Check out the latest interview with Speed by Outsideleft.com guru, Wayne Wolfson.

Molly Young wrote an outstanding review of her tour with Speed through Greenwich Village on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 for The Economist Magazine’s quarterly publication called “More Intelligent Life.”

In the article, she writes, “On a sunny Friday afternoon I found myself beneath the Washington Square Arch with the legend himself and nine other fans. ‘Real estate speculation,’ he began, ‘is the rudder of the boat of this story.’ And we were off. Levitch is one of those specialists whose impressive intellect has met its perfect match—the match, in this case, being New York City.

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* Photo Credit: Jill Van Buren Singletary

February 27th, 2010

From ColumbiaMissourian.com

Timothy Speed Levitch explains the History of Alley A and its informal former name “Historic Clown Alley” during his walking tour of Broadway on Saturday. The tour, part of the True/False Film Fest, focused on little known facts about downtown Columbia and personal stories from Levitch.

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November 3rd, 1998

From The Village Voice

New York City is a temporary delusion many of us are sharing and we are, all of us, co-authors of this 24-hour-a-day unfolding, frothing miracle. “Reality” is a convenient term utilized by the lethargic to label the greatest theatricality that has ever been.

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October 23rd, 1998

From The New York Times

Timothy (Speed) Levitch, the loquacious New York City tour-bus guide, sidewalk philosopher and one-man almanac of urban lore profiled in Bennett Miller’s compelling documentary film ”The Cruise,” is a man who enjoys making himself dizzy. One of his favorite activities, he confides, is to spin around under the twin towers of the World Trade Center and, when thoroughly disoriented, to look up and reel under the illusion that the buildings are toppling down on him.

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September 28th, 2008

From presentmagazine.com

Timothy “Speed” Levitch, famed New York tour guide featured in Waking Life, School Of Rock, Adult Swim’s Stroker and Hoop, and subject of award winning documentary The Cruise, is now living in his hometown of Kansas City. Levitch and director Zac Eubank of Skinless Productions are producing weekly video blogs around Kansas City where Levitch hosts and reels off thoughts on his new love affair with the city.

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November 30th, 1998

From Weeklywire.com

ON BEING A TOUR GUIDE: “I came to the tour route with the understanding that it is one of the great opportunities for self-expression and I do think that the people who really moved mountains in human history were all great tour guides. I do think that being a tour guide — understanding it to be a great opportunity for self-expression — enhanced my own use of language. It enhanced my understanding, if you will, that language is the instrument of life. It is the music of life, and really a shamanic journey in its own right. I do think that the frontiers of human awareness are in the language, and so that when we’re playing with the language, we are at play and frolicking in the frontiers of human awareness.”

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From Hybridmagazine.com

In 1997 Timothy “Speed” (you’ll see why) Levitch was without a mattress to call his own, and making his “living” in Manhattan giving tours of the city for visitors from around the globe. His tours were less historical anecdotes of the city, than sermons, diatribes, and philosophy dissertation rolled into one. A friend thought the life of Speed would make a good documentary-and it did. The result was The Cruise, which won Best Documentary at the 1998 Sundance Film festival and was released internationally by Artisan.

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January 23rd, 2003

From Salon.com

The most revolutionary proposal isn’t on the table of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. or the Port Authority or the governors of New York and New Jersey. It’s in a short film by Richard Linklater (best known as the director of “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused”) that premiered Monday at the Sundance Film Festival, exactly a week after the public hearings on the new WTC site proposals.

In the 20-minute film, “Live From Shiva’s Dancefloor,” Manhattan walking-tour guide Timothy “Speed” Levitch posits that the site should be turned into a park full of free-roaming American bison, popularly known as buffalo. “Sixteen acres of blazing green grass, a place for togetherness, healing out loud, and spontaneous culture,” says Levitch. “And in the middle of the park, the memorial should not be an inanimate slab of stone, but should have a heartbeat.” Thus, the buffalo.

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