Here is a recent evaluation:

Excellent tour [of the Metropolitan Museum of Art]... Super job keeping kids interested [in the art museum].
4 out of 4 rating.

One of my favorite things about 2018 was developing kids' tours of the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for families.  It is wonderful to be part of those experiences.  I loved museum visits as a child with my parents.

Frequent friends of ours:  Arms & Armor, Greek & Roman, Modern Art, American Art, especially Washington Crossing the Delaware, Egyptian Art, paintings, Impressionists, Musical Instruments, and William the Hippo.  We don't cover all of these on a typical visit.  I improvise based on your interests.

At the American Museum of Natural History, sometimes we relate some of the Museum specimens to movies like Night at the Museum, Madagascar, and Harry Potter.  I like to talk about how the museum helped saved young Teddy Roosevelt's life, when he was a boy, who grew up to be President, to save millions of animals and plants that he studied as a youth.  

Visits can include:

Marine Life
the giant tree
the giant mosquito
origins of man 
North American Mammals
how dioramas are made
African Mammals
Birds
Native Americans
Pacific Islanders
NY State geography and geology, animals, and history
Evolution
Space and the Universe

And of course, Dinosaurs, including a fossil that I found when I was six years old that I tried to donate to the museum; the museum returned it with a personalized educational letter; they are some of my prize possessions,

(Again, we can't see all of these things!  We can see most.  It depends on time and interests.)  

That's what I love about these two museums, they make me feel like I am part of something great and wonderful.  I am thrilled every time I tour these museums, and my enthusiasm seems to be shared by all or most of my guests.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores why are we here, and the American Museum of Natural History explores how we are here.

A perfect day could be two or more hours at each museum, lunch, and time in Central Park, even a couple of hours there!!  Little kids need those playgrounds, and there are some fun things from movies and little details to discover.

I also like sharing and touring the less explored museums in New York City, as well as other major ones.  We have over 150 museums.

Museum tours are among my favorite parts of what I do.

Caveat:  I am not an expert in over 30 different departments and millions of works of art in hundreds of thousands of square meters and millions of square feet, like a skyscraper or several Walmarts.  The knowledge of each item in a museum can be hundreds of pages per work of art or specimen.  Each department is worthy of a library.

I approach my tours with some fun facts about the pieces and specimens that I find interesting.  I also have suggested places for great pictures.

Also, there are stories behind the walls of the museums that tell us their great histories, and how they function.  Some kids are interested in how the museum runs -- how works of art can be saved for thousands of years, who are the Guards, how is an exhibit designed?  I worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art between High School and College.

I also read books about the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I will do my best to stick with what I know, and try to treat my favorite things as something worth sharing and discovering through questions that I pose to the kids.  

I will also research answers to questions that I don't know yet.  I think that knowing a little about many things is better than knowing everything, or seeming like you know everything.  

We mostly visit museums to learn, but also to feel and have fun, and I think that feeling and having fun has more of an impact than knowing everything in every department.  I also think that such museum tours for kids and families should inspire kids to learn more, research, go to more museums, and to create art, preserve nature, or to give their lives a purpose by developing an interest, even becoming a researcher or curator.

And sometimes I bring along some art supplies in case inspiration strikes.  There is nothing like drawing something to really learn about the subject, whether it is a specimen, an art work, or about your own feelings and perceptions.

Another thing I bring to the tour: my reacting to how is the kid feeling or reacting.  Is energy low?  Need fuel?  Need a place to sit?  Bathroom?  Is the kid shifting on her feet?  Does he look bored?   I note this to the parent, and sometimes the kid.  I ask, and I react.  If I'm right, it is time to move it along!  Time to change the exhibit we are seeing, or maybe do something completely different.

I know how to make it accessible for all generations based on your interests and your schedule.

Let's take the whole family on a museum tour!

Ellis Island tours are so meaningful.  

Acre for acre, Ellis Island is the most important place in American history, where 1/3 of us can trace at least one ancestor who passed through this immigration processing machine's 'golden doors' on the emigrants' way to becoming Americans, to build a nation.

This includes me, Jared the NYC Tour Guide!  

Thank you, Grandparents for taking the risk, making the sacrifices and the effort so that I can have a better life, much better than my second cousins who I never met, partly because most or all of them were exterminated during World War II.

My personal connection with Ellis Island is from a field trip that Mrs. Zaretsky or Zaretski organized, a hard hat tour of Ellis Island when it was a ruin in 1981.  

