Episode 194: NYC's Most Sought After Tour Guide | Lady Altovise | Tour Guide, Performer, and Historian
Lady Altovise is a one-woman show...in the best way possible. A licensed NYC tour guide, she brings Harlem history to life with the energy of a Broadway performance and the heart of a lifelong storyteller. Lady Altovise shares how her background in theater and dance helps her keep Black history vibrant, why tourists and locals alike need to experience Harlem on foot, and what it means to be a “lady” in today’s world. She also opens up about being a single mom, a dreamer, and the woman with the audacity to want it all. From the Underground Railroad to gospel music, she’s preserving the past while building her dream future.
“When you live in NYC you can spin a globe and touch it tonight. Restaurants, music, languages it’s all here. Every meal can be from a different country!”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters
Chapters:00:00 Why she became a NYC tour guide
01:20 Surprising truths about slavery in New York
03:00 From theater to tourism: how she found her calling
05:00 Turning history into a full-body experience
07:10 Studying Broadway legends at Lincoln Center
09:15 Why Harlem history matters now more than ever
11:00 What it means to be a powerful lady
13:00 Being a mom, artist, and entrepreneur
15:20 Surviving the pandemic as a performer
17:00 Creating her own tour company
18:30 Finding joy in storytelling and service
20:00 The dream gig she’s manifesting now
21:45 What visitors get wrong about NYC
23:15 Advice for playing tourist in your own city
25:00 Her gospel tour and preserving culture through music
27:15 What’s next for Lady Altovise
As an African American coming from Chattanooga, Tennessee, we know about Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky. But I was floored when I found out that New York was the second largest concentration of enslaved Africans in Americans in America outside of Charleston, North Carolina.
That's Lady Altovise and this is The Powerful Ladies podcast.
Hi guys, I'm Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life by showing you that anything is possible. People who have mastered. Freedom, ease and success. Who are living their best and most ridiculous lives and who are making an impact are often people you've never heard of until now.
I love field trips. I love history, learning, hearing all the stories, asking all the questions, and today's guest, lady Al Toves is the founder of Lady Al Alves, New York City Tours. She brings all of her experience in theater, dance, writing, producing, and music. To each of her tours, from soul food to gospel tours, to the most interesting parts of Harlem history and honestly crafting custom tours with you.
Her tours, like herself are unique, high energy and unforgettable. I'm excited for you to hear her story, her source of joy, and why sharing the good and the bad parts of our history. Is one of the most important things we can do as humans.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hello. Thank you for having me.
I am very excited to talk to you tonight. Let's begin by telling everyone who you are, where you are, and what you're up to.
I am Lady Altovise and I bring you greetings from Harlem USA. Very happy to be here today. I've been looking forward to this
all month,
and how are you making the world a better place in Harlem?
I am a licensed Sightsee guide for the State of New York, and I specialize and concentrate on the African experience contribution to. How that, so I give walking tours. We talk about the Underground Railroad, we talk about the Civil rights movement.
We even talk about the crack era and the heroin epidemic, the LGBT lgbtqia, A movement, and of course the gentrification and the Black Lives Matter movement.
So just a few significant parts of history, no big deal.
Just a little drop here and there.
How did you get into being a tour guide for Harlem?
Funny story.
I was in a competition to win a trip to Egypt for my 9-year-old son at the time. And if you would take a one hour tour, a one day tour, a one week tour, your name will go in a hat. To winter trip to Egypt, in the process of taking these tours, I came across the most dreadfully boring tour guides ever, and I ended up in New York to get my master's degree in theater, and I said, this is theater.
You have a captivated audit. The history is your script. And New York City. Duh. That's your stage. So I said I'll be one hell of a tour guide because I would turn it into a show. I sing, I dance, I act. Watch out tourism. Here I come.
And how long have you been doing this now?
19 years. And on May 13th of next year, it will be my.
Wow. That is so amazing. Yep. You know what surprised you about New York's history as you were building out your own tours?
That there was slavery in New York City.
