Seeing the Sights, Central Park

New York City from the perspective of first time visitors may find the sights, sounds, and smells more than unfamiliar. The polish of a sleek brochure or familiar photo cannot capture the essence of daily life. As much as the streets are the veins of life of New York, visitors are welcome, let me show you in person.

Welcoming visitors to New York City is my pleasure. One Token Tours, a sightseeing service, I welcome curious individuals no matter how you are dressed, I just insist on comfortable shoes. We are visiting the Angel of the Water, Bethesda Terrace, one of the most beautiful statues in Central Park.

Wearing comfortable shoes, walking with confidence, the only way to avoid looking like a tourist if that is a goal, I myself, I live my life as the ultimate tourist because everyday an opportunity for something interesting exists. A camera in hand, embrace your inner tourist as I share some of my favorite places with you.

Sharing this ‘City’ with these four ladies made my weekend in New York City special!

From left to right:

Connie Free, Becky York, Linda Banks, Samantha Zorn

What a peep show!

Careful, in New York there is more than one peep show in town; today, we are talking about the frills and the thrills of the Easter bonnet parade along 5th Avenue. The weather turned out to be a beautiful spring day, although the forecast called for rain. The blue skies, the perfect backdrop for the masses, the streets teeming with onlookers, gawkers, shutterbugs, and of course, bonnets, some modestly tasteful, and others costume productions!

I am not sure I could pick a favorite and therefore, I along with a couple hundred other people snapped pics, you can check them out on my facebook page, check'em out. Feel free to say hi during your visit.

With my appetite filled with pastels and marsh mellow peeps, my neighbor, wearing her black-and-white Peter Fox(.com) spectators - the perfect Easter shoe, we walked across town for a late brunch. We left the throngs of jubilant people behind and wound up in Hell's Kitchen, a great neighborhood for good eats. Something for you to consider, join One Token Tours next Easter and experience it for yourself. And while you are here you can ask me about Hell's Kitchen.

-Happy Easter!

In NYC for Easter, Tell your peeps!

Within the streets of New York City there is a celebration of culture, of difference, as well as holiday; marching parades mark time, express vitality, define a season, and no where else like 5^th Avenue on Easter Sunday can a bonnet be more than hat.

The Easter Parade is a New York tradition that dates back to the middle of the 1800s. The social elite would attend services at one of the 5th Avenue churches and parade their new fashions down the Avenue afterwards.

The less well to do would come to see the latest trends. Many handy seamstresses found inspiration for their client's wardrobes at the parade. It was a combination of religious services and haute couture in the days before TV, when only the wealthiest New Yorkers could attend fashion shows in Paris.

Today, the flamboyant headgear and costumes rival some of the most notorious NYC processionals in town!

If you know someone visiting Easter Weekend be sure to tell them to go to 5^th Avenue near 52^nd Street for a sensational spectacle!

"In your Easter bonnet,
with all the frills upon it,
You'll be the grandest lady
in the Easter parade!"

It is More than a T-shirt!

Capital I, followed by a red heart symbol, below which are the capital letters N and Y, set in rounded slab serif typeface called American Typewriter is pride for a tenacious community.

Before 9/11, before the 80s, about the time that everyone owned a TV, the lights of The Great White Way, Broadway, they were fading. Live entertainment became the business of taping a variety show. New York City was no longer a destination.

It was more than a campaign.

It became a slogan!

It was a pro bono gig.

The genius of Milton Glaser along with Bobby Zarem volunteered their graphic design talents because they expected the campaign to last only a couple of months, waving the rights to royalties, and in hindsight the simple design is worth millions and more. The innovative pop-style icon became a major success.

1977 Deputy Commissioner Doyle, aware of the increase in crime and the welfare burden all of which reached a nadir in the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s. New York City needed the revenue and ‘I (heart) NY,’ the logo, a rebus, became the icon, the pulse, the positive affirmation, the ID.

The simplicity is its beauty.

Everybody sing!

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere. Come on come through, New York, New York.”

Eye of the Beholder, Hiring a Private Guide

In the age of branding where “it takes a village,” and where few people accept change immediately, I Googled my name and found a Satan worshiper who killed his mother and stepfather. This whole time I thought Sean Sellers a pretty unique name, and it is; however, building a tour business from scratch I needed a new name.

