I would just add a word of warning.

The one time I took Mr. Salwen's tour, it was 
problematic in that he doesn't limit the size of 
the group, and we ended up with a group that was 
too large, and since Mr. Salwen refused to use any 
sort of amplification for his voice, it was 
difficult for many of us to hear him without a lot 
of jostling for position....  And he does not have 
a voice that projects especially well, so some 
sort of amplification is really necessary unless 
he limits the group size.   Moreover, it was often 
awkward for the rather large audience to stop, 
look, and listen at the various landmarks because 
the sidewalks were already crowded and in some 
cases storeowners objected to us blocking their 
store entrances.

Mr. Salwen does know his stuff, and various Mark 
Twain/New York City connections are fascinating to 
anyone interested in Twain or in NYC history, but 
he really needs to limit the # of people in his 
group in order to make his tours a satisfactory 
experience for the public.

-Steve Hoffman
Takoma Park MD
(originally from NYC)


On 5/1/2013 1:55 PM, Peter Salwen wrote:
> Walking Tour Honors Mark Twain, the New Yorker
>
> EVENT:       "Mark Twain=92s New York" Walking Tour
> WHERE:      500 Broadway (between Broome & Spring Streets)
> WHEN:        1:00 PM Sunday, May 5
> PRICE:        $20
> WEBSITE:   www.MarkTwainsNewYork.com
> RESERVATIONS:  917-620-5371; [log in to unmask]
> ___________________________________________
>
> New York City, May 1, 2013 =97 Just 146 years ago today, on May 1, 1867, an
> obscure publisher on Nassau Street released the first book by Mark Twain
> (Samuel L. Clemens), =93The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and
> other Sketches.=94 To celebrate the anniversary, and the beloved humorist's
> many other associations with New York City, writer and Twain scholar Peter
> Salwen will lead a 90-minute walking tour of Mark Twain landmarks in lower
> Manhattan at 1:00 PM on Sunday, May 5.
>
> =93Mark Twain is best known for his tales of life on the Mississippi, but h=
> e
> also happens to be New York=92s great literary secret,=94 Salwen says. =93I=
> n his
> day Twain was New York's best-known celebrity. But more importantly, the
> city and the people he met here played a huge part in Twain's own
> development as a writer and as a person. If Sam Clemens hadn=92t come to ou=
> r
> town when he did, it's safe to say there would *be* no Mark Twain =97 at
> least, not the Mark Twain we know and cherish.=94
>
> =93Mark Twain=92s New York=94 starts in Lower Manhattan, where Twain publis=
> hed
> his first book and met his future wife, both in 1867, and ends at the
> handsome Greenwich Village mansion where he lived at the start of the 20th
> century. In between there will be stops at over a dozen other places where
> Mark Twain lived, visited, did business and generally made himself, in his
> own words, =93the most conspicuous person on the planet.=94
>
> ######
>
>