As an African American coming from Chatanooga, Tennessee. We know about Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky. But I could, I was floored when I found out that New York was the second largest concentration of enslaved Africans in Americans in America outside of Charleston, North Carolina.
One in five New Yorkers were enslaved Africans all the way back to the 16 hundreds, 17 hundreds. We were chopping down trees, clearing roadways. With the Dutch,
yeah.
You never learned that in school?
No I was just on a plantation tour. It was a slavery to freedom specific tour. And what state? In Charleston?
South Carolina. Okay. And
what, because I went on one, which one was it?
The one at Magnolia Plantation? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I took that one. Run by Joe, the man who's sleeping in every existing slave. How possible. Who's amazing. I want him on the podcast. But I, what floored me about.
The history there was how, and my thought was why after the fact if Africans who were enslaving other Africans as people had been since, Egyptian times or earlier. Yeah. Yeah. They taught it more as an inden. They had it as like an indentured servitude was like seven years. And then I'm like, who was the sicko that when slavery came to the US we thought, you know what, it's for life.
And you know what? It's gonna be every generation of your family line. Who made that choice?
You know what, I'm in the midst and I dunno if I can drop this, but I'm in the midst of watching the Jeffrey Dumber docuseries and it has exposed me to a level of psychotic willfulness. People, I don't like to say normal, but everyday people have an ability to turn on and turn off. But once you get away with it, oh, that's me. Once you get away with it, it your willpower is less and less. It's almost like even if you are stealing a cookie out of the cookie jar and before you know it. You're stealing the whole batch as soon as it comes outta the oven, like whatcha doing?
And that's just like human nature. So I think when it came to slavery, so instead of just having them, God dog, it is the seventh year, I'm gonna have to squeeze my own lemons, or I'm gonna have to go out here and actually work. No, I don't wanna, and who's gonna stop me And my husband is the governor. So he could just write a law and make it legal.
And it happened, and you're compensating people financially. So your friend who says, no, I don't really like slaves, the lady at, beat Your Stove when she came down south and row Uncle Tom's cabin, she was against it, but it was so much luxury with it when they gave her topsy.
Here she is a slave owner, and Topsy is just doing everything for her. And even because she stole the little ribbon, because she was expected to be a thief, she didn't even steal it. So she was like, topsy, why did you say you stole the ribbon? She said, because you expected me to, ma'am. So just human nature just makes people say, okay, this is allowed.
Let's far I can push the envelope.
Yeah. It's heartbreaking.
It's, and I'm happy. More and more white people are willing to have the conversation. These are conversations we have in black households day in day out to the point where you may even hear black people say, I'm gonna just roll over and have a convulsion if I see another slave movie.
These movies have to be made because not only are. Certain other groups that share this earth with us, unfamiliar with it, or uncomfortable with it. But their very own like gen Yeah. Z and millennials, they don't know who Emmett Till is. They don't know who Medgar Everest is, and we have to talk about it.
And I think it's really interesting to see how you are weaving in the history, the parts that we're excited to talk about and the parts that we're like, ugh, to talk about. But bringing it into this really fun field trip style experience. To because
Yes, because New York makes it so easy. Yeah.
And there's something like, I love field trips. I have since I was a kid. I think we need more of them for adults. Me too. And when you're in a place, like there's, I don't understand, not asking all the questions. Like I'm the one that were like, stop asking questions please. And I'm like, but. So
I'm gonna write 'em down because I gotta get them out.
Yeah. I gotta get them out.
And I'm like, don't you have these same questions? But to be learning about history in the space where it happened and to touch the walls that other people touched through history, it changes things. And I feel so lucky that I grew up in the Northeast where. There's access to so much history, so easily Uhhuh.
We're now living in California.
Like where did people go? I was born in
New Jersey. I lived outside of Philadelphia for a long time and then finished high school north of Boston. So Boston, New York, Philadelphia, DC Oh, yeah. All of it. All of it's been covered from when I was like, five until now.
And. Okay. Living now in California and I'm like, people haven't been to New York City. I'm like, wait, what?
