* Uptown, downtown and midtown, Brooklyn, all sites, all baseball
* Step-on service and specialized topics, including those below

(Note - my classes generate a good deal of extra material. If you'd like more information or background on any of these topics, just send me an e-mail and I'll get something out to you.)

UNDERSTANDING NEW YORK CITY

New York City: Capital of the World - New York as the focus of global affairs.
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New York in 1609 - The effect of pristine Manhattan on local and national development.
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Dutch New York - The continuing Dutch influence on New York City.
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Revolutionary New York and the New Nation - The city's central role in the defeat of the British and in the daring form of government that followed.
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The Great Seaport - The dominance of local waterways in establishing New York as a world center.
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Grand Central Terminal/Park Avenue - Centerpieces of the modern city.
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Gateway: The Immigrants - Ellis Island and the Lower East Side as doorways to the new world.
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The Emerging City: New York Around 1900 - Features illustrating 19th-Century New York on its way to a new age.
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Harlem - A few side-streets and Harlem's main drag provide strong outlines of American life today.
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Upper Fifth Avenue - The predictable growth of the old Middle Road from site of shacks to the greatest of all centers of wealth.
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Chelsea: City of a Century Ago - The clearest reflections of old New York.
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Deciphering Manhattan - Understanding the city by way of a few simple patterns of municipal growth and of human behavior.
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History Through Street Names - These common identifiers are also symbols that tell us who we are.
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Hidden in Plain Sight: History Along Lower Broadway/Lower Midtown/East Midtown/West Midtown (four separate tours) - History is "a lantern on the stern" hinting at our direction. These four areas offer many clues to our past, present and future.
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Downtown Underground - The physical base of the city accommodates and even determines possibility in New York.
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42nd Street River-to-River - New York's many faces as visible along one great thoroughfare.
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NY 9/11 - The characteristic response of this wounded city – so courageous and defiant – became the pride of the nation and will stand as its legacy always.
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Brooklyn and the Outer Boroughs - Brooklyn's distinctive past, in particular through its relationship with Manhattan.
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Lost New York - The look but not the feel of the city as altered since the late 1800s.
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New York At the Movies - Hollywood's view of New York is always entertaining, sometimes enlightening.
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UNDERSTANDING BASEBALL

Baseball Creation and Evolution - New York creates the game.
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Brooklyn and the Dodgers - Brooklyn's essential roles before and with the Dodgers, before and with Jackie Robinson.
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Dynasties (Giants and Yankees) - Both leagues' greatest powerhouses.
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Robinson: Brooklyn's Role in the Integration of Baseball/the U.S. - Brooklyn alone among post-war American communities was willing to put a black man on the field.
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Baseball Is New York - The countless traces of New York within the conduct of a baseball game.
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Baseball Is Madison Square Park - Creation.
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Baseball Is Brooklyn - Fundamental growth.
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Baseball Is Harlem - The game assumes its current form.
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Tradition: the New York Giants - The team of the established order, the Giants fostered the game's traditions.
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Mystique: the Brooklyn Dodgers - Some fifty years later, the team that stirs greater passion (and more resentment) than any other.
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Dynasty: the New York Yankees - Yankee dominance as reflections of local factors.
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Spiritual Descendants: the New York Mets - Children of the lost Giants and Dodgers, and today most human of ballclubs.
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The Great New York Ballparks - The why's and how's behind their location, form and character.
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Polo Grounds: Baseball's Shrine - Baseball's ancestral home.
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Ebbets Field: Baseball's Funhouse - Brooklyn's emotional center and the most intimate of ballparks.
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Yankee Stadium: Baseball's Cathedral - A new kind of ballpark (as of 1923) anticipating a new baseball age.
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The Giants and Dodgers Forsake New York - The unusual set of factors that made departure at first possible, and then likely.
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The Continuing Legacy of the Brooklyn Dodgers - Brooklyn's team affects American sports and politics to the present day.
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Rivalries - The compelling relationships among New York's major league teams.
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Golden Age Baseball Media - Baseball's finest newspaper and radio men of the post-World War II era.
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NEW YORK THROUGH BASEBALL

Baseball comes from New York City. We see the connections in these baseball lectures and tours, and especially in the course "New York Through Baseball."

The shape of the diamond, the Giants as creators of sports tradition, Brooklyn's dominating role in establishing the game, the continuing and powerful allegiance of Dodger fans (Brooklyn version only)… these are New York stories. Our focus is not baseball but New York history and culture. New York will deepen your appreciation of the game, and baseball will add context to your understanding of this great city.

Note that a good amount of duplication is essential among these presentations. The development of pitching, for example, and the growth of the sport are reflected directly in the still-evident passion around here for the Dodgers. Understanding the Mets demands a fair appreciation for the Giants and a lot of it for Brooklyn itself. And what do you think prompted the Yankees to begin (and never stop) throwing money around in the first place? Well, now we're onto the Giants again.

What we're really onto is New York City again. This is information you won't get anywhere else.

Several patrons have asked, "Will we go inside of Yankee Stadium?" "Will we talk about the rotten Met bullpen?" "I'm interested in New York but not so much baseball," or "I'm interested in baseball but not New York – how does all this matter to me?"

These classes and tours link the game and these teams with the history of New York. No other bat-and-ball game has foul lines – why did baseball need them? Baseball's most valuable franchise had long been the Giants – how did they wind up in San Francisco? The early Yankees were sometimes referred to as New York's forgotten team – what sent them to greatness?

Why did pitching go from an underhand lob to fastballs, curves and brushbacks? How can we read the Giants and Dodgers through the Mets' colors, uniform, logo and locale? Why was Brooklyn willing to place a black man on the field when no other community dared consider it?

These are New York stories. On our tours we will not visit a single existing ballpark. We are unlikely to discuss the most recent World Series. We may discuss where the World Series comes from, or how Harlem was fundamental in creating the modern game.

Need more? Be in touch. Im always happy to talk.