Monday, September 07, 2009

Finally! The Obama NYC Walking Tour

Like the old saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. And if you're in New York City and have $25 to waste, you can take the Barack Obama walking tour.
Now you can take a walk on the wild side with Barack Obama -- hitting his favorite Manhattan beer joint and the city haunts he favored while studying here in the 1980s.

Obama's time in New York as a young man has become the focus of a new walking tour.

"He's a historical figure now, and this was the location of his first real political activity," said Jeremiah Miller, a 27-year-old actor who spent a year putting the $25 tour together.

Miller leads groups through Morningside Heights and Harlem to show where Obama spent his time in the city from 1981 to 1985 while attending Columbia.

Miller sought to shed some light on a period of the president's life that has largely remained untold -- when he transformed himself from a mixed-up youth to a politically focused activist.

Miller gleaned what he could from articles, the president's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," and interviews with Obama's college roommate.

The two-hour tour begins on West 109th Street, where Obama spent his first night in the city sleeping in an alley and reading a letter from his estranged father after getting locked out of his apartment. "It's a pretty romantic image, considering where he is now," Miller said.
Yeah, and it sounds completely bogus.

Perhaps on this tour they'll stop and drug dens and find out where Obama used to cop his weed and cocaine. Maybe they can also unearth his missing Columbia thesis.
The next stop is outside The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where Miller reads an article Obama wrote for the Columbia Sundial called "Beating the War Mentality."

It continues on West 112th Street and Broadway outside Tom's Restaurant -- famous for its use in "Seinfeld" -- where Obama often had two eggs and toast for breakfast for $1.99.

That's followed by a stop at the location of the legendary college bar, The West End, which closed in 2006.

"Obama drank here," Miller noted. "Beer was his drink of choice, and I do know he would shout at campus protests, 'Draft beer, not people!' "
Either Obama spent his time in New York completely bombed or this Miller kid has no clue, but for their information there was no draft during the 1980s.

Miller might want to revise this portion of the tour.

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