Yeah. Wait. What? You have people in the Bronx who's never been to Manhattan Times Square.
What are we doing boys and girls? What are we doing?
Yeah, it's expensive. I, before I moved to New York, I never visited New York.
I came to New York to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and I, at this point, I have a bachelor's degree in theater and dance and voice. And when I went to amda, I learned what cultural shock means in a matter of hours. All I knew was Dream Girls and the Wiz. I'm like, who is this Fred guy?
Wait, I said, who is Duke Elephant? Wow. I didn't know ton. So in, in the South, it's as if I was studying practicum, like how to bring theater and the appreciation of the art. But the actual, like Barbara Streisand Masters. Oh, I don't know. Ethel Merman. No. I was I used to spend. Waking hour in the public library at Lincoln Center because you could listen, this is before the internet.
I was 97, 98, 99. I would listen to the Broadway performances with Sammy Davis Jr. And Golden Boy, and it was just like. All of this happened before my mother was born. So this is, I thought it was new. I thought it was like seventies, eighties. So at that point I was completely turned on. I was so happy to be in New York.
I could not get, I literally would probably second act of play. Do you know what that is? I learned it from John Limo, one man show, and he basically in his one man show, talked about how he was so poor and obsessed with theater. He would put on his dress suit and go to Broadway theaters and intermission, grab a cigarette and a playbill in the trash can and just blend in audience and seats.
I that,
I learned that from him because I didn't have the money, but I couldn't get enough. Are you hearing the no notification? Oh, okay. Because I'm getting crazy. I'm a member of a chat group and these notifications are coming back. I'm gonna have to cut it off. So I would second at the play once a week, and that's how I saw most Broadway theater as a student.
But I was studying, so now to give back, I try to at least send two students to a Broadway show. I love that.
What, so you clearly fell in love with performing. When you were in Tennessee still and where did that come from? Did you see a, did you see a play? Did you see something? Did someone tell you might be good at this?
I got it at the girls club. I would go to the girls club after school and they had dance and they had theater, and they had boys, and being the baby of nine, I didn't know I was performing. I just knew I was cute. And my four brothers and my four sisters and my. Parents and I had two sets of grandparents.
So I was born into an audience and they would just applaud and make me take a bow. My name is Lady because they said that day I was born, I was a little lady and it was also the year that Billie Holiday came out with Lady seats, the blues. So that's why. People say your name is your real name lady.
It's not on my birth certificate, but I have been lady since the day I was born, so that's when I got bit by the bug at the girls club and I loved the TV show fame and Debbie Allen. And sweat. This is where you, ah, and my brother killed my dream. I was maybe five. And so he would be about 11 and he said, grow up.
You can't go to school and sing and dance all day. And I was like, oh, that does sound like a fantasy. I didn't know that you could go to a performing arts high school. But when I went to college, I found out you could major. And dance in theater. 'cause I went to college to be a dentist as soon as I was in a beauty pageant and won the beauty pageant and got the scholarship.
I changed my major the next day. I can sing and dance and changing this dentistry major.
So I was bit by the bug at the girls club around age five or six, but I was dancing around the. As soon as I could walk, I was dancing before I walk. Part of me
really wants you to be a dentist 'cause that would be the best dentist ever to go to. The other part of me cannot even imagine you being a right.
You're like doing backstroke in the chair, dancing along Yeah.
And while you're, and while you numb up, I'm gonna give you this.
That would be a great idea for a distance, if you have anxiety, come to me. I'll calm your nerves. I'll give you some Shakespeare. La Tyler Perry. It
would be so inter, it'd be an a whole experience. It's I don't know if you've been seeing what they're doing with the Savannah Bananas, that new baseball.
Check 'em out. No, they're like, they're, they have their whole little show right now. They were spotted about all the entertainment they're bringing to minor league baseball. But it would be like a Savannah Bananas for dentistry.
Of dentistry. And that may be my second prepare because teeth have not changed.
So I did study for two years. I'll just pick up where I left off. Then Tan, I'll be a freshman dentist at,
why not 68? Why not? No. So when you decided to go into tourism and giving historical tours and showing people how amazing your adopted home is, were people in your life what are you doing?
Was there resistance or were they saying, go for it?
What's taking you so long? Because when I explained to them how. Trans into tourism from theater. It's a no brainer and a, and it also gives me the flexibility to, because I write and I produce and I direct. So if I get a call to go to Jamaica and do a one woman show, or I go to Sweden and choreograph a number, or I could call back home to Chattanooga, I simply can call a colleague and they can take my tour.
So it's perfect. So I still get to audition. I still get to act. I still get to create, and I get such a thorough sense of fulfillment every day. From what I do I can honestly say I'm blessed because the moment I open my eyes every morning, I cannot wait to. Because I know. I'm going to touch one person.
What are the,
yeah, so when you say, I'm that person that asks a lot of questions, I can't wait to meet you. Yeah, because I'll probably hang out with you after. We'll go and have some waffles and we'll probably talk until eight o'clock at night if you're available, because I'm that person. That's why
I've made so many friends in foreign countries.
Uhhuh. Yes. Yes. Because they do, they're like, oh, we're gonna this. Do you wanna keep hanging out? I'm like, yes. Show me more.
Yes.
Yep.
Can't get enough of it. Exactly.
When you hear the words powerful and ladies, what do they mean to you? And when they're put together, does the definition change or shift?
Ooh. It may sound a little egotistical, but I hear lady. So I automatically think of myself. But powerful, I grew up around only powerful women. I don't, I think the only way I knew I was surrounded by powerful women is because of cinema and tv. And you had okay, let's take the TV show Alice.
We know Flow and we know Vera. My house was full of flows. Like male kiss. My grits was everywhere. I didn't know Vera. I didn't know Vera. But it wasn't until later in life that I saw the strength in Vera. Vera was aware, but she was just, she was an empath. Yeah. To what male was going through. Flo didn't have the time to give two rats ass about what male was going through.
Vera did. Powerful. Powerful. I think of number one, sadly.
Ruffle some feathers. Being a lady is a dying breed. It means something to be called a lady. There's a difference between a woman and there's a difference between a lady and coming from the south, you are taught how to be a lady, and my mother would always say Uhuh, we call you lady for a reason.
So I didn't get to sit that way. I didn't get to walk that way. I didn't get to talk that way because my name's lady, and now I'm so glad my name is Lady because etiquette is gone. And I think it matters, and I think it plays a big part in the dating world. I think it plays a big part in business because.
Trying to be deleted. There is so much glory in being a woman. So much glory in being feminine to the point where you have a lot of men trying to be feminine because of stairs.
It sure is. You mentioned all the powerful ladies that you grew up surrounded by. How have they and other women that you've interacted with and met along the way shaped who you are and guided your path?
Oh wow. I met a lady in college, her name is Judy F. Gentry. She was my baby Alice. I had heard stories about her all over Tennessee. Anybody in the state of Tennessee, you are not a serious dancer until you go through her. She's the Apollo Theater of Tennessee, and when I went to Tennessee State University and found out she was the dance coordinator, I almost didn't try out.
But I knew I was fierce. I may not be able to know all of the ballet terms ble. And all I know is I can see Alvin Ailey and the New York City Ballet, and I can do that. And so I went to the audition and she picked me first to come up on my first day because I didn't know much about auditioning, so I went to, it was a store called Ridgeway, which is like a really southern version of Walmart in the eighties, and I bought Neon.
Yeah, it's the nineties. So I bought this neon outfit and it had matching tights and matching ard, and I was neon. Yellow, pink, green, orange, purple. And she taught me, you let your talent be the neon colors. But it worked. I got her attention. So to this day, a lot of my sisters in the dance troupe and the majorette team, they called me flowers because they was like.
Need to come to the front. So when I met her, I knew she was the effervescent of womanhood and being fierce and knowing your stuff. She knew the terminology. She was musically inclined. She was just, like I said, she was Debbie Allen in person, and she smelled amazing. Her perfume was expensive. Her hair was perfect, even after dancing for five hours.
