"Best Place To Take Out Of Town Guests" - The Village Voice, 2014
"Great way to experience the city" - TripAdvisor Review, May 2016
"Best Place To Take Out Of Town Guests" - The Village Voice, 2014
"Great way to experience the city" - TripAdvisor Review, May 2016
Big Onion has the finest group of tour guides in the city. Most of us are full-time graduate students researching and writing doctoral dissertations in history. Big Onion guides have high school or college teaching experience and are quite often researching topics relevant to the tours they are leading.
All our guides work exclusively for Big Onion and have completed our rigorous in-house training program and are licensed by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. Our guides are passionate about the history, architecture and people of New York. We have been called “brilliant”, “hilarious”, “outstanding”, and “irreverent”. Most of our guides, upon completion of studies, move on to successful teaching careers.
President & co-founder of Big Onion Walking Tours and Director of Big Onion Historical Consulting. He holds advanced degrees in American History from Columbia University and a BA in Social Thought & Political Economy from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Seth is proud to be a Fellow of the New York Academy of History. He has been a consultant on a variety of historical tourism projects including Governors Island, The Presidio, Atlantic City, The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and ethnic New Orleans. Seth has appeared on numerous television networks, including BBC, PBS, History Channel, Travel Channel, Arte Television, CBS, and ABC. Former on-camera Historian on, and a Producer of, the Emmy Award winning (13 nominations & one win) series “Toni On! New York”. When not walking the city he can be found fly fishing a Catskill stream where cell phones don’t work. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Traci & black Labs Ruby and Genevieve.
Adam is pursuing his American History Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center, with focuses on 20th century social movements, LGBT history, and history of labor, sexuality, and gender. In addition, he is pursuing the University’s certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Adam is currently a Teaching Assistant at Hunter College for the Modern American History course. He loves NYC museums and parks, and might be seen enthusiastically lecturing at any one of them to his patient and accommodating friends.
Adrienne is currently a PhD student in History and Social Studies Education at New York University. She is interested in the development of historical consciousness, issues of identity, and critical pedagogy. Before moving to New York, she worked at the Richard Nixon Library & Museum and received a B.A. in History and Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine. Originally from Southern California, she will not stop talking about the weather if given the chance, but she loves her adopted home and not-so-secretly enjoys how much easier it is to explore and how much more there is to learn about the city by foot.
Alice is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She specializes in 19th-century art from the United States and Europe, and her dissertation explores the intersection of gender, labor, and art in the late 19th century through a comparison of the visual depiction of exploited female garment workers in Britain, France, and the United States. She holds a B.A. in English and Art History from the University of Kansas (Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!) and a M.Phil. in Art History from the Graduate Center, CUNY. Originally from Oklahoma, she has happily called New York home since 2008, and has lived in three out of the five boroughs of the city. She currently resides in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Alma is a history PhD candidate at Columbia University. She works on international history between WWI and WWII, where NY features as a sight of global and international scientific collaborations. Originally from Jerusalem, Israel, she holds a BA in history from Tel Aviv University and an MA from the Central European University in Budapest. She loves New York parks and botanical gardens, and her favorite picnic spot is Governors Island.
Aya is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in musicology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, specializing in the participatory musics of science fiction fan cultures and musical theatre. In addition, she works as a Teaching Artist for Dancing Classrooms and volunteers with the Children’s Musical Theatre Program at the Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance (Roosevelt Island). She secretly harbors the hope that real life will turn into a musical and often randomly breaks out into song and dance.
Ayelet is a Ph.D candidate in American Jewish History at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on gender representation in the American Yiddish press at the turn of the twentieth century. When not leading tours or working on her dissertation, Ayelet can be found running and/or eating in Prospect Park.
Caroline is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where she studies nineteenth-century art of the U.S. and Latin America. She received her B.A. in History and Art History from Mount Holyoke College in 2008. Proud to call herself a native New Yorker, Caroline grew up in both New York City and the Hudson Valley and currently resides in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea. In addition to leading tours with Big Onion, she also teaches art history courses at York College (Queens) and City Tech (Brooklyn).
Clay is a Ph.D. candidate in East Asian studies at Columbia University. He is writing his dissertation on the Japanese occupation of Singapore during the Second World War, but his interests span the globe. Before starting at Columbia, Clay worked, interned, and volunteered in Japanese public schools, at Senator Patty Murray’s office, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and with the Japan America Society. When pressed Clay will say he is from Seattle, but he has spent his life on three continents and numerous islands. These days he is happy to call the island of Manhattan home.
Elizabeth received her Ph.D. in American History at Columbia University. She has taught and TAed courses in U.S. History, the History of New York, Environmental Politics, Urban Studies, and the History of the American West. She received numerous fellowships, including funding from the ACLS and Mellon Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, and the Long Island Sound Study. Her dissertation, “An American Bouillabaisse: The Ecology, Politics and Economics of Fishing around New York City, 1870-Present”, looked at the transformation of fishing and fisheries management around Long Island during the twentieth century.
