Purefinder New York Tours

“Each tour peels back the layers of city mythology to reveal what actually happened, using public records, archival research and a tone that gently reminds you this was never the land of moral high ground.”

Time Out New York

Purefinder New York offers dark history tours for curious visitors who want something beyond ghost stories. Perfect for Halloween or anytime you want to see the city’s hidden past.


Satirical illustration from a 19th-century Puck magazine cover, referencing police and political corruption in New York City

The Outlaws Who Built NYC

Scandal. Subterfuge. Street-level rebellion.

The real architects of New York City weren’t saints. They were schemers.

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Central Park scrime scene

Central Park: Scandal & Vice

Discover the secrets hiding in plain sight inside New York City’s most iconic park.

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Historical image of President Lincoln’s funeral procession in New York City, reflecting public mourning and themes of death explored on the Twilight Tour.

Twilight Tour: Death in New York

Explore stories of burial grounds, executions, and forgotten dead as the city transitions from day to night.

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Historic photograph of an undertaker’s storefront in Lower Manhattan, illustrating New York’s funeral and death industry history explored on the Extended Daytime Tour.

Death in New York: Extended Daylight tour

Immerse yourself in New York’s rich history of death, burial, epidemics, and execution on this in-depth 2.75-hour tour.

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Psychological imagery from Hitchcock’s Spellbound, reflecting the tour’s focus on psychiatric history

The Psychiatric History of New York

Take an analytical stroll through the evolution of psychiatry on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

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Historic photograph of J. Robert Oppenheimer as a young man, reflecting his New York connections featured in the Oppenheimer in New York tour.

Oppenheimer in New York

Walk through the mind of a man—J. Robert Oppenheimer—the making of an era, and the streets that shaped them both.

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View of the Hell Gate Bridge crossing the East River’s Hell Gate, featured on the Hell Gate walking tour.

Hell Gate

Explore the treacherous waters of Hell Gate, a notorious one-mile stretch of the East River—between Manhattan and Astoria, Queens—that has claimed countless ships with its deadly currents, jagged reefs, and legendary whirlpools.

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