One Token Tours came about in 2004 as New Yorkers were being weaned from the beloved, yet a little cumbersome Subway token to the new ‘Metrocard.’ People were up in arms as a part of the City’s history was being dissolved. Now fully transitioned in 2011 we find our pockets a little lighter.

Googling again I decided to type into my web browser “Why Hire A Guide” and I found several global villagers, travel writers, out there with some pretty sound advice.

- James Patterson from TravelSavvyMom.com writes:

4 reasons to hire a guide on your next family vacation

- You will see more

- You won't have to drive

- You’ll avoid unnecessary stress

- You will be entertained

I was surprised to see the number of stories from world travelers who said they would never spend the money but changed their tune because the VALUE of hiring a guide for only a couple of hours can make the biggest of differences in the overall experience.

- Mark Kahler form About.com, “They are budget travelers in search of value and an authentic, memorable experience.”

- Molly Feltner of ‘SmartTravel,’ “As I traveled more, I learned that while you don't need a guide for everything, hiring one, even if only for a few hours, can mean the difference between really understanding a place and having a visually interesting but ultimately superficial travel experience. Also, not all guided experiences involve name tags and tour buses, or a lot of money.”

Help me spread the word, One Token Tours, of the East Village, a ‘Metrocard’ carrying, DCA licensed local guide is excited to show you New York City!

Time Travel

In a movie it is a sunset or sunrise, transatlantic voyages, the passage of a locomotive, a bridge, that symbolizes change, transition, and the stirring that hope is the journey.

My work as a guide, helping people enjoy their time, is a lot like being an escort to the past and because I wasn’t born in New York a guest always asks, how I got here, as if I was beamed into their presence from the “Star Trek Enterprise.” It is even more evident when my group discovers that I don’t own a vehicle nor cable TV, I can hear hand held devices hitting the floor.

Trying to avoid becoming obsolete in my own time I do acknowledge the purpose of new technology. Graduating from high school in 1984, there is a slight Orwellian paranoia as our universe becomes less and less tangible to me; this web and its infrastructure is a network of invisible highways, avenues, and threads that offer simulation, surveillance, and transportation and you don’t have to leave your home.

I don’t understand it but I find it fascinating. Like all strange new things there is transition and this may be the ultimate in time travel, and like a merry-go-round, or a roller coaster sometimes we just hold on to whatever we can manage.

Maybe I was born at the wrong time and the pleasures I get out of living in New York City are the best of both worlds. From 1869 to 1883 witnessing the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, it was a grueling process, I understand, but the web of cable networking suspends and supports the future and today an Icon. The only buildings of that day to be nearly as tall were the spires of churches and when the bridge was completed it became the tallest structure on the entire eastern seaboard. Today, it is hard to imagine the bridge standing so dominate against a more demure city.

I can look at photos of the bridge before the city exploded around it and know that the photo is a first in hand held images captured by a machine and circulated around the world with great excitement and I can hear the clamor of pedestrians, bicyclists, and the clip clop of the horse-and-buggy as this bridge changed lives and brought a more conscious enthusiasm for adventure.

Join me, let’s “trip the light fantastic, on the sidewalks of New York.”

Hiring a Tour Guide

Simply put, “Time is Money.” Not sure this is something Mrs. Silence Dogood conjured up but Benjamin Franklin is given credit for such an astute proverb. Time and money are the two elements upon which most decisions are made.

Why hire a guide:

- The best use of your time.

- Comfortable pace and safe passage.

- Location and navigation, (don’t fuss with books or maps that may be out of date.)

- Ask your licensed professional - Now you’ve got the idea.

- This is how you make N Y C as easy as A B C & 1 2 3!

- I can help!

With our global environment shrinking to a touch screen, the mobile device although a great tool will never take the place of a quality guide. The individual, with whom the ins and outs of this bustling city, understands, entertains, informs, as well as manages your time; the essentials that makes travel an experience.

When it comes time to choose a tour guide in “the city that never sleeps,” where a “New York Minute,” is a happening rather than an increment of time, and where money may need to be borrowed from the bank of a ‘Monopoly’ board game, you have to ask yourself what do you wish to do and see because the sky is the limit, literally.