer in the Jewish Studies Program at Cornell University, was honored with a Lower East Side Community Hero Award as part of the Lower East Side History Month celebration last year. The award recognizes community members “whose contributions have been deeply meaningful and yet are often the ‘unsung’ heroes of the neighborhood,” Her recent publications touch upon Jewish life today in the Lower East Side, contemporary Yiddish theater, commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the academic use of the term “ghetto” in relation to East European Jews in the U.S., and ethnicity and museums.

There is an additional $2 for tickets purchased on the day of the tour

We tour rain or shine.