Turnstile Tours

Turnstile Tours are built around in-depth research, community engagement, and interactive experiences. We offer both public and private tours that showcase how New York City works, from factories to food systems, the working waterfront to workforce development. With our unique expertise, we deliver high-quality tours that appeal to both locals and first-time visitors. Whether you’re interested in Manhattan’s street vendors, beautiful public parks, Brooklyn’s techies, makers, and manufacturers, or the city’s rich industrial history, we have tours to suit your interests

New York is a maritime city, an archipelago with 578 miles of coastline on the busiest harbor on East Coast. Our tour programs explore the past and present of how New Yorkers live, work, and play along the waterfront by taking visitors inside historic and dynamic sites. Our Brooklyn Navy Yard Tours go inside this former naval shipbuilding facility, once one of the world’s leading shipyards and today a home for over 400 private businesses in manufacturing, industry, and technology. Visit the Brooklyn Army Terminal, a gargantuan relic of World War I that today supports small manufacturing businesses. Or explore the transformation of DUMBO, once Brooklyn’s industrial heartland and today a thriving residential and commercial district, on tours offered in partnership with the Brooklyn Historical Society. And for special occasions, we offer guided boat tours about the working waterfront of New York Harbor.

Sample an international buffet from New York City’s best food carts, trucks, markets, and manufacturers. Our Food Cart Tours and Public Market Tours  include generous tastings ranging from Korean barbecue to Moroccan olive oil, Bengali kati rolls to Belgian waffles. We also tour food manufacturing facilities, including the Wafels & Dinges Factory and the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Food Manufacturing Hub. Along the way, listen to the stories of hard-working food entrepreneurs, learn how the city’s vast food distribution system works, and understand the daily challenges of running a small food business in this bustling city. Food Cart Tours take place in Manhattan’s Midtown or the Financial District, and our Public Market Tours are offered at the Lower East Side’s Essex Market.

Find natural beauty in the midst of the city on our guided explorations by foot and bicycle. Our Prospect Park Tours ramble through this spectacular landscape in the heart of Brooklyn. Created by Central Park designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the park has stood for 150+ years as a site of gathering, recreation, and respite for Brooklynites. Or visit the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where our Urban Ecology Tours take a deep look at what’s growing in this waterfront industrial park, including an oyster restoration project, a former cemetery turned public park, and the 1.5-acre Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm.