Village streets can bring even seasoned New Yorkers to their knees. Streets bend, diagonals come out of nowhere, roads stop for no good reason, and thoroughfares change direction. Such intersections as Waverly Place & Waverly Place, and W 4th Street & W 10th Street do little to help.

There are good reasons behind the confusion, but it takes some digging to uncover them. Joyce Gold will explain how topography, natural boundaries, Indian paths, and estate ownership carved the first convoluted pattern of roads. And she will also show the strange result of the city’s insisting upon connecting areas north and south of the Village.

Joyce Gold has been leading tours of city neighborhoods for over 40 years. She long taught New York history at New York University and the New School. A contributor to the Encyclopedia of New York, she is the author of From Windmills to the World Trade Center: A Walking Guide through Lower Manhattan History and From Trout Stream to Bohemia: A Walking Guide to Greenwich History. She holds a Masters in Metropolitan Studies from NYU.