45 minutes to 1 hour (approx.)
Daily Tour
12 people
English
Beloved American writer and journalist Joan Didion called Manhattan's Upper East Side home for most of her life. On this walking tour, we’ll scout out her former homes and haunts while exploring their connections to specific passages from her writing. You’ll get a sense of the neighborhood where Didion lived and worked first, as a young writer in the 1950s and ’60s, and then again, from 1988 until her death in 2021. Along the way, you’ll have a chance to find out how the Barbizon Hotel became a home for Joan Didion and many other young women who "arrived in New York City alone from 'elsewhere' with a suitcase and a dream" .Hear some gossip about a squabble between neighbors Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon. Pass the building that remains one of the largest unobstructed spaces in the city (and also includes the oldest balloon shed in the United States), the Park Avenue Armory. Let Didion's writing about her homes in this neighborhood fill your ears as we walk by them.
outside the Knickerbocker Club, where Didion liked to dine on Dover
• Admission Ticket Free
The Colony Club is a women-only private social club in New York City. Founded in 1903
• Admission Ticket Free
Barbizon 63 is one of the finest examples of a pre-war conversion in Manhattan-classic
• Admission Ticket Free
The Park Avenue Armory was once an armory for the U.S. Army National Guard opened in 1880. It remains “one of the largest unobstructed spaces in New York and the oldest balloon shed in the United States. The Armory is now a venue for cultural events and educational programming run by the Thompson Arts Center who offer regular public tours of the building.” According to the New York Landmarks Conservancy: “The prominent landmark was built from 1877 to 1881 for the Seventh National Guard Regiment. The medieval-inspired building became a prototype for later armories in New York and throughout the country. The design came from Charles W. Clinton, a Seventh Regiment veteran. He included a large drill shed measuring 200 by 300 feet and 80 feet high. Designated a City Landmark in 1967 with interior spaces added in 1994, the Park Avenue Armory has been hailed as containing the single most important collection of 19th-century interiors to survive intact in one building.
• Admission Ticket Free
Shakespeare & Co. is an iconic Manhattan bookstore founded in 1983
• Admission Ticket Free
Joan Didion long time residence
• Admission Ticket Free
You’ll see the Carlyle Hotel, where Didion usually stayed when visiting New York from Los Angeles in the 1970s and ’80s. Later in life, Didion liked to go to the hotel cafe here.
• Admission Ticket Free
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