Tours by Pella

03/09/2023

Once upon a time ago, Times Square looked halfway respectable.

Times Square, New York City

03/02/2023

Alphabet City

A is for Alcohol
B is for Barbiturates
C is for Crack

03/02/2023

To be fair, Babe Ruth played during a time when the league was still segregated and his stats may be over inflated due to a lack of overall talent within the then MLB. However this is still an iconic photo nonetheless.

Babe Ruth Wearing Crown at the Yankee clubhouse at the Polo Grounds this afternoon, George Herman "Babe" Ruth was crowned the "King of Swat," Miller Huggins placing the silver crown valued at $600 on "Babe's" worthy brow. "King Ruth" is the inscription. October 13, 1921

03/02/2023

This was from the time when Harlem was the jazz capital of the United States, to clarify it wasn’t New Orleans — it was Harlem.

03/02/2023

03/02/2023

Current Project: developing a tour for Downtown Jersey City.

02/27/2023

I am listed on Cities Unscripted.

Michael is a verified Local in New York, a city they know and love. Michael has been giving exceptional tours and experiences with us since 02/2023. Michael speaks English.

02/27/2023

I decided to re-brand.

Now we are going by “Tours By Pella” because I don’t just cover Occupy Wall Street (I still will do so, when asked) but I cover all sorts of interesting and counter cultural history relative to New York City — and if challenged to do so — elsewhere too.

02/27/2023

2.21.1987 - Brighton Babes taking in the sun

02/27/2023

~ To followers,

Over this past winter, I, Michael Pellagatti, owner of Occupy Tour-NYC suffered from major manic episode; and was officially diagnosed with bipolar syndrome type I.

I wish to offer my deepest and sincerest heartfelt apology to friends, family, and everyone who may have been alienated by my behavior. I have received the help that I needed, I am recovering, and I look to re-build from the ground up, and be the tour guide I was meant to be.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

~ Michael (Pella)

02/05/2023

www.occupytournyc.com

You know I do have an official website which links to my tours. You can book me via air bnb.

The inside story to new york’s most storied movement, as told by a Movement insider. Twice featured in the New York Times; also featured in AM New York and Gothamist, and endorsed by OccupyWallSt.NYC — Occupy Tour NYC is presented by city historian and “Day One” Occupy Movement stalwart, Mic...

02/03/2023

Everywhere I am at I make sure I bring with me. , ,

02/01/2023

c. 1890s

Founded 2.14.1865 by Abraham Abraham and Joseph Wechsler in Brooklyn, the company initially opened as Wechsler & Abraham on Fulton Street near Tillary. In the early 1880’s, the company bought and renovated an ornate cast iron building on Fulton between Hoyt Street and Gallatin Place. With continual expansion, the store eventually occupied the entire block. Abraham & Straus became the retail showplace in New York. The last major renovation was between 1928 and 1930 when the architects Starrett & Van Vleck designed the new building facing Fulton Street in Art Deco style.

Did you know? In 1912, Isidor Straus, along with his wife Ida, perished in the sinking of the Titanic!!

Contemporary Views of the front of the store outside and inside begin https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=363335283689188&set=a.352655218090528.78797.165513853471333

Other views can be located in the Downtown Albums.

01/30/2023

We will our fallen, and those who died on 2001. Uncle John.

08/14/2021

While it is per the policy of Occupy Tour NYC to refrain from directly weighing in on contemporary political disputes — certain exceptions, relative to the tourism industry, must be made when the livelihoods of the 99% are under attack; and tour guides are very much part of the 99%.

On August 7th, 2021, unemployed tour guides who relied upon working the double decker buses for their main source of income, staged a protest in Times Square, demonstrating against Big Bus, which upon the city reopening to tourism on July 4th — did not bring back any of their live tour guides, after letting all of them go last year, in the wake of the global pandemic. Not only did Big Bus do this in New York, but in every city where they run tour bus operations.

Our colleagues, who are licensed and trained professionals, who have spent tens of thousands of hours studying and researching everything that pertains to New York City — have been replaced with colorless, humorless, white washed, and outdated pre-recorded, audio tapes. At this time, no double-decker bus company in the city is employing live guides, with hundreds of workers currently displaced. However, Big Bus following this trend is most disappointing as the company once made it their priority to employ live (and unionized) tour guides to provide customers with the most optimal experience when riding about the city. Instead, Big Bus, has opted to run their buses without live guides, not lowering their price, and maximizing their profits from returning visitors and the advertisements they plaster on the sides of their buses — while diminishing the quality of the service they once so prided their company on providing to tourists.

With the absence of tour guides on the upper deck of the tour bus, visitors are at great risk to themselves and the tour bus operator. More often than not, riders unfamiliar with the terrain of New York, will hit their heads on traffic lamps and low hanging tree branches and endure through head trauma. In addition, they will also launch a myriad of questions at drivers (a majority who are Asian immigrants) distracting them from performing their job efficiently, and thus increasing the likelihood of vehicular accidents. Big Bus has decided to prioritize profit over safety.

In 2018, Washington Heights Council Member, Ydanis Rodriguez, introduced Bill 289-A, as measure to address the problems that have been aforementioned. Bill 289-A, specifically mandates that a tour guide, officially licensed by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, (by law) must be on the upper deck of the tour bus. For three years this bill has been stuck in committee, as lobbyists have been paid by bus companies to prevent its passage. At a critical time, when hundreds of workers who live in New York City need their elected officials to act in the name of public safety and economic stability — they are failing to do so, and thus they are failing both their own constituents and visitors who come to take in all that New York has to offer.

Occupy Tour NYC, thus calls upon the locale of New York City: citizens, activists, journalists, workers, — in addition to tourists planning on visiting the city — to stand in solidarity with New York’s displaced double decker tour guides who have been locked out of their jobs in the wake of the pandemic, and to put public pressure on both Big Bus and elected officials to act immediately and see to it that our professional colleagues get their jobs back!

03/26/2021

In the event that you are wondering. Yes we conduct live tours in New York (by appointment) on Thursdays and Fridays — 9:00am to 9:00pm.