Very interesting and well-done tour. This is an activity that I wanted to do - my family went along with me (3 generations) - and I hadn't been sure whether anyone but me would like it.
Lots of great things to see on the tour and a very different view of NYC in the Brooklyn neighborhood as compared to Manhattan. I thought that was great for my kids to see a multidimensional view of the city.
Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the street art and graffiti, starting with the history of it, and then talking about the evolution of it in Brooklyn. He was also knowledgeable about artistic technique and the logistics of both authorized and unauthorized works which was interesting and gave context that enriched the tour. For example, I had not known that works in authorized spaces are replaced with new work about every 12 months.
He explained the different ways that various types of street art are evaluated within the street art community, but he did not interject his opinion. That let everyone understand how the art fit into the street art community, but also let everyone feel free to reach their own conclusions or have their own reactions to it.
Pace was good.
Our guide clearly had relationships with people in the community and was thoughtful and clear in directing the group in how to see the art without disrupting the neighborhood and work.
The rest of my family went with me.This is how everyone fared:
My 11 year old daughter likes art and enjoyed it.
My 13 year old was fine. He's not into art, but it held his interest.
My parents (69 & 74 years old) are not tour/"museum people" and had not been excited about it. Also not too keen on going so far from our hotel on the Upper West Side. I didn't think that they would do the whole 2 hours because it was warm (not hot, but still around 80+ degrees) and sunny and a two hour outdoor tour can be tiring - one of my parents has some health issues that can be tiring. They were surprised at how interesting it was and they actually completed the whole tour.
The group was about 15-20 people. It was interesting that most of the people in the tour group were visitors from other countries (Italy, Spain, and France).
Reservation process was easy and I liked that we could reserve online ahead of time using our NYC Explorer Pass. This is not the case with some other activities that we wanted to do.
At the beginning of the tour our guide had a paper of information for each group (family, couple, etc) in the tour, and even had it in other languages. At the end of the tour our guide gave out a list of the names of the artists, films, and books that had more information which was really nice.
Great experience for me and my kids and my parents were pleasantly surprised.
Pizza and craft soda at Sauce and Soda (nearby) was delicious.