It is almost August, so I might as well get into the 'Back to School' spirit.

Touring is great for personal development: school and beyond.

Vocabulary Tours

Building vocabulary helps all of us succeed in the workplace, school, the Verbal SATs, and reading books and New York Times articles with more comprehension. 

Lifelong learning and walking keeps our brains and bodies healthy.

Many of us learn through doing, through experiences and associations.  Some of us (such as with ADD ADHD) are better suited to learn vocabulary on the move!

Fun and surprises keeps us interested.  You often don't even know you are learning while on a tour.

Building Your Vocabulary Tour Goers can ask me questions about a new word that comes up.  The most questions about "power words" on the tour wins the contest.  This perks up attention to stretch learning opportunities.

I will also highlight some 'power words,' new vocabulary, to take note of the definition and a memorable sentence for using assocative memory.

Vocabulary building tours are great privately or for groups.  You can build the vocabularies of everyone who understands English from first graders, through high school, and beyond.  Jared the NYC Tour Guide is available to work with educators to integrate your vocabulary building tour into your curriculum.

Here is some research and stories about using tours for vocabulary building.  These tours are not just for striving college and SAT prep high schoolers, or interested adults, but also kids.

"Vocabulary Visits ... field trips for content vocabulary development"  This article focuses on elementary school students, some from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The New York Times reported that, for disadvantaged students, affordable, easy-to-plan field trips can make a huge difference in elementary school learning to prepare kids for classist testing bias that assumes that most words are known by children of all economic backgrounds.

I can tailor a two-hour vocabulary tour for your classroom starting at $10 per student.

Here is more about my vocabulary building tours for advanced learners.


Touring with Autism Spectrum Disorders can be surprisingly fun, engaging and memorable.


Nothing like learning out of the school building on walking tours when back-to-school.

A Banker I know volunteers with disadvantaged you to teach them the ways of Mergers & Acquisitions so that they may become rich.

The organization wanted a tour of the Financial District.  They needed three guides for 100 tour-goers.  They needed an itinerary.  They needed it in a week.

Mission Accomplished:  I got two other great guides that I have worked with for years, and away we went through a 100f heat advisory.  (I consulted with the client so they'd be prepared for the weather.)

Here is what my contact wrote this week:

"It was great, I was with the head of  ***, and some of the kids today.  We
had Champions Camp and the kids talked about the tour....  

I don't have specifics of what they liked, maybe it was the story of the Indian wandering by who "sold" the Island [of Manhattan].  I am going to see if we can do it again next year.  Although I would do it early in the day, before it gets hot and crowded.

...We will figure out what will help make it even better next year."

Next year!  I value repeat business and love to improve.

Googling oneself can be felicitous, & pleasantly, luckily surprising.

There is a website http://SomeoftheAnswers.com that has
 The New York Primer for tourists written in 2002, years before I became a professional tour guide.

Check out Rule #7 out of 7:

"7. New Yorkers do not know everybody in New York. Except Jared Goldstein." !!

See for yourself

http://www.someoftheanswers.com/dynamic/qa.html?id=20

I am famous on the World Wide Web!    :)
Do you know how many billions of people surf the Web?!
LoL!


After  investigation, I discovered this is the work of the WWWeb applications pioneer and social-media-Hoover-Guru Adam Fields a friendly-acquaintance from college. 


If you read it on the Web, it is most certainly so.  Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.

Jared Goldstein knows EVERYONE in NYC.  So be nice.

No gigs yesterday on Monday, and none on Wednesday, but three on Tuesday with

Heat index over 100 f.  A Heat Advisory.  Three tours, one day.

With all the daytime walking tours I gave the heat stroke run-down: 
Stay hydrated.  I will seek shade.  Note seriously if you have dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath, cramps, white skin, red skin (I love those last two contradictory symptoms), or nausea.  Let us know asap if this comes up so we can get into ac or throw water on your head.  (Heat kills more than winter cold or lightning.)


Tour 1:
10:20AM-11:45AM 
A 'one hour' Downtown Tour from the Battery to Wall Street and back.  Five groups totalling 21, with several children in tow.  I'm only paid for 1 hour, but a few of these tours a month, and that is almost my cellphone bill or the cable bill.

One group's girl gave her head a good whack after she dropped something and picked it back up.  After the tour they were about to get on the Statue of Liberty line for the ferry. 

I asked the girl: 'Do you feel dizzy?' -She replied: "Yes.  Very." 

I told the parents to get her inside the Customs House / American Indian Museum (a cooled environment right there) to cool her off, sit her down, get ice for her head, and seriously consider medical attention (concussion?  that's serious!). 

I told them it is better to get something taken care of in Manhattan than on a ferry or Liberty Island.  Their Statue of Liberty tickets are good all day, after all!

(Also, why was she dropping things and whacking her head?  She may already have had symptoms of heat exhaustion.)

Also on board, another Dutch group!  I love taking the Dutch on tours of old Nieuw Amsterdam.  Lots of heritage.  Most of it good, especially compared with the British and the Spanish.


12:15

Lunch with a couple of fellow guides that I hired to help me do a tour for 85 low-income high school youth from across the USA who are in a program to teach them about Mergers & Acquisitions. 

The culmination was two schools, each representing a major drug store chain, battling it out for control. 

My tour was the follow up the next day.


Tour 2:
2ish - 4:30

Financial Heritage and History for future Financiers from inner cities.