Okay. I have to know her on a personal level and now we text one. We still text once a week. That's so amazing.
When we look back at 8-year-old, you, I'm guessing that she is not surprised what you're up to and what you've created. What do you think she's most proud of you? For?
My son. Yes, she is proud of the mother that I am because oh my God, my mama was the best mama in the universe.
Nobody's mama could touch my mama out and if I could just be one eighth of the mother that she was, yeah, I'm the bomb. And I think the third grader. Lady in Ms. Curtis class at Wilmore Elementary in c Tennessee is like, yes, you have done what your mother did to you for yourself. That's incredible.
Yeah.
There's so many titles that you have given yourself so far in this conversation and there's so many parts of modern women that we're juggling all the time. How do you keep track of everything that you've got going on? How do you take time for yourself? How do you keep showing up? Because being a lady has a lot of checklists and doing life has a lot of checklists, and kicking ass has a lot of checklists, and being a mom does, so what are you doing to sure, keep the flow happening
today.
I literally said this phone is off the hook. Today because I'm the president of the Alumni Association and I run my own business, and I'm a mom and I have a very long relationship. And I have I'm a sister, I'm a friend, and I'm very, I thrive being active. But girl, I could cry talking about how the pan, how the pandemic.
I was a fish outta water. I'm social. I have I've never been to jail. I've never been incarcerated, but I really think I know what it feels like to be in solitary confinement. I wasn't in a cell and I am blessed to have a two bedroom. I have some friends that have a studio and in New York. That fire escape?
Was it. You can't go outside 'cause you gotta touch the elevator. And remember, April, may, June we were afraid to touch handrails. We were afraid to breathe the air because it stays in the air for three days, all of this. So I literally would go, I think my longest stretch was about. Six weeks before, I literally was just like, I'm going outside and what that me?
Oh my God. So soon as I
Thanksgiving and then here comes the second wave. The Omicron variant the, his name from b2, K Ion. So I ended up catching it being too social. So for Christmas 2021, I.
Because that strand was more contagious. It wasn't as deadly, but it was more contagious. And I had taken my mask off sometime. I wasn't as strict with it. So when we, when I got my second vaccination, I said, okay, I'm gonna keep my mask on and I'm going to get back out there. I'm going to create work, and I'm gonna do work, and I'm gonna reconnect with my friends and my family.
I just stack my calendar, book trips, and a girl. I, my bank account is crying, my body is crying, my calendar is crying. I'm like, oh, okay. I got it. I'm back. So how do you go about doing that? I literally have. An old school calendar that's three feet by two feet that I write on.
I have, and as I mentioned on my phone, I have notifications on my phone. I'm really strict about organization. Number one is professional, and number two is therapeutic. Yeah. For me. So as far as like my mom duties and my girlfriend duties and my. I love life duties and my church duties and my alumni duties.
I like it in an organized fashion. When it becomes to the point where I'm missing appointments or I'm double booking myself, I know I'm being careless 'cause there's no excuse to miss an appointment or be late to something because of poor time management. That is one thing that my friends will compliment me on is my.
Time management as far as being the only woman in my friend's circle at the time, to have a small child and a husband they couldn't believe how I still would make it to, the cocktail hours and we'll watch sex in the City and we'll get together and go shopping. It was like, where's the baby?
My husband has them. I let him know, I need this Thursday to be with the girls. It's time. But I was really good at that in college too. Because I was a majorette. I was in a choir, I was in the science club, I was in the Chatanooga Club, I was in the President's Club. I just need my day to be full, and I get a lot outta that.
So I think organization and time management, it's imperative. Or you will go crazy. You will go crazy and type of self, you have to put on that calendar two hours for lady. Every day. If it's watching Real Housewives of Atlanta, or if it's doing an at home facial or sticking my feet in some hot water, I'm gonna get my two hours of breathing and whatever I wanna do.
Cutting my phone off. You can't reach me every day for two hours. I'm selfish about that because I
give so much. You have to be. I think what I coach people on regularly is always inviting them to be more selfish, especially entrepreneurs. We have to be selfish because we may or might not have a team.
