About

Cindy VandenBosch founded Turnstile Tours & Studio to create interactive and content-based experiences that foster engagement and interaction within and across communities in partnership with non-profit organizations in the neighborhoods of New York City. Cindy is passionate about offering experiences that are welcoming and accessible to people of all ages and abilities, and she has long been interested in socially-responsible business models, which led her to found Turnstile as a Benefit Corporation in 2012.

Andrew loves sharing how the city works, especially its waterfront, industry, and infrastructure. In addition to developing and leading tours, he consults with cultural institutions on operations, interpretation, and accessibility, and he oversees knowledge management for Turnstile, maintaining the archive, library, and oral history collection. Much of Andrew’s work focuses on the past and present of New York’s waterfront, and he is an avid shipspotter, birdwatcher, and paddler. Andrew is a member of the New York Council Navy League, American Institute of Architects (Allied Member), and the US Naval Institute, and he serves on the Advisory Board of the Street Vendor Project and the Sunset Park Task Force.

Doug’s diverse talents include being a working actor and an ecological design consultant, experience he gets to blend together at Turnstile Tours. He loves exploring the history and ecology of Prospect Park, he led development of both the Urban Ecology and Sustainable Architecture and Industry tours at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and he helps Turnstile to incorporate sustainability- and environmentally-focused content into all of our programs and operations.

Brian Hoffman is a food blogger, actor, waiter, and lover of New York. Originally from South Florida, but born to a family of New York expats, he always dreamed of being a starving artist in the big city. After studying theater at Carnegie Mellon University and moving to New York City in 2001, he realized the starving part wouldn’t cut it. So in order to never go hungry again, he founded Eat This NY, a food blog where he searches for the best of New York’s most iconic foods, and a web series of the same name that documents those searches alongside a comedic storyline.

A native New Yorker, Amanda is delighted to bring her passion for storytelling, and for the city’s history and culture to visitors through Turnstile’s tours and programs. She especially enjoys working with the street vending community, exploring the sights and flavors of neighborhoods such as Midtown and Jackson Heights. Most recently, Amanda has joined the team in hosting school programs in partnership with the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Amanda has a background in museum education and visitor services, having worked previously for the Museum of Modern Art, Tenement Museum, HistoryMiami, and as the host of How to Be American, the Tenement Museum’s podcast that explores multiculturalism and American identity through the stories immigrants, migrants and refugees.

Carinn, a Californian, has interpreted history from coast to coast. Since earning her B.A. at Vassar College, Carinn has immersed herself in NYC through her work with iconic institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Radio City Music Hall. At Turnstile Tours, she has developed curricula for and led summer camp partnership programs in Prospect Park and leads public tours of Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She is thrilled to share her teeming curiosity for New York with visitors and locals alike.

Nick, originally from Buffalo, has lived in New York City longer than anywhere else in the world, moving there after getting an art degree in his hometown. He is an artist, avid bicyclist (even in the snow), fan of hiking in the Adirondacks, and a tour guide – covering all the bases of New York State. He’s inspired by the people and places in NYC that make it quintessentially unique, which he explores in his watercolor paintings of neighborhoods such as Chinatown, and the East Village, and in his drawing-a-day project which hasn’t missed a day in over a decade! Nick’s art studio is in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which gives him some keen insights for his tours there. After making a series of paintings of street vendors’ food carts and trucks in NYC, he made the leap to join the team at Turnstile Tours to lead Food Cart Tours.

Dr. Sarah Litvin is a public historian with a focus on humanizing immigrant and migrant stories. She was the first Executive Director of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, from 2018-2023. Previously, she worked as a curator or educator for the New-York Historical Society, the National Museum of American Jewish History, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. She joined Turnstile Studio in 2024, though she worked for Turnstile Tours a decade ago, while pursuing her PhD in U.S. women’s history at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She received her doctorate in 2019 with a dissertation focused on how girls and women used the parlor piano as a tool to pursue their ambitions at the turn of the twentieth century.

Miriam Bader is a learning designer with expertise in creating dynamic programs, systems, and training that facilitate personal, professional, and organizational development. She has supported diverse NGOs and cultural organizations to develop their leadership capacity. Her experience spans work at JDC, the leading Jewish humanitarian organization, to the National Park Service, Tenement Museum, Singapore Tourism Board, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others. Miriam also sits on the Board of the Jewish Foundation of the Education of Women (JFEW) where she merges her commitment to equity and education to help women of all backgrounds achieve economic mobility through a college support system. She received her Master’s degree in Museum Education at Bank Street College, a Certificate in Leadership & Public Service at NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and from the Institute in Jewish Art at the Jewish Theological Seminary.