James is currently pursuing a masters in urban planning at Columbia University, with a focus on transportation, development and environmental planning. He holds a B.A. in history from Colgate University, where he completed an honors thesis on early 20th-century British drug policy. James previously worked at The Huffington Post for four years and was editor of the site’s environmental section. He is also a homebrewer and beer judge.
Kathleen is a history teacher who recently received her MA in Social Studies Education from New York University. She also holds an MA in History from Hunter College, where she focused her studies on U.S. reform in the early twentieth century. Kathleen earned her BA in American Studies at Fordham University. She is a native New Yorker and never tires of exploring the city.
Kelly Hacker Jones is a PhD candidate in History at Stony Brook University (State University of New York). When not giving tours or working on her dissertation – which examines the popularization of Chinese Medicine in the U.S. – Kelly might be found browsing the farmer’s market at Grand Army Plaza, picnicking in Prospect Park, or hanging out at her favorite beer shop.
Kieran is pursuing his MA in Theories of Urban Practice at Parsons School of Design. He is interested in combining his love of storytelling and media studies with his passion for urban social justice issues. He holds a BA in History from Eugene Lang College that focused on urban social history of New York City, though his thesis explored the historiography of Australia’s participation in World War I. Originally from Warwick, NY, Kieran moved to NYC in 2008. When not enjoying the streets of NYC, he enjoys spending time at the beach, performing with his band, and cooking in his kitchen.
Kris received her B.A. from California State University, Fullerton, and moved to Greenwich Village to continue her studies in English Literature as an M.A. student at New York University. She is most interested in modernist literature and trauma studies, and has very recently developed an interest in digital humanities after taking a computer programming class. She wrote a historical novella for her undergraduate thesis, and not-so-secretly entertains the idea of writing the next Great American Novel; but putting aspirations to become a writer aside, she would also love to start a school one day to give children the same educational opportunities she has been blessed with.
Laura is a Ph.D. candidate in American History at The Graduate Center, City University of New York where she studies Nineteenth-Century cultural history and women’s history. She received her B.A. in history from the University of Iowa and her M.A. in American history from Virginia Commonwealth University. Laura grew up in Iowa, but currently resides in Queens with her husband and two dogs.
Lavelle received his Ph.D. in English from the CUNY Graduate Center, and a B.A. in History from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. He is an Assistant Professor of English at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, where he teaches courses on the history and culture of NYC. He is currently working on a book about representations of black higher education in popular culture.
Marina Kliger is a PhD candidate in Art History at New York University. She specializes in late 18th through early 20th-century European art and her dissertation is about the gender politics of the medieval revival in early 19th-century French paintings and decorative arts. Marina holds a Bachelor of Humanities and Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and an MA in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked as a museum educator and curatorial researcher in Chicago before returning to New York for her doctorate. A Brooklyn native who grew up in Brighton Beach, she now calls the Windsor Terrace neighborhood home.
Melissa is a Ph.D candidate in Classical Philology at CUNY Graduate Center. She teaches Latin, ancient and modern literature, ancient history, film, and gender studies at Brooklyn College and Queens College. Her dissertation research focuses on the portrayal of rape in the corpus of the Roman poet Ovid and its many connections to contemporary American conceptions of rape. A native Brooklynite, Melissa grew up in Bay Ridge, defected to Boston briefly for college, and now lives in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. She prides herself on her extensive New York City subway knowledge (in the course of her lifetime, she has ridden every train line from beginning to end) and her Brooklyn diner knowledge. When she is not teaching, researching, or giving tours, she visits the water fowl in Prospect Park and plays guitar and piano.
Matt is a PhD student in History at Columbia University, specializing in twentieth-century U.S. cultural history with a focus on popular music. Hailing from Connecticut, Matt received his B.A. from Yale University and has worked for the Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi and the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans. He is currently researching the intertwined histories of punk and hip hop in 1970s and 80s New York City. He fondly recalls selling records in the East Village and Brooklyn and is saddened by the lack of record stores in Morningside Heights. Despite his love for New York, Matt’s heart belongs to the Boston Red Sox.
Nellie Perera received her M.A. in Educational Theater at New York University, with a focus on applying theater strategies to Social Studies and U.S. History curricula in NYC schools and partnering institutions. For over twenty years, Nellie has designed and taught theater-based history units in collaboration with several organizations including CUNY’s Creative Arts Team, Brooklyn College, Henry Street Settlement, the Gotham Center for New York City History, and the Urban Memory Project, which inspired her current research on the Vitagraph Company of America, the first modern film studio in the country operating out of Midwood Brooklyn from 1906-1925. In collaboration with a film-maker colleague, Nellie facilitates a lecture series and other public programs in Midwood to celebrate the rich history of early film in the neighborhood.
Nick is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, where he studies twentieth-century social movements and urban history. Originally from Amherst, Massachusetts, Nick holds a BA in History from the University of Chicago and an M.Phil in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford. He lives and writes a local blog in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where he worked as a health and fitness educator with New York Road Runners before going back to graduate school.
