Fall Foliage in Prospect Park



Mid to late October is an amazing time to get out and enjoy nature in New York City. The foliage has just started turning vibrant and it will hopefully last a few weeks. This was taken just the other day from the Long Meadow in Prospect Park looking west towards Prospect Park West.

It has been perfect fall weather for the past week. Crisp and cold nights, sunny days. Amazingly clean air...winter is definitely around the corner.

RUBY GETS FAMOUS!

When most people think of Big Onion they think of our guides. Our fantastic walking tour guides are the "face" of the company. It is the guides that people meet and interact with face-to-face. The other side of Big Onion is the little tiny office. Usually that is me - Seth Kamil - sitting at the computer and on the telephone. I do lead tours when I can - but that's always a Catch-22 as I have to close the office to lead one! The office side of Big Onion can be pretty lonely. I bring our two company "mascots" with me every day - Sophie the 12 year old Black Lab (she is the one who sometimes barks when I'm on the phone) and Ruby the two year old (she is silent). Well, in this week's issue of The Brooklyn Paper there is a short story about dogs in Prospect Park. Ruby made the paper - I guess this is 30 seconds of her proverbial 15 minutes of "fame".

Another "historic" day on Wall Street as the Dow Jones plunged 800 points by mid-afternoon but rallied a bit to close down closer to 400 points. The newsvans have been parked on the corner of Wall Street & Broadway for a couple of weeks now...reporting on every up/down tick in the markets.

Fall is in the air! Mid-September through Thanksgiving offers some of the finest walking tour weather here in NYC! Our website - www.bigonion.com was just updated. Please check out our "Guide Bio's" on the "Additional Information" page - short bios by and about most of our current guides.

We are currently offering public "show up" tours six days a week with two tours every Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Our tour calendar is up-to-date through March 1, 2009.

Its a litte blurry - but its the calm before the storm on Mulberry Street. The San Gennaro festival opens tomorrow - September 11 - and runs till September 21, 2008.

Once a festival to celebrate the immigrants from Naples, it has morphed into one of the largest street festivals in the nation.

I am also pleased that they chose to run the festival as it has for decades - starting the second Thursday of September. Despite the opening day falling on 9/11 the festival will start as always.

Over the past few years the destruction of "old" New York has accelerated to a breath-taking pace. We have seen numerous historic - but not historially significant - buildings torn down and replaced by modern impersonal structures. While this is all part of the evolution of the city, sometimes its harder than others.

Gertel's Bakery on Hester Street was a mainstay of the neighborhood for decades. It was where many older Jewish residents would come, buy a coffee and roll, and sit talking for hours. For many of them it was the only social interaction of the day. Early in the morning the Asian and Latino factory and construction workers would drop by - not caring it was a Kosher bakery just that it was a good bakery - to get breakfast on the run. It was also popular with tourists and Tri-State residents. Some coming around the Jewish holidays and others on a more regular basis. It may not look like much - but almost everything was baked on site. This made them unique to the Lower East Side - a Kosher retail bakery that didn't truck in the goods from Brooklyn or New Jersey.

In 2007 rumors began to swirl that the building was being sold. It is zoned for an 8 - 11 story structure and during the recent building boom that makes it a goldmine. Gertel's closed in the spring of 2008. For a while it was an empty shell. As of August 15, 2008...here's all we have left.

Who know's what will ultimately get built here. The construction boom has slowed significantly. We can only hope it doesn't remain an empty lot for very long.

Welcome to the Big Onion Walking Tours blog. Over time I hope this becomes a site that shares our expertiese and information about the history, sites, shops and people of New York City. At the same time we hope to share some of the more "unique" moments that emerge as we organize and lead our tours.

Who are we? Since 1991, Big Onion has been leading tours of New York's historic districts and ethnic neighborhoods. All our guides are doctoral students in history or a related field. We know and love New York and its history. Check out our website - http://www.bigonion.com/

Big Onion was pretty much started by accident. Two American history graduate students at Columbia University - Seth Kamil & Ed O'Donnell - began leading walking tours in the fall of 1991. It slowly grew and within a year a few fellow students began leading tours with us. After a few years, Ed left to pursue his career teaching history at the university level. Seth stayed on and its been quite a ride!

Thanks for visiting! More to come soon!