Asad Dandia is a community organizer, museum educator, and local historian born and raised in Brooklyn. He is the founder of New York Narratives, a walking tour company and storytelling project aiming to advance the narratives of underrepresented communities in our city.
Asad grew up in the kind of neighborhood where English is spoken as a third language. As a teenager, he was a plaintiff in a major ACLU-led civil rights lawsuit to sue the NYPD for surveillance of NYC’s Muslim communities. After many years, he won a settlement with major policy changes that advanced civil rights for all minority communities in the city. This propelled Asad into a career of community organizing with a focus on civil rights advocacy. He has extensive experience as a public speaker and local educator, which made for a seamless entry into the tour guiding industry. He also leads tours for the Museum of the City of New York and was an advisor to its City of Faith gallery, which featured his work.
Asad holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from NYU and a master’s degree in Islamic Studies from Columbia. He is a proficient reader of Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Hebrew. His newest venture, New York Narratives, has been recognized by the Alliance for Downtown New York, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the David Prize.
You can subscribe to his Substack newsletter here to stay up to date with his unique walking tours, events, and more.
Bowery Boys Walks Tours:
“Little Syria and the Forgotten Immigrant Lower West Side”