We, everybody, yeah. And you're in so many roles, doing so many things and. Even though we don't realize it, the decision fatigue, the mental all the things that we're thinking about all the time it takes something, who's asking us if we need anything? Who's asking us if we're okay? Usually nobody.
Yeah.
And the hardest part of it is if they do a rhetorical answer. Oh, I'm fine. Uhhuh, what about you?
Yes.
Only person I can't do that to is my son.
He knows better.
He'll say, Uhuh, I know that face. Nope. What happened? What happened?
So we ask everyone on the podcast where you put yourself on the Powerful Lady scale.
If zero is average, everyday human, and 10 is the most extraordinary, powerful lady you can imagine, where do you put yourself today? And where do you think you put yourself on average?
On average, because I know where I have to go. She's a 4.8. Okay. I am turning 50 next year, and as I mentioned, I love my calendar.
I have so much stuff coming next year and as far as being the president of the alumni association, this is going to be the city that hosts the convention. So we're booking some pretty big, like this has taken me to the next level. So like I'm in spaces where I'm actually making decisions,
and how fun is that?
Yeah.
With sponsorship and I actually have the pool of the university and the whole historically black HBCU move that's happening. This is what I've been preparing for my,
so I would say 4.6 because. I know that muscle is about to be worked out, broken down, and.
I love that feeling when you're, you can, you're just about to break through that next ceiling that you've been like bumping up against. Yes. Because you're like, it's coming. It's coming. Stay right here. It's coming.
It's a song and hip hop. Oh, actually it's not even hip hop in house music in Chicago. It's time for the. You can probably play this. It's time for the percolate. It's time for the percolate. It's time for the, I can. I just hear that every day. I love that. That's what I feel
and what I also correlate moments in life and the moods to song all the time.
Like someone me the other day what are your favorite foods? How do you choose what you're going to eat for dinner? I'm like. To me, it's like a, it's a international tour. It's like, where do we wanna go for dinner? Are we going to Italy? Are we going to Thailand? Are we, yes. Like, where are we going?
Because it's a whole mood. It's a music. It's like the whole thing. So it's not just I'm feeling chicken like uhuh. That's not how it's happening.
She from where there's so many options. I sell tours that all the time you are in New York City, you literally can just spin a globe Yeah. And touch it.
I guarantee you there's two restaurants preparing fresh produce from that country. Today. Yeah. And that has me spoiled.
Yeah. I,
you can't really go to many other places and have that No,
It's a, it's on my list of requirements of like, where can I live? I'm like, what's the minimum number of good restaurants I need within 30 minutes, if not five minutes.
And when you've been exposed to this type of variety, sometimes you want chicken on a rooftop. Sometimes you want chicken next to a fireplace. Sometimes you want chicken on to go mood at the countertop. Mood
ambience the whole thing. I know.
Yeah. I need that, that, that is worth the expensive rent in New York City.
I figured that out when I went somewhere else and was like, oh, the convenience of calling somebody or just walking across the street saying which way the wind blows. Where I'm going. It's something gonna happen. You're gonna run into somebody famous or you're gonna have a beautiful experience with candlelight and Yeah.
It's so funny. I can you say I'm in love with New York? I can
totally tell that. So for people who have never been to New York what would you tell them right now? What's your pitch for coming to New York?
If you've never been to New York? Okay. If you are reaching out to me in enough advance notice, I say, don't dare do New York a weekend.
Don't do that to yourself. You are going to be miserable that Monday when you go back home if you can stay a week. But I know money is not, obstacle. If you can stay a week, we do have a lot of free. Events, free activities, even inexpensive food. So your first time to New York, I would say do a different country every meal, or a different country every day.
So you can do Mexican breakfast. Japanese lunch, Jamaican dinner. Irish the next day, Italian, Brazilian. Start there. Or if you are a sports lover, say your husband is really into sports and he's not into anything else. Okay, then start with the sports. Do basketball, do tennis, do soccer, do boxing.
