Photo: Percival Kestreltail (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio walk through four centuries of Lower Manhattan, from the Dutch town to the World Trade Center site. It begins at Castle Clinton, the fort of 1808 to 1811 that became Castle Garden, where more than eight million immigrants landed, and Bowling Green, where a crowd pulled down the statue of George the Third in July 1776, with Cass Gilbert's Custom House at its foot. Then Fraunces Tavern, where Washington said farewell to his officers in 1783; Stone Street, the first street in New Amsterdam to be cobbled; and Wall Street, named for the Dutch palisade, with Federal Hall, where Washington took the oath as first President in 1789, the Stock Exchange and the bomb scars of 1920 on 23 Wall Street. Trinity Church holds Alexander Hamilton's grave. The walk goes on to the National September 11 Memorial and its two pools in the towers' footprints, St. Paul's Chapel, which cared for the recovery workers for eight months, the Woolworth Building of 1913, City Hall Park on the old Commons, and the African Burial Ground, where some fifteen thousand people were buried.
11 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 290 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 66 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The Battery and Castle Clinton, Bowling Green and the Custom House, Fraunces Tavern, Stone Street and the Stadt Huys.
Wall Street, Federal Hall and the Stock Exchange, Trinity Church, The National September 11 Memorial.
St. Paul's Chapel, Woolworth Building, City Hall Park and the Commons, African Burial Ground National Monument.
The harbour fort of 1808 to 1811 that became Castle Garden, the landing station for more than eight million immigrants.
The 1719 merchant's house where George Washington said farewell to the officers of the Continental Army on 4 December 1783.
Where Washington took the oath as the first President on 30 April 1789, across from the Stock Exchange of 1903.
Richard Upjohn's brownstone church of 1846, the tallest building in New York until 1890, with Alexander Hamilton's grave in its churchyard.
Two pools in the footprints of the towers, with the names of the 2,983 people killed in the attacks of 2001 and 1993.
The burial ground of free and enslaved Africans from about the 1690s to 1794, rediscovered in 1991.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 11 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 11 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Lower Manhattan — From New Amsterdam to Ground Zero, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
11 narration points, including The Battery and Castle Clinton, Bowling Green and the Custom House, Stone Street and the Stadt Huys, Wall Street, Federal Hall and the Stock Exchange and Trinity Church. That is about 19 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2½ hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 11 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.