The Telegraph: The 20 Greatest Ways to See New York

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The Telegraph, May 22, 2019

by Jane Mulkerrins

Turnstile Tours has built a reputation for offering quirky tours, from historic sites such as Brooklyn’s Army Terminal to street markets, and donates at least 5 per cent of all ticket sales to neighbourhood projects. New for this year are two-hour walking tours of Prospect Park – Central Park’s more compact sister in Brooklyn – exploring the meadows and woodlands, art and architecture and waterways. There’s also a tour of the Gowanus waffle production space for the trendy Wafels & Dinges chain. As well as meeting the chefs and learning how the business works, visitors get to make (and eat) their own waffles.

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Brooklyn Paper: Tour de four: Prospect Park launches a new walk for each week

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Brooklyn Paper, April 19, 2019

by Kevin Duggan

These tours make history a walk in the park.

Four new walking tours will reveal Prospect Park’s rich history and uncover its hidden gems. Prospect Park Walking Tours, starting on April 28, will offer a different guided trip through the green space each Sunday, letting audiences focus on the marvels of Brooklyn’s Back Yard they find most interesting.

Each two-hour tour starts at Grand Army Plaza and takes visitors through the park’s 150-year history, from the halcyon days just after landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux opened the green in the 1860s, through the Park’s disrepair in the 1970s, and its rejuvenation in the last two decades, according to one of the guides.

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CBS New York: Why Prospect Park Is The Perfect Place For A Love Story

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CBS New York, February 14, 2019

by John Dias

Some even pop the question in the park. So it doesn’t come as a shock that weddings are popular there, too, and have been since the 1920s. “The first official wedding took place in Prospect Park on June 7, 1923, and that was between Elizabeth Hoyt Senarens and Owen Morton Gunderson,” Turnstile Tours Vice President Andrew Gustafson told Dias.

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100 Years of Refuge at the Brooklyn Army Terminal

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May 15, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the Brooklyn Army Terminal. This remarkable facility served for 47 years as a critical supply base and logistics hub for the US Army, and today it is a center of industry and innovation, home to 100 companies and nearly 4,000 jobs. Throughout this centenary week, we will be sharing stories of the Terminal, past and present, on our blog and social media.

The Brooklyn Army Terminal was designed for war, a massive warehouse and port facility to receive, store, process, and ship war materiel to points around the globe. But the Terminal did not just send out troops and supplies to wage war; it has also been an important place of refuge and relief for people trying to escape persecution, war, and disaster. Here are some examples of the Brooklyn Army Terminal’s history as a safe haven over the last century.>> Continue reading

The Bridge: The Brooklyn Tour Guides Who Know All the Secrets

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The Bridge, July 12, 2017

by Emily Nonko

As Brooklyn’s tourism industry heats up, double-decker buses have crossed the river in herds, whirling visitors around Grand Army Plaza and other dramatic sights. But to paraphrase the song from Hamilton, what’d they miss? Lots, according to Brooklyn-based Turnstile Tours, which has made a name for itself with a completely different approach: depth. On a Turnstile Tour of the cavernous Brooklyn Army Terminal, for example, you’ll find out that the massive base was once used as a storage warehouse for alcohol seized during Prohibition. Millions of gallons of booze were dumped into the harbor!

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The Great War and NYC: Prospect Park

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April 6, 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the US entry into the First World War. America’s involvement was comparatively brief, yet the war had massive impacts on American society. This year, we will be posting a series of articles about the ways in which the war affected the sites where we work in New York City.

War has played an integral part in the history of Prospect Park. In August 1776, the future site of the Park was a battleground, as American troops tried to stop the British advance in the epochal Battle of Brooklyn. Originally conceived in 1861, the Civil War intervened; this turned out to be a blessing, as the pause gave the Park’s commissioners reason to reconsider the original design – with Flatbush Avenue coursing through the middle of the proposed park – and instead hire the visionary team of Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted. 50 years into its life, World War I would arrive to alter the Park’s landscape yet again.>> Continue reading