There's something for what? Your heart desires and abundance in New York.
I was just in New York a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years and yeah, really?
It's different though. It's different. It's, and
so I spent a lot of the time in Brooklyn. I was only in Manhattan for two days and I was there seeing clients and meeting up with friends, but it.
Was really refreshing and I there were a lot more buildings that were for lease or for rent than I expected, but there was something really nice right about the pace of New York right now that I really appreciated. It seemed a little Okay. More like a big town than like the intensity of New York in the past.
Pace pe There's a little bit more. You're right. Has slow bit. Slow Little bit. Yeah. A little bit. Slow down, A little bit more smiling, a little bit more like New York is always Yeah. Acknowledging always friendlier than people say it is. But it just felt, yeah, it felt more Yes.
Warmer.
Than it was when I was there last time.
There's
a neighborhood feeling that I feel now, because you would have the earbuds and people, I gotta be, I got I got nine things lined up. It's like you got two things lined up. So you do have time to say, wow, those daisies, they boomed early this year. You would never take the time to smell the roses.
Yeah.
And it did it felt, I like when New York feels like Sesame Street versus feels like a treadmill. And it did on this trip.
Did you know Sesame Street was supposed to be in, in Harlem, New York City? I learned that. I didn't know that. And growing up watching Sesame Street Duh is totally, yeah.
And then to have that scandal with the black kids not getting attention to Sesame Place, it's just and I used to
go to Sesame Place when I was a kid, 'cause we lived near there outside of Philly. And I don't wanna even understand like why, what is happening. Oh. It was, I don't know.
I don't know, but I had that conversation with my son.
I can say I think it happened with him. I can't remember because I just was accustomed to it and I didn't wanna make a di big deal about it, and I didn't want him to feel it. But I definitely remember it not happening at Disney and being surprised. When they came over to him. So that's how I know it happened to him.
And he was born in 99, so this is 2006, 2007. And I remember suppressing it and making a big deal about the, oh, the Popsicle, let's get a sucker. Let's blow some bubbles. Just so he would not know what that rejection felt like. But I do remember it happening and suppressing it. And just, yeah.
Deflect.
We know that this community is big and powerful, and I'm a big believer in screaming from the rooftop. So what you're creating and what you're up to, as well as asking for what you need and what you'd like. So what is something that yeah, you need or want that we can put out into the powerful universe?
Oh, thank you. Wow. It's been so long since, I dunno if I've ever been asked that, ah, I'm not prepared because I need much, I need corporate sponsorship. I need help building my Instagram. I need awareness of this. I feel like I'm standing in a r. Blowing a whistle. Yeah. Nobody hears it because the music is so loud.
I need a big ship. Whoa. I need to be heard because I know what I'm saying. It's difficult, it's icky, it's gross. Mary Pops taught you, put a little sugar with the medicine, make it go down. I have mastered putting sugar with the medicine. So if I could have attention of some Fortune 500 companies so that I could get the attention that I need, and if I could get the social media presence and if I could get.
I don't know. I would know what is this where I, my dream? Sure. Go for it. It's New York. My optimum epitome of tourism. I would love to be the ambassador to the United Nation Ambassadors. I would love to be hired by the United States or by the state of New York to be the official. Ambassadors that are here for general Sessions, United Nations around New York, take them to Chinatown, to little Brazil, Koreatown to Harlem.
That is my dream. If somebody is able to make that happen, I would forever be grateful. I will write a song about you and sing it like Whitney Houston every day.
All right. All right, everyone. You heard it here first. That's the dream. Let's make it happen.
That's easy. That's easy. They're here. They're stuck in the hotels, and quite frankly, some of them might be afraid or they may just not know anyone.
I would love to be that, okay, I'm here, and then they could tell their friends and I could meet them at the embassy. Just
starts with one
and take them in ine. Take them to restaurants and live jazz and salsa dance. Come on, you're here in New York.
And I think there's so many people who want that, who, beyond ambassadors, right?
