Jerry Chamlin was right on time. It was 9 a.m. sharp when he met my friend, Theresa, and me in the grand lobby of the Hotel Pennsylvania, across from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, in midtown Manhattan.

Jerry is a Big Apple Greeter — a member of an eponymous nonprofit organization that connects visitors to New York City with a volunteer New Yorker. The greeter shows travelers some of the most interesting inside secrets of the city — the small, fascinating details that tourists wouldn’t necessarily find by themselves — and it’s free.

The Dakota Building, on West 72nd Street, is the spot where famed Beatles front-man John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980.

When the affable octogenarian asked us if we were wearing our walking shoes, we understood that this wouldn’t be a leisurely stroll. Jerome “Jerry” Chamlin, a retired native New Yorker, was ready to show us almost anywhere in New York City that our hearts desired. We suggested visiting Little Italy, and Jerry recommended Greenwich Village, an area rich with classic architecture, antiques shops and row houses, situated on narrow, leafy streets.

After supplying us with city maps and Metrocards (the Metropolitan Transportation Authority provides Big Apple Greeter with Metrocards to give to visitors for use on New York City's subways and buses), Jerry quickly crossed Seventh Avenue to enter busy Penn Station, where we boarded the subway for our short ride to Greenwich Village.

In moments we were standing in front of the smallest house in New York, a rail-thin three-story brownstone at 75½ Bedford Street that seemed to be the very definition of a “skinny” house. This narrow slip of a building — less than 10 feet wide — was the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), famous for the line, “my candle burns at both ends.”

We cut across Bedford Street, and Jerry pointed out the unmarked entrance at 86 Bedford Street: Chumley’s Bar was once a speakeasy frequented by Ernest Hemmingway and, Jerry explained, it’s where it is believed the phrase “eighty-six it” was coined.

A speakeasy was a gangster-operated business that replaced neighborhood saloons during prohibition. If the term “eighty-six it” was used in these days, it meant the proprietor was to hide the alcohol and get the customers out because the police were about to raid the place.

During a break on a park bench at a playground, Jerry related some of the history of his beloved city and told us a little about himself and his family. This distinguished-looking, silver-haired man lives near the mayor’s mansion on the Upper East Side, overlooking the East River.