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Description
Curving gracefully along the great Hudson River on New York’s Upper West Side, Riverside Drive is best known for the elegance of its buildings and the quiet of its streets. But behind serene facades overlooking lush Riverside Park lie shocking tales of headline-making scandals – infidelities, suicides, murders, and more -- along with the amazing architectural details of the homes where they happened. Join local historian and author Stephanie Azzarone for a special tour based on her award-winning book, Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments, and Marvels of Riverside Park. Explore the delights of exquisite Gilded Age Mansions, Art Deco landmarks and monuments that were the first of their kind. Learn the history of how and why Riverside Drive and Riverside Park came to be, from a guide who literally “wrote the book.”
This tour will run from 86th Street to 107th Street. Tour highlights include:
- an exquisite home that is the Drive’s only privately owned freestanding villa (and whose owner stiffed his famous architect)
- the sad fate of America’s first supermodel
- the Drive's first and only quintuplex
- the landmark apartment building created for a Russian mystic -- with a “stupa” and a notable cornerstone
- a scandalous divorce, in which the chauffeur got the house
Your guide: Stephanie Azzarone is a native New Yorker who has lived on Riverside Drive most of her life. Her first book, Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments and Marvels of Riverside Park, received the 2023 Book Award from the Victorian Society in America. Her second, Fabulous Fountains of New York, debuts in Fall 2025. Stephanie is a licensed New York City sightseeing guide.
Date & Time
Sat, Jul 12, 2025 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Venue Details
Riverside Drive
New York, New York 10025