2-Night Trip to New York City by Bus-Focus on Black History & Culture
Explore the rich tapestry of Black history in New York City, where Harlem’s vibrant cultural landmarks, like the Apollo Theater and with the help of a Harlem Renaissance tour, come alive.
Program Summary
Program Highlights & Inclusions
- Bus transportation throughout your tour
- Professional tour manager with your group throughout the tour
- Two nights Hotel Accommodations in the New York area
- Free time for shopping at Rockefeller Center
- Visit to Harlem and 125th Street
- Admission to the guided tour at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem
- Harlem Renaissance Walking Tour
- Broadway show ticket (rear mezzanine seating)
- Guided Tour of the Weeksville Heritage Center
- Admission to the Brooklyn Museum
- Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
- Visit to the African Burial Ground National Monument
- Visit to Chinatown & Little Italy
- Liberty Super Express Downtown 50 minute Statue of Liberty Boat Cruise
- Visit to Little Island @Pier 55 in Hudson River Park
- Visit to the High Line Park
- Visit to the Chelsea Market
- Admission to the observatory at Top of the Rock
Daily Itinerary
Upon arrival in New York City, you will meet your Tour Manager.
You’ll visit Harlem, the residential, business and cultural center of New York’s African American population. It is home to historic sites including the Apollo Theatre, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the well known restaurant, Sylvia’s Soul Food. You’ll have free time to shop on 125th Street and explore.
After lunch, you’ll take a guided tour in Harlem’s Apollo Theatre.
You’ll take a Harlem Renaissance Walking Tour, you’ll discover the sites and stories that have made Harlem one of the most vibrant and historically significant African American neighborhoods in the United States. The tour will take you from the beautiful homes of Hamilton Heights to the row houses of Strivers Row, from the night clubs and speakeasies of the 1920’s to the famous Apollo Music Hall, Sugar Hill and The Schomberg Center. Walk the streets where Langston Hughes, Madame C.J. Walker, Florence Mills, County Cullen, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and dozens of other luminaries once lived.
After dinner, you’ll see a Broadway show.
After breakfast, you’ll take a guided tour of the Weeksville Heritage Center, an historic site and cultural center in Central Brooklyn. The center uses education, arts and a social justice lens to preserve, document and inspire engagement with the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America, and the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses.
You’ll visit the Brooklyn Museum where you’ll have free time to enjoy the galleries.
After lunch, you will head to the Brooklyn Bridge. You can walk across and see the fantastic views of the Manhattan skyline from the walking path and also from Brooklyn Bridge Park on the other side of the bridge. If weather or time does not permit, you can walk midway across and still see the amazing views.
You’ll visit the African Burial Ground National Monument. From 1626 through the late 1700s, Africans and African descendants gathered when they could to bury their loved ones. The original “Negros Burial Ground” as it was labeled on a 1755 map, covered 6.6 acres and included the area that is today’s African Burial Ground National Monument. For most of the colonial era and even beyond, this was the only cemetery for some 15,000 Africans and African descendants. The city closed the African burial ground in the 1790s and divided the land into lots for sale. Over the next two centuries, the growth of New York City obscured the graves. Layers of buildings and fill material covered and protected the human remains until the burial ground rediscovery in 1991.
You’ll visit Chinatown and Little Italy where you’ll have some free time to explore and shop.
After dinner, you’ll return to your hotel.
After breakfast, you’ll see Lady Liberty and the other downtown sites on this guided boat tour.
You’ll visit Little Island, a public park that provides a one-of-a-kind relationship between nature and art as well as a break from urban life and a connection to spontaneity and joy. Components of the pier, nestled among more than 350 species of flowers, trees and shrubs, include a 687-seat amphitheater and an intimate stage and lawn space, along with dazzling views of other portions of Hudson River Park, New York City and the Hudson River.
You’ll visit the High Line Park. You will enter the park in the Meat Packing District, one of New York’s trendiest neighborhoods. Then you’ll see fantastic views of lower Manhattan and the Hudson River from this modern urban park. It has been built on an unused, elevated railway track between Chelsea and Penn Station.
You will visit the Chelsea Market where you can have lunch. This gourmet food market was built inside the former Nabisco factory in Chelsea and is now home to the Food Network and many gourmet food vendors.
After lunch, you’ll head up to the 70th floor observatory at the Top of the Rock where you’ll enjoy a fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline.
You’ll have free time to shop and explore at Rockefeller Center, a national historic landmark in the heart of Midtown Manhattan.
You’ll board your bus and begin the return trip home.
