September 28, 2007
Open House New York 2007: the full preview overview
Open House New York, the weekend when nearly 300 spots in the five boroughs open their doors for free, this year is offering access onto the abandoned High Line railroad, the boarded-up hospital on Ellis Island, a Rockefeller Center private roof garden, an office on the 21st floor of the Woolworth Building, 7 World Trade Center, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn Army Terminal, the HIgh Bridge Water Tower, an MTA substation, the Little Red Lighthouse, the Desmond TuTu Center and a tour near the ruins of the smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island.
This year's fifth annual event will be held October 6 and 7. Last year's event attracted more than 80,000 visitors, with 3,000 people taking in the Rockefeller Center Rood Garden in the few hours it was open.
Other spots on this year's list include a tour of Bobby Flay's Bar Americain restaurant with designer Josh Held, the roof gardens of The Arsenal in Central Park, the Art Deco 1930s-era Astoria Pool, The Villard Houses, artist studios including Tom Otterness and Pier Glass, The Gatehouse of the Croton Aqueduct and the city's oldest cemeteries.
Several programs focus on sustainable architecture and a whole slew of events are designed just for kids. There wll also be artist-led tours of their site specific works, inlcuding "The Encampment" at Roosevelt Island and Mike Nelson at the Essex Street Market.
An increasing number of the locations and tours require reservations this year. The best ones will fill up fast (though in past years you could count on no-shows especially if the weather was bad.) See NewYorkology's list of all the tours and locations that require reservations. (Seriously, call or e-mail now.)
Unfortunately, the OHNY website is again a crazy maze with an erratic search engine, but the updates page is one good spot to keep checking. The guidebook descriptions, as in past years, are sometimes lacking in detail. One Hanson Place, (the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building,) touts its main floor, which presumably means there is no access upstairs, (which was offered at another event in 2006.) Early press materials this year touted access to the ruins of the smallpox hospital, but that turns