Welcome to New York Narratives

What to expect, Malcolm X's 99th birthday tour, a new history of the NYPD, and more

What is New York Narratives?

Hello! Welcome to New York Narratives (NYN), my walking tour company and storytelling project uncovering the untold narratives of New York City and its people. My goal is to highlight novel, underrepresented, and erased local community stories to advance new perspectives on the city and world.

The NYN motto is simple: Everyone and everything has a New York Narrative, whether it’s a proud intercontinental empire like the Ottomans or the humble local inventor of the first passenger elevator, whether its the universally expressive culture of hip-hop or the esoteric mysticism of the world’s largest Hasidic sect, whether its the concept of a skyscraper or even the heart symbol (♥) as a verb—it all connects back to New York.

So whether you are a lifelong New Yorker, a casual visitor, or someone who’s never been and only knows it from the movies—we all relate to this city one way or another, and NYN aims to bring that out. No matter who you are or where you’re from, this newsletter will have something for you. Because it’s New York.

What to Expect

I am involved in a number of really cool projects, some of which I can share, some of which I can only tease. Here’s what you can expect from these posts:

Tour Updates

My website is not complete. I am still finalizing the branding, design, and full oeuvre of tour experiences. But after my Malcolm X 99th birthday tour (see below) I am open to the public. If you’re interested in taking one of my tours, or having me curate a custom tour for you or your job, class, or friends group, please reach out!

• Tours I am currently developing that are not listed:

  • Policing Gotham: A People’s History of the NYPD

  • From Bethlehem to Bay Ridge: Little Palestine

  • God in Greenwich Village

  • Malcolm and Martin in Harlem

  • Whose City Is It Anyway? How New York Works

  • And more!

My work involves community engagement, archival research, and local partnerships with leaders and organizations. You’re going to learn about how I develop my material through these (and other) processes. Here’s what I mean:

Community Engagement

Meet Joe Svehlak, an octogenarian local historian who helped save the facade of a Syrian church in Lower Manhattan that dates back to 1812. Joe’s family comes from Eastern Europe, and in the late-1800s, they lived in the area that he calls “The Lower West Side,” which is south of today’s World Trade Center, right by the Financial District. Joe was a boy during World War II and remembers the neighborhood well. It was once teeming with immigrants from Eastern Europe, Germany, Ireland, and the Middle East.

I talk about this history—and Joe’s work—in my Remembering Little Syria and The Forgotten Lower West Side tours.

Local historian and preservationist Joe Svehlak on the left, followed by me in the center, and community activist Esther Regelson on the right. Esther lives in the last tenement of Little Syria.

Thanks to Joe, the stories of the immigrants who once called that area home are able to be told. But he is at an age where he believes it is time to pass on the legacy, and I am blessed that he chose me among those to inherit it.

I will be passing on his stories, inheriting his tours, and bringing his material to wider audiences in my work. It truly is the honor of my life to be able to do this.

Archival Research

I also do lots of independent archival research. In simple terms, that means going through old documents, records, files, and books to piece them together into a story. Joe passed on some really cool books to me, some of which are around 150 years old. They contain gems of history that you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. My archival research will entail going through these materials and sharing my gems with you all! Check out some of them below.

Gifted to me by Joe Svehlak, going clockwise from top-left: A history of Brooklyn (1884); a handbook of NYC (1893); a book from 1927 on NYC fashion in the 1880s; and a book about NYC’s institutions (1871).

Local Partnerships

Many local tour companies parachute into neighborhoods to tell the stories of their places and people without truly getting to know them. I strive to be different. All of my tours and experiences are curated through deep and abiding partnerships with local leaders and organizations. Sometimes this can be a small nonprofit, other times it can be a house of worship, and other times it can be a museum. Sometimes they help inform my work, and sometimes I help inform theirs. But it’s always mutually beneficial. Here are some cool partnerships I’m working on:

• For my “Little Syria” tour, I learn from Linda Jacobs. She is a descendant of some of the original inhabitants of the neighborhood, and the definitive authority on the subject. She heads the Washington Street Historical Society, which houses a lot of that history.

• I will be joining a scholarly convening with the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side to help inform their work on “lived religion” (a fancy term for religion that takes place outside of houses of worship) in their exhibitions.

• I am getting trained by the heads of the Islamic art department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to lead tours through their galleries, which cover 1,400 years of Islamic art and architectural history. I am very excited for this, because Islamic Studies is actually my other passion (and what I was trained on in graduate school)!

Malcolm X’s Harlem: Honoring His 99th Birthday

NYN was birthed first as a walking tour company, and while I’ve led numerous tours for private clients, I haven’t yet done one for the public yet. I decided to make my first public walking tour in honor of Malcolm X on his 99th birthday. And Sunday, May 19th, 2024 will finally mark that day.

I won’t say too much about the tour, as the event description (linked below) speaks for itself, but I first read the Autobiography in my last year of high school, probably around 2010, and it forever changed me. I know that tens of thousands of people would say the same. I picked it up for the first time as an adult to read it afresh, and decided to turn it into a walking tour.

There are only 25 tickets and they will sell fast. As a subscriber, you’re the first to have the chance to claim them, so I hope you can join me next Sunday. You can access the link to the Eventbrite page here!

Malcolm X’s Harlem: A Walking Tour in Honor of His 99th Birthday, led by Asad Dandia of New York Narratives (Designed by: @designsbysaj)

A New Audio Documentary on NYPD History

I’m interviewed and cited in a new 8-part audio documentary series on the history of the NYPD, called Empire City, which will premier at the 2024 Tribeca Festival this June! This project was led by a friend and comrade of mine, NYU Journalism professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, who you should follow if you’re on Twitter! And of course, follow me too if you aren’t already.

Please Subscribe!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! I’ll stop here, as I don’t want to overwhelm either you or me, but if you’ve liked what you read up until this point, please share this newsletter with your friends, and consider a paid subscription to help support my work. All of this is a passion project and side hustle. I have to work other jobs to be able to feed myself (that’s New York for you!), so a paid subscription would go a really long way. And there are some cool perks in it for you too!

The link below invites you to subscribe if you aren’t, or upgrade to paid if you are.

Thanks so much, and welcome again to New York Narratives.

With love,

Asad