Brad Fraver

I'm offering two special tours (described below).

Joan Didion's New York: A Guide to Her Life in Manhattan’s Upper East Side

Beloved American writer and journalist Joan Didion called Manhattan's Upper East Side home for most of her life. The city and her apartment itself feature strongly in her later works, including The Year of Magical Thinking. On this walking tour, we’ll scout out her former homes and haunts while exploring their connections to specific passages from her writing. You’ll get a sense of the neighborhood where Didion lived and worked—first, as a young writer in the 1950s and ’60s, and then again, from 1988 until her death in 2021. (This tour is audio/GPS-guided on the app VoiceMap as well as offered in-person. Please email me at bradfraver@gmail.com if you would like to schedule a date and time for this tour.)

Peter Schjeldahl’s New York: A Guide to His Life in Manhattan’s East Village and His Work on Artists in the Neighborhood

Renowned Village Voice and New Yorker writer Peter Scheldahl lived and worked on St. Mark's Place for most of his life. This storied neighborhood was also home to many poets and visual artists whom Scheldahl knew personally and/or featured as subjects in his incisive writing published over half a century. On this forthcoming tour (available beginning in August or September of 2025), we'll explore sites in the East Village that are significant in the life and works of art critic Peter Schjeldahl, as well as the homes and haunts of artists that lived and worked in this neighborhood throughout the second half of the 20th century.