It's Spring in New York...April & May-- normally the city is full of massive numbers of tourists visiting all the famous spots from the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Wall street, etc. This is the TOP time of year to visit New York...Spring & Summer. Central Park is blooming and it's GORGEOUS. But New York is empty. New York looks like one of those 1950's disaster movies when somebody drops a bomb that kills all the people and leaves behind empty city streets. We are living thru the virus PANDEMIC of 2020, a gift from Wuhan, China to the rest of the world. 184 countries are dealing with it including the United States and New York City is EMPTY of the usual crowds. Hotels are closed, restaurants are closed, also Broadway theatres, movies, concerts, opera, ballet and everything else that makes New York unique. And of course, that means NO SIGHTSEEING TOURS, which is what I do for a living.  Over the last 25 yea

The Hudson Yards is the name of a spectacular new skyscraper complex built on the far west side of midtown Manhattan on top of the Pennsylvania railroad train yards by the Hudson River. It’s billed as the “most ambitious new skyscraper complex since Rockefeller Center was built in the 1930s.”  According to Jim Dykes, private NYC tourguide,  Rockefeller Center is 19 skyscrapers covering 22 acres—currently Hudson Yards is approx. 26 acres and so far 6 skyscrapers are constructed with more planned. Eventually 13 of 16 planned structures will sit on a platform built over the Hudson River train yards. The first of its two phases, opened in 2019, comprises a public green space and eight structures that contain residences, a hotel, office buildings, a mall, and a cultural facility called The Shed. The second phase, on which construction has not started yet, will include residential space, an office building, and a school. It’s built by the RELATED COMPANIES and OXFORD PROPERTIES

Recently the tourguide became the tourist! I took a few days off and travelled south to Washington D.C. (the swamp, as they say); it’s been a few years since I visited the nation’s capital and it was fun to enthusiastically play tourist. We visited the Capitol grounds and the memorials such as The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and others. D.C. is a city of statues, memorials, wide boulevards and elegant green spaces with huge stone government buildings scattered all over the place. Apparently when the city was laid out by famed French architect Pierre L’Enfant, he specifically laid out extremely wide boulevards everywhere because he fully expected that eventually it would develop into a grand capital city with processions and military parades, etc. This happened but it took more than 100 years. In the early days, apparently, people complained that D.C. was nothing but big, empty streets full of mud and horse manure EVERYWHERE which must have made strolling impossible in most

I've been a licensed New York City tourguide for over 20 years and (if I do say so myself), a pretty darned good guide. I've collected a file of wonderful letters and comments from grateful tourists over the years. My 5-Star reviews on Trip Advisor are dream reviews that many people would LOVE to have. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d6224473-Reviews-Jim_Dykes_New_York_Tours-New_York_City_New_York.html So what's the problem? NYC tourism is BOOMING, with over 62.8 million tourists a year (up from 30 million a year when I started guiding. The problems are multiple: 1. Double-decker bus chains....these sightseeing companies that offer the constant "hop-on, hop-off"  bus tours that continually cruise around town picking up tourists popped up 10 years ago and have steadily increased. There are now 3 companies with dozens of buses in their fleets!  People line up on street corners, packing these buses!  Their guides are "low-information&qu

DAHLINGS! Anybody remember Zsa Zsa Gabor? She was one of the first “stars” to be more famous for being famous than her actual acting talent. Even though she died over 2 years ago at age 99, the estate sale was held recently so I attended. The best part was the “open house”…for two days prior to the sale, you were permitted to walk thru her palatial Bel Air home to view all the items up for auction.  Her home was 1001 Bel Air Road near the top of the hill with a killer view of L.A.  Her 9 th and last husband, Frederic Von Anhalt who claimed he was a Prince, held the auction and he was there giving interviews to all the media that showed up. As we entered, there was a long red carpet from the valet parking stand.  I overheard him telling a reporter “I wanted to give Zsa Zsa her last red carpet.” I thought it was fitting because she made a career of marrying wealthy men and then divorcing them and getting outrageously generous financial settlements of cash, artwork, real estate a

TRACEY HEJAILAN-AMON, the socialite who alledgedly took a blowtorch to her husband Maurice Alain Amon's safe, ruining his priceless art collection, has been awarded $122,858 a month in spousal support in their divorce, plus a lump-sum payment of $1,262,121-- but she still insists that isn't enough to support her lifestyle. A Monaco court awarded Tracey 100,000 euros in monthly interim support, plus a back payment of 1,027,301 euros, as she continues to battle with her estranged husband, the 64-year old heir to a Swiss currency printing fortune. His family supplies the link for bank notes for many countries, including the U.S. Yes, they literally print money! Things got off to a fiery start last year when Tracey lost the key to their safe in Paris and went at it with a blowtorch, allegedly leaving art worth $25 million coated in toxic dust. The support payment was based on Tracey's lifestyle as his wife, which included year-round private plane and yacht travel, homes in S