We only had three days in New York and we wanted to maximize all of it.
We looked at all possible ways to be introduced to the city and picked Streetwise. We're glad we did. We warmed to Patrick immediately and he promised a less traveled path and didn't disappoint.
At 9am on day one, Patrick met us at our hotel, which was on the Upper Westside (note my new knowledge of Manhattan), asked us a few questions about our wishes (he got vague responses) and the tour started fifty feet from the hotel.
We started on 79th St. and finished a block from the World Trade Centre. Patrick was constantly adapting the tour as we reacted to the different things along the way.
Being frugal, I was a bit put off by the cost, but it was money well spent. After a tour of “our” neighbourhood, Patrick showed us how to buy the best subway pass for our stay, how to find the subway from any street, and for the rest of the day, we hopped on and off the subway, transferred to different lines and at the end of the day, we were ready to strike off on our own. We had to, to get back to our hotel.
This tour prepared us to spend the next two days, purposefully going where we planned to go. We used the subway to go everywhere. We never got lost once, although we were a bit confused a few times.