Custom Tours
FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE | Any time, book 1 week in advance | $20/person, minimum 8 people
Meet @ The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space – 155 Ave C, 9th & 10th St
To book, please e-mail billtimesup@gmail.com or call (917) 577-5621. Hope to see you soon!
Custom tours of community gardens, squats, and other sites of social change are available for any group of 8+ visitors, including other museums, schools, and urban planning groups.
Our tours are one-of-a-kind, led by activists and community members who recount their own personal involvement with social change in the neighborhood. Create your own experience by selecting your choice of various squats, gardens, famous activist rallying points and sites of legendary demonstrations. Provide your interests, dates, and the number of people in your party and we can customize a tour to your preferences and get back to you promptly with a price, details, and instructions.
Sustainable tours are led by Bill DiPaola, a lifetime environmental activist and founder of both Time’s Up environmental organization and MoRUS. Explore sustainable spaces in the Lower East Side, where activist communities formed a new sustainable way of living with the highest concentration of community gardens and squats of any neighborhood in the country. Recycling, composting, water recovery, produce growing, medicinal herbs — all of this came from the establishment of community gardens, while group bicycle rides put pressure on the New York City government to put in place the urban design we have today.
Past groups include: Museum of Modern Art, The University of Wyoming, New York University, Manchester University, Yeshiva University, Marymount College, Lancaster University, Pacific University and others. Studying gentrification, New York City history, theater, collective memory and experience, anthropology, and oral histories.
Group Reservation Policy
- Reservations must be made at least ONE WEK in advance.
- Minimum of 8 and maximum of 25 people per timeslot. If your group is larger than 25, we ask that you make arrangements to divide your group and schedule two (or more) separate visits.
- A deposit of $50 is required to secure your reservation. Pay with cash/venmo/paypal.
- If we do not receive your deposit one week prior to your visit, we reserve the right to cancel your group visit.
- If custom tour takes place when MoRUS is closed (Mondays & Tuesdays), please pay 100% of your tour price in advance
- If your group must cancel its visit, the museum requires a minimum of 24 hours advance notice — or your deposit will be forfeited.
- Please arrive ON TIME to the Museum. Late arriving groups will miss all or part of their program in order to respect our Museum scheduling.
- Upon arrival, the group leader should check in at the front desk.
- In case of severe weather, the Museum reserves the right to reschedule or change a program.
Custom Tour Locations
C-Squat — The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) is located in a legendary occupied building called C-Squat in the Lower East Side.
Dos Blockos — Visit the building that previously housed a large and vibrant community that was forcefully evicted in the second and final large-scale squat eviction in New York City.
Serenity Squat — Take in the hand-crafted welding outside of this still-functioning squat and discover what makes living in a squat such a unique experience.
Glass House — See the site of the former squat immortalized in Margaret Morton’s book of photography entitled “Glass House.”
Green Oasis Community Garden — Enjoy communal spaces in addition to learning about the community’s sustainable practice of growing their own food in this historic community garden.
Gethsemane Garden Baptist Church — Hear about the renowned fight to save beloved community garden Esperanza and how its destruction led to the preservation of hundreds of garden in the area.
Lower East Side Ecology Center Garden — Discover the history of recycling in NYC and learn how community members in the Lower East Side recycled before the city’s Sanitation Department launched an official recycling program.
209 E. 7th Street Squat — Established in 1981 and still functioning as a squat today, this squat’s unique history includes hosting the community-run radio station “Steal This Radio.”
Tompkins Square Park — A rallying point for the community since the 1850s, this park’s history is packed with stories of protest and resistance.
The Christodora — Learn this luxury condominium’s unique history as one of the first gentrified buildings in the neighborhood.
Charas Community Center — Visit the site that served as a community center for over twenty years. Community members still struggle to save it from development today.
La Plaza Cultural — Explore this thriving community garden and learn of its struggle to remain standing after multiple face-offs with developers.
377 E. 10th St, “The Tenth Door” — Pay a visit to this squat and learn why fire is a squatter’s worst enemy.
272 E. 7th Street — See one of the Lower East Side’s first organized squats and learn how squatters engaged in skill-shares, which empowered individuals and created a tight-knit community.