History lives here.
Step inside the story.
I'm Ashley Semrick.
Let's go back in time.
I’m an educator and public historian who brings history to life through site-specific tours, engaging talks, and first-person interpretation in historic costume.
I make history accessible, relevant, and genuinely enjoyable for every audience by exploring historic places and sharing the stories of the people who shaped and were shaped by them.
Explore the past
with me!
As a public historian, I specialize in sharing stories from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth-century and lead walking tours of the Brooklyn Bridge, lower Manhattan, and Revolutionary-era New York.
In addition to tours, I present talks and performances on a wide range of historical topics, including the monthly storytelling show NYC Secrets & Lies and leading immersive tours at the historic Merchant’s House Museum, where I explore the lives of the Tredwell family, their home, and her famously ghostly inhabitants.
Bookings:
For talks, tours, and costumed visits from Emily Roebling, scroll to the contact form.
Featured Videos
Bringing History to Life for NY1
Her love of history inspires her
to share it with others.
Roebling Museum:
A deep dive with the Roebling Museum of New Jersey into the life of Emily Warren Roebling and the Brooklyn Bridge that she helped build.
News12: Learn about the tumultuous construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, the family behind the plan and the unsung heroine who stepped up against all odds.
Christa and Ashley discuss the joys of history all the things we care about, and how history is around us.
Travel vlogger Urbanist Ariel tours the endangered historic (and very haunted) Merchant's House
Museum in Manhattan
Matilda Garrido and Ashley Semrick discuss medical cures used in the 19th c. Ashley discusses hydropathy and other cures, as well as ideas about childbirth.
Appearances
2025
NYC Secrets & Lies: New York's Holiday Maritime Stories
Featured Storyteller: The History of Times Square New Year's Eve
NYC Secrets & Lies: New York's Ghosts
Featured Storyteller: Merchant's House Museum and the Tredwell ghosts
NYC Secrets & Lies: Climate Week
Featured Storyteller: The Hudson Canyon
2019 - 2020
VERSUS: Bridges vs. Tunnels (NSFW - language)
Featured bridge expert - Caveat
NYC Secrets & Lies: Cait McDoyle- Making Ends Meet - 19th century New York
2024
Leeches! Arsenic! Water Therapy! Unusual Cures from the 19th Century
Village Preservation/Merchant's House Museum
Merchant's House Museum - History and Haunting tour
Interview and tour with Urbanist Ariel
2018
NYC Secrets & Lies: Gallus Mag -- Wickedest Woman in the Fourth Ward - 19th century New York
Emily Roebling: Pioneer Engineer
Rosalind Franklin Underground Science Festival
Emily Roebling: Controlling Your Own Narrative
Dead Talks - Caveat
Building the Brooklyn Bridge
Science Exclamation Point! - Caveat
Vingettes
