Emma Guest-Consales, Ph.D.

Emma Guest-Consales, Ph.D. founder and principal guide of My New York City Tours, is an experienced guide and lecturer who has taught art and architectural history in New York City for fifteen years. As an official New York City Tour Guide with a license from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, Emma conducts tours of all Five Boroughs and beyond. She is a volunteer at the Thomas J. Watson Library in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Tour Ambassador Captain at the One World Observatory at One World Trade Center.

Emma is past President of GANYC and Chair of the IT/Web Committee, where she has been an active member since 2011. She has also served on the Board as Recording Secretary and Vice President. She is currently a member of the Finance Inspection Committee of the World Federation of Tourist Guides Associations (WFTGA) where she also serves as Area Representative for North America, the Caribbean, and Oceania.

She has a doctorate degree in Italian Renaissance art, and has also taught classes on the history, art, and architecture of New York City. Currently a resident of New Jersey, she lived in Manhattan for seven years and continues to work in and around New York City. She is completely fluent in Italian, so all tours are suitable for Italian visitors.

Here is a recent review of Emma's Gilded Age Mansions tour from historian and author Heather Cox Richardson: “I just wanted to tell you how incredibly impressed I am with Emma Guest-Consales. I’ve done three tours with her now, and they have all been extraordinary. Her ability to weave history — both US and European — art, culture, and architecture together to create an image of New York society in any era is astonishing. I’ve urged all my friends to book her for a tour — it is my guess that a lot of folks don’t know such tours are available, let alone that they are easy and affordable — and look forward to many more.”

Ph.D. in Art History from Rutgers University

M.A. in Art History from New York University

B.A. in Art History and Italian from Smith College

Certified GANYC guide

Art, architecture, history, the Gilded Age, opera, ballet, gardening, birdwatching, and politics.