There's people who, i've moved so much and I think there, there's such an opportunity for a modern welcome wagon like. Don't bring me a basket of fruit. Show me what is here, because so many people don't play tourists in their own backyard, and it's a missing, right? Like when you realize how amazing a place is, then you like it.
It's a ripple effect of falling in love with the city, so everyone can. Yes.
That's what happened when I got out, because I was on the double decker buses for two years. That's why I really learned my chops. I studied how they made money. How they lost money and marketing. And when I got off of the double decker buses and started my own business on foot, that's when the people of the neighborhood was like, this happened right here.
Like Billie Holiday. Literally scrubbed floors. Right here. Yes, but I grew up next door my whole life. Langston Hughes Live. Yes. This is what Langton so doing that. Yes. People who walked by these places that I talk about every day because I think my appreciation is because I've studied it and dreamt about it for so long that I'm thirsting for it.
Like I just found out where Zora Neal Hurston lived last week. I just found out where Malcolm X used to, shoot dice, run numbers, like before he was minister to Malcolm XI found out where that spot was. So that's because I've been a fan. But if you grow up here, you oh yeah, I,
but walking the streets and passing by the people getting off of the bus, I get, oh, you know what, I'm gonna take tour. I thought this was. No honey, this is for you.
So
especially your children. Bring your children too. Yes.
So for everyone who's I need a tour now. I need to book a trip to New York, you've sold me.
Where can they find you? Follow you and sign up for a tour?
I. Okay, you can easily go to Instagram. I found that's easier on Instagram. My handle is thanks to my son. He told me my name is difficult. Stop trying to give your name first. Give a handle on Instagram first. Harlem's favorite lady.
Ooh.
Harlem possess with a s Harlem's favorite lady, and that will lead you to my website, my phone number, my videos, my sizzles, and I need your subscription and followers and likes and all of that stuff. Yes, absolutely. By the way, can I plug my new event? Yes.
Do it.
Okay, so I have the history of gospel, which is every Wednesday because some tourists are here from Monday through Friday and they want to hear gospel music and most gospel morning worship Baptist churches are open on Sundays, so I have decided to get with my church home, Memorial Baptist Church on hundred and 15th Street, and we'll do the history of gospel music.
We'll start from the slave ship. And the negro spirituals all the way up to the hip hop fight, hip hop, gospel music with Kirk Franklin and Mary. So we go from 1619 to 2019.
I'm excited to take that tour next time I'm in New York 'cause that sounds amazing.
Every Wednesday. I love it.
I love it.
And 'cause you do, so you do that one. What other kinds of tours are you offering.
I do the Civil Rights era tour. I do the LG BT L GT LGBTQIA tour. I do the Underground Railroad tour. I do a soul food tour, and now I'm branching off into the Black Lives Matter tour.
Okay. So anything you need to know, you are the person, Harlem's favorite lady.
Yeah. And yeah, I just, it's, I. I do this podcast selfishly because I wanna meet incredible people like you and make new friends, and Oh, that's great. But it's, it lights me up knowing that there are, women like you who have all this joy, all this enthusiasm and this curiosity where you're like, I'm not gonna keep this to myself.
I gotta share this. You guys gotta know. Let's hang out. And
there's such a load
that we have to carry to change the world and empower people to change it alongside of us and. It's refreshing to know that there are women like you out there and we're all doing our parts together and I'm glad you were on this team.
So thank you for your time today. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you. And I think
your colleague took my tour and that's how I got to you. So I wanted to thank her for even thinking of me and saying, yes, I need to too.
Thank you. Thank you. This is awesome. I feel the love. I love it. This is what I'm about right here.
All the link to connect with Lady and her tours are in her show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening. And please also leave us a rating and review. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies. If you're looking to connect directly with me, please visit kara duffy.com or find me on Instagram at Kara Duffy.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode and new amazing guest. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Instagram: @harlemsfavoritelady
YouTube: Lady Altovise
Facebook: imaladylover
Website: www.ladyaltovise.com
TikTok: Lady Altovise
Email: ladyaltovise@netzero.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
