Stride StoriesRunning tour · Manhattan
East Village
1.5 mi run
How it works. Press start and go. As you reach each place, a narrator tells its story, timed to your pace. Your music drops down while a story plays and comes back after. Tours download to your phone and play without a connection.
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The stories on this route
Cooper Union
Look at the big brownstone building filling this block. This is Cooper Union, founded in 1859 by Peter Cooper. He was a workingman's son with less than a year of formal schooling, and he wanted a school "open and free to all." It took women, too. Below street level is the Great Hall.
McSorley's Old Ale House
Look down at the sidewalk outside McSorley's Old Ale House. A slab reads: "Please help keep our neighborhood in order, McSorley's." Even the tree grates carry the name.
St Marks Place
Look for 19 to 25 St Marks Place, between Second and Third Avenues. Today it's apartments over shops, and little of its past shows.
Tompkins Square Park
Look around Tompkins Square Park. It has seen two famous clashes, more than a century apart.
Russian and Turkish Baths
On this block of East 10th Street, look for the sign for the Russian and Turkish Baths. From the street, there's not much to see. The baths are down in the basement, a Russian banya, and they've been on this street since the 1890s.
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
Look at the fieldstone church set back in its yard, with the Greek Revival steeple on top. This was Peter Stuyvesant's land. He was Director General of New Netherland, and he bought a farm here, a bowery. Its name, St. Mark's in-the-Bowery, still uses that old word for a farm.
Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source
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