It was not a foregone conclusion that it would become a readily accessible museum.  Ten years later, thanks to the generosity of the children of the immigrants, like my parents, Ellis Island opened.  

Here is a rave for our  recent tour:

"B--- R------  recommends Jared the NYC Tour Guide.

My husband and I toured Ellis Island with Jared. He's a pleasure to be with and very informative. We look forward to taking another tour with him this spring!"

After our tour, we went on the behind-the-scenes hardhat tour of Ellis Island's haunting Hospital.  They are fundraising to open that safely to the public.  I plan to post pictures of this at http://facebook.com/JaredtheTourGuide

The Message from a Tour Operator:

Hi Jared

They loved the [Holden Caufield Catcher In the Rye] tour and they said you were great - so thank you very much.

Among the sights:  Grand Central, the nearly hidden, once popular Biltmore Clock*, Central Park, the Carousel, the Mall, and the American Museum of Natural History.

* The guard was kind to let us in.  He got such a kick out of me reading the relevant passage from the book.

Private Guided Walking Tour of Central Park

I arranged for a private walking tour of Central Park for my friend and I for our last day in the city. This particular tour ... was money well spent. The guide, Jared, contacted me the day before to arrange a specific spot to start and end the tour. This made it very helpful to locate him and arrange a pick up when we were through. Jared was fantastic! Not only was he knowledgable on the history and beauty of Central Park, he had a fantastic way of telling the story of it. He was just a pleasure to listen to and walk this beautiful park with. It felt like I was talking to a good friend with a vast knowledge of New York City and its landmarks. Jared kept the pace going so we were sure to see the most important highlights of Central Park. The tour was 2.5 hours but I could have easily gone another hour. Jared was fantastic. I can't say enough good things about this particular guide!

Two tours: Metropolitan Museum of Art and a tour of the American Museum of Natural History AMNH

Our tour guide Jared was very knowledgeable and willing to customize the tour to our wishes. He made for a very enjoyable and day at both museums

Some source material for Greenwich Village Rock Tours, and my John Lennon NYC Tour.

John Lennon and Yoko's first apartment was sublet from Joe Butler.  Ironically, John and Yoko moved to the Dakota to be safer.

Read the NY Times article (with subscription): Summer in the City: Lovin Spoonful Soundtrack for City Summer

Thank you vet much for a wonderful day. To coin a phase...It was HUGE!
-- A curious and fun loving family.

What a day we had:

• Times Sq
• SoHo for architecture
• Food in Little Italy and Chinatown and some obscure spots
• 5 Points
• Court Houses
• African Burial Ground
• Statue of Liberty
• War memorials
• Castle Clinton
• American Indian Museum
• Fraunces Tavern
• Bowling Green
• Stone St
• Mill Lane
• Wall Street
• Federal Hall
• New York Stock Exchange
• Greenwich Village
• Stonewall Inn
• Rock heritage
• Coffee!

I'm proud to say, two recent customers have contacted me after doing a web search for "the best Tour Guide in New York" and "NYC's best Tour Guides!"

The Web CAN'T be wrong.  

Thank you World Wide Web!

I launched a Catcher in the Rye NYC Tour about Holden Caufield's anti-hero odyssey in his Manhattan.  

We had a great time!   We saw great things, experienced great literature, and we also experienced that a city that was timeless for the narrator is a city of constant, dramatic change, just as Holden was learning that life is.

Had we had more than four hours by foot, we could have experienced the inside of the Museum of Natural History and caught the Museum of the City of New York's special exhibit of New York in the 1940s photography by Stanley Kubrick, who was around Caufield's age in his era when the pictures were taken.  This exhibit will be up through 28th October 2018.

This is a good tour to hire a Driver for, since Holden was in town for three days on his adventures.  Even he took cabs.

I am certified by the Guides Association of NYC!   Their first class.  Ten weeks.

Thank you, fellow GANYC members for volunteering and putting this course together and leading it.

New York Magical Tour Moments are when, on neighborhood tours, people are conversant, welcoming and sharing hosts to my guests.

These moments most happen in Harlem, the Lower East Side, the World Trade Center, Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Brooklyn Heights.

If you have been on my Lower East Side tours, you may well have met Schmuel Gluck, the suit salesman of Orchard Street, #62 to be precise, International Men's Clothiers.

We walk by there and Shmuel schmoozes with us, then we are inside his deco era shop and he's fitting us into suits.  My tour risks derailment!

On Monday, me and my guests emerge in the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic South Side of Williamsburg, and who is the first person I see?  Schmuel!  

He told us about his 36 grandchildren, and handed out business cards.