New York City Walking Tours
City Spiel offers private and small group walking tours rooted in the Jewish history of New York City. The immigrant neighborhoods, the comedians, the storytellers, and the cultural legacy they left behind.
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What We Do
A surprising amount of American cultural history is still visible on the streets of New York if you know where to look. City Spiel tours trace that history on foot, from the tenement buildings of the Lower East Side to the stages, radio studios, and stoops where a generation of immigrant performers and storytellers essentially invented American popular culture.
Our Tours
All City Spiel tours are led personally by Kerri Berney, kept deliberately small, and designed to feel like a conversation rather than a lecture. Every tour is $40 per person.
Trace the Jewish roots of American comedy and entertainment from the tenement buildings that shaped a generation of performers to the vaudeville stages, radio studios, and film lots where they changed everything. This tour covers the Lower East Side's immigrant history and follows the remarkable cultural trail that led from the streets of Manhattan to the center of American popular culture.
A deeper dive into the Jewish fingerprints on American pop culture, from Brill Building songwriters to Hollywood moguls, from Saturday Night Live to the New York comedy clubs that launched careers. More details coming soon.
About City Spiel
I was a kid, watching old TV reruns with my grandmother, and something clicked that never unclicked. Here was a guy who could make a room fall into peals of laughter, just by asking his wife about her mother. Decades later, I found myself asking the same question over and over: where did this come from?
A remarkable generation of immigrant performers and storytellers essentially invented American popular culture, and a surprising amount of that world still exists if you know where to look.
City Spiel offers walking tours for people who want to understand that story on foot. Our first tour traces the Jewish roots of American comedy and entertainment, from the tenement buildings that shaped a generation of performers to the stages, radio studios, and film lots where they changed everything.
A lifelong student of pop culture and a graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, I bring both a deep personal passion for this history and a trained eye for the story behind the story. These tours are for the curious, the culture-obsessed, and anyone who has ever wondered how a kid from Delancey Street ended up making the whole country laugh.
Book a Tour (Coming Soon)
City Spiel tours are kept small and personal by design. Fill out the form and Kerri will be in touch within 24 hours to confirm your booking and answer any questions.