Paul is a doctoral student in history at Columbia University. His interests center on the dictatorships and civil wars of late twentieth century Latin America, and on the constructs of human rights and transitional justice that shape international perceptions of and approaches to these regimes. Before moving to New York, Paul completed his undergraduate degree in history and literature at Harvard and then studied social history at the National University of Luján in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He cares passionately about cities–especially their histories and the ways that the narratives told of their past experiences continue to shape the present–and is eager to share this passion with all of those who join his Big Onion tours.
Salonee is a PhD student in History at Yale University. Her research focuses on urban history in the 20th century; she is especially interested in questions about political economy, social movements, gender and sexuality, and racial formation. She earned her BA from Columbia university 2014, and has been building her New Yorker bonafides since 2010. She’s especially fond of dogs, used book stores, and eating voraciously.
Sarah is a Mexican doctoral student in history at Columbia University. Her interests center on crime and violence in Mexico in the late twentieth century, and Latin America more broadly. Before moving to New York, Sarah completed her undergraduate degree in history at Franklin and Marshall College, and continued her passion and obtaining her masters degree in history at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Her interests in the evolution of crime and violence over time has led her to a fascination with urban centers of the world – especially the people’s histories and the ways that their stories continue to shape the present.
Sarah is a doctorate student in US history at NYU where she studies the relationship between gender and international development during the Cold War. Sarah grew up in various neighborhoods in New York, and is a proud graduate of NYC public schools. She moved to New Orleans for college, and her advisor was one of the original Big Onion guides. She holds a BA in history from Tulane University. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her dog and can often be found watching ducks in Prospect Park. Much to the chagrin of Big Onion’s founder, she is younger than the company.
Scot is a doctoral student in United States History at Columbia University, focusing on race and ethnicity, environmental history, energy history, and borderlands in the South from Reconstruction to World War I. Originally from East Texas and Massachusetts, Scot received his B.A. from Bowdoin College and then taught history and writing at several schools across the country, including Chemeketa Community College in Oregon and Codman Academy Charter School in Massachusetts. When not studying in the library he can be found exploring the city with his Labrador or playing the banjo.
Stephen was born and raised in The Cove section of Stamford, CT. He holds an M.A. from the Graduate Center/CUNY and teaches American history at Hostos Community College/CUNY and works as a College Assistant at The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College/CUNY. His areas of interest and research include: Italian/American and Italian diaspora studies from an interdisciplinary perspective, New York City history, critical race theory, ethnic studies, American studies, and anarchist studies. He is based out of Ridgewood, Queens.
Stephen Petrus is an Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellow at the New-York Historical Society. At the Museum of the City of New York, he curated the exhibition Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival and was principal author of the accompanying book, published by Oxford University Press in 2015. Steve has published essays and reviews in the fields of twentieth-century U.S. urban and cultural history in Studies in Popular Culture, New York History, and the European Journal of American Culture. His next book will be a political and cultural history of Greenwich Village in the 1950s and 60s. He received his Ph.D. in history from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Stephen is a masters student at Hunter College, specializing in late nineteenth and early twentieth century American literature. Currently he resides in Brooklyn, but has lived in New York for the past six years dabbling in journalism, and working at a number of respectable restaurants and bars around the city. His main academic interests concern the effects of power upon language and identity.
Tamar is a Ph.D candidate in American History at The George Washington University. Focusing on the history of immigration in the 20th century, Tamar is writing her dissertation on Jewish immigrants and the making of an American-Jewish identity in a modern world. After completing her BA in American History at New York City’s Barnard College, she moved to DC to pursue her doctorate. It did not take long for Tamar to miss the sights and sounds of New York, and so she returned to Brooklyn in 2012 to complete her dissertation in the epicenter of American immigration and urban life. Proficient in both Modern Hebrew and Yiddish, Tamar loves to uncover the layers of history of New York’s diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural communities.
Theodore is a PhD student in Art History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, studying strands of European art and architecture in late 19th century America. Long before this, he was bewildered by the space of Los Angeles, where he received his BA from Occidental College. He promptly moved to New York in 2002, and has explored nearly nearly every corner of this fantastic city on foot over the last decade, and is eager to share his findings. Favorite neighborhoods are the Lower East Side and the ENTIRE West Side of Manhattan, from 59th street to the Cloisters.
T. Passwater is working on a PhD in musicology and a certificate in American Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her current research focuses on the reception of American women composers who were active during the 1920s and ‘30s. She is also a classically-trained musician who holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in music performance. When not immersed in the world of musicology, she loves exploring the streets of New York, a city she has been lucky to call home for the past ten years.
Zachary is a Ph.D. candidate in early American history at Rutgers. Raised in Maine, he holds an MA in history from Miami University. Zachary’s research focuses on the environmental history of colonial North America. His other academic interests include the Atlantic World, Native American history, and the African Diaspora. New York lay at the center of all these worlds, and Zach enjoys pointing out how the city has been defined largely as a concentrated nexus of these far-flung Atlantic networks.
