Brittany Chang
- Nowaday provides New York tour experiences by taking visitors on a private, guided tour around Midtown in Jazz Age-era restored cars.
- I took one of its 60-minute long tours in a 1933 Buick Sedan with members of the Nowaday team while Josh, our chauffeur and tour guide, rattled off fun facts about the city that I had never known before.
- Overall, it was a unique and fun way to tour Midtown, Manhattan.
- Nowaday plans on expanding to other cities around the world, including Los Angeles and London.
- Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.
I took a tour around Manhattan in a 1933 Buick Sedan with Nowaday and learned more about the city than I ever have before.
Nowaday creates a travel experience unique to New York by providing visitors with a private, guided tour around Midtown in a Jazz Age-era restored car. The driver - dressed up in clothes from the same time period - also doubles as the tour guide and remains in character throughout the drive, which lasts 60 minutes for $49.
"A ride through the city is a ride through time," the company claims.
The 60 minute time frame was selected because it "allows for spontaneity," Nowaday co-founder Jamie Getto told Business Insider. The set tour starts at Central Park and drives visitors around iconic Midtown locations, such as Grand Central Terminal, Times Square, Flatiron building, and the New York Public Library, to name a few.
There's something quite exhilarating about hearing a vintage car startup. It's a sound I recognized from old films and movies about the Jazz Age, but not something I thought I would be able to actually experience for myself.
Along the way, my driver Josh rattled off facts about the city I live in that I had never known before - but now hope to someday use during a trivia night. For example, while driving towards Grand Central, Josh explained that the MetLife building that stands above the station was once a Pan American World Airways building that the now-defunct airline company strategically purchased above the subway station to - ironically - make a statement about the future of transportation.
In terms of the name of the company, "it's kind of the juxtaposition of the past and the present,'" Getto said.
Getto isn't a beginner when it comes to turning unique concepts into tangible businesses. When the L train that shuttles people between Brooklyn and Manhattan shut down earlier this year, she created "The New L," an alternative luxury transportation option. And now, she's planning on increasing the reach of her new Nowaday venture.
Nowaday - and its current team of 16 people - want to expand its New York experience. Getto wants to turn the company into a hub of events and unique things to do for people in the city, reminiscent of Airbnb Experiences. The team plans on starting a culinary tour of New York City, while also expanding its current Midtown tour to include downtown Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn.
"We wanted to start in New York with the one experience more from an operational standpoint, and New York is of course a massive," Getto said. "Even if we intended on just having this as a standalone thing in New York, the market size is just so tremendous."
The company also hopes to expand to new cities early next year, likely Los Angeles or Chicago, although it's also looking to go international to Paris in London. And tours in each city will be optimized to fit the location's culture.
For example, instead of vintage Jazz Era cars, the Los Angeles tour will have a fleet of 1967 Chevrolet Convertibles in order to "bring the best lens to see [the city]."
Keep scrolling to experience what it's like to go on a Nowaday tour around Midtown:
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