The Family Business
How three Roeblings gave their bodies to a bridge. Walk two miles from City Hall to Brooklyn Heights and hear the story of the father who died, the son who was paralyzed, and the wife who finished the job — with no degree, no title, and no recognition for over a century.
Start This ExperienceWhat You'll Experience
A taste of what you'll hear
9 stops, each with its own story. Here's a preview.
"Welcome to Bad Historian, where everything I tell you is probably true. Eighty percent of it definitely is. The other twenty percent I made up because it was funny and I figured you wouldn't check. Today we're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge."
"You've crossed. You just walked the Brooklyn Bridge. On May twenty-fourth, eighteen eighty-three, a hundred and fifty thousand people did the same thing. In one day. The President of the United States was there — Chester A. Arthur."
"OK. You made it. You walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, through DUMBO, and up to Brooklyn Heights. You've earned this. Now. The moment of truth. Time to tell you what was real and what I made up. Here's what was REAL."
Part tour, part game
Most of what you hear is true. But we slip in a few things that aren't. At the end, there's a quiz — can you tell which facts were real?
It makes you pay attention. And it's way more fun than just listening.
Have questions? Just ask.
Curious about something you heard? Want to know more about a place? Ask us anything — we have a lot to say. It's more fun when it's a conversation.
Ready?
Download the app, head to the starting point, and press play. The stories start themselves.
Get the Free AppOther New York City Tours
Bodies, Bohemians & Basement Bars
Eight stops through Greenwich Village — where twenty thousand bodies lie under a dog park, a nineteen-year-old kid rewrote American music in a horse stable, and a drag queen kicked a cop and changed the world. Walk the crooked streets the grid forgot and figure out which stories are real.
Central Park Is a Lie
Every blade of grass was faked, and there are twenty thousand bodies underneath it. Walk south-to-north through eight of the most photographed spots in Central Park and discover the obsessive who designed it, the community that was erased to build it, and the loaded cannon that sat on display for a hundred and thirty years before anyone checked.
Chelsea / Meatpacking
Death Avenue to the High Line
How a railroad that killed five hundred people became a park that grows wildflowers. Walk the High Line from the Meatpacking District to Hudson Yards and discover the cowboys who rode through Manhattan for ninety years, the cookie factory that became a tech campus, and the twenty-five-billion-dollar development that qualified for poverty-area tax breaks by drawing a map through Central Park.
Midtown
Secrets, Lies & Grand Designs
The buildings that lied to your face. Walk two and a half miles from the Flatiron to the Waldorf and discover the unhinged decisions behind New York's most iconic stretch of real estate — a secret spire raised in ninety minutes, a librarian who burned her own diaries, and a hotel built entirely out of spite.