I find it surprising how few people seem to know the formula for Profit (Revenues minus Cost).  I think it appropriate for Financial District tours. 

I brought Profit up when I pointed out the Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company Building.  Monopolies are quite profitable (highest revenues minus lowest costs).  They basically charge as much as we could possibly afford. 

It used to surprise me that people don't associate the Rockefellers with monopolies or oil.  That's the power of quality real estate development!  ie  Rockefeller Center, Trump Tower...

I touched on the tension between monopoly and the public interest of having competition.  I try to bring in a social angle when doing financial tours for high school youth.  Basically: Profit is good, but not when it harms people, especially lots of people.

Things picked up, though, especially in cooler climes. 

Maybe they started tired and hot; after all, the tour 2-4pm (actually 1:45 with client and the voyagers arriving almost 45 minutes later.  So the tour was really 2:30-4:30.  This coincided with the day's high temperature,

and...  

their M&A camp ended yesterday, and today was the first day they got to visit NYC and shop!  Tough competition.  All that stood between them and shopping in air conditioned tours was my Financial District sunstroke excursion.

But eventually they got engaged, especially after we distributed water to all the students in the middle of the tour. 

They were interested in the World Trade Center, the Bull, the seaport as nursery of modern retailing and department stores, the origin of stock trading in NYC and its links with gambling, the real estate deal between the Dutch and the Natives -- did they really buy Manhattan?  Did the Natives sell anything?  What were they talking about?  Was $24 worth of 'trinkets' really a rip off?  The customs houses, and a tavern with a lot of heritage.

The tour went well.  They were very happy.

Tour 3:

Manhattan from Midtown to the Battery and back.

Then it was up to midtown for a 5pm tour, mostly in a cooled coach bus that was an hour late.
Getting us back on schedule took a bit of strategizing.  I had to balance the tour covering enough that the passengers wouldn't complain about missing anything with their need to eat and their strong desire to shop and roam Times Square to their satisfaction.  I had two customers to please. 

I had a great rapport with them.  They were really into it, asking great questions.

Done at 9pm.

I crossed Wall Street five times on Tuesday.

One of my Tour Guests has a compelling blog based on my tour of the Lower East Side as well as his own experiences there, his research, and museum tours. 

I am gratified that Adrian had such a meaningful experience on my Jewish Lower East Side Tour.

My approach to some of my adults' tours is on Metaphors of Meaning that really impacted Adrian's experience. 

Metaphors of Meaning are themes that I develop that are mostly unique to the tours that I do.  They are big-picture, elegant concepts that make sense if you enjoy creative, imaginative, choreographed figurative, syncretic, surprising ideas. 

(If what I just said makes no sense whatsoever, then I offer much more fact-based and timeline-based tours that are comparable to those offered by me and hundreds of other guides, which is completely valid!  If you have never heard the stories of a place before, then that is enough context.  'Take a look at that; this is why it means something and how it fits into history.'  New York City is overwhelming, so my tours are story-based based because that is how we all connect.)

When booking me, or during my tours, please let me know if you would like the tour to be  literal (history, facts, stories) or if you want it to include Meaningful Metaphors in addition to standard tour fare.  This addition ties the facts into concepts that could well be the basis of graduate-level theses (at least in my dreams).

Back to Metaphors of Meaning.  Adrian covers one of my unique themes:  "Juan Epstein: Puerto Ricans and how they are keeping NYC culture alive!"

His blog has beautiful photographs, wonderful background, and compelling detailed research.

http://adrianyekkes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/new-york-photo-by-yekkes-on-flickr.html

This tour http://www.newyorktalksandwalks.com/tours_jewish.html#3 was booked through my client "Dr. Phil" and you can request me to do this tour for you.

For years my clients have used me to 
    demonstrate new tours for their clients (business development), 
    develop develop new tours (product development), and, of course,
    provide tours.

I am honored and gratified that they have entrusted me to mention my services on their sites to promote their tours.

Panda Tours of Hawaii is having me develop new tours for their guests heading directly to NYC.  (Which means that you can book them for travel and tours flying non-stop from NYC - this is new!)  Back to bragging: There is a mention of me on their facebook which I quoted here

Aloha Friends...Planning a trip to The Big Apple, New York City!
Our July 4th group arrived this morning, but we have some other great packages coming up..Thanksgiving/Macy's Day Parade, New Years as the ball drops in Times Square. 2 more Spring Break programs coming shortly.

On arrival you will be met by Jared Goldstein, not only a NYC native, but also a professional guide. We are so lucky to have him as our representative. He is putting together some unique tours for our Spring Break programs.

Take a moment to check out his site at http://jaredthenyctourguide.com/index.htm. His site is jam packed with great information.

Traveling independently, he can arrange custom tours for you.

Check out our packages at http://www.pandaonline.com/newyork/ 


A client I have had for years, NYC Urban Adventures Walking Tours, had me write for their industry newsletter

http://jaredthenyctourguide.com/docs/24%20Hours%20in%20NYC.pdf

Booking me through Urban Adventures' NYC tours is a good way to save on my private tours if you have fewer than 5 in your group.  You would choose from their specific offerings at specific times for a semi-private tour.  Please be sure to tell them I sent you and request me.

http://www.urbanadventures.com/destination/new_york_tours





    

I am so thrilled to be blogging here on my own website. 

I will be posting more interesting things soon. 

Please let me know what you think.

Thank you for visiting. 

-Jared, your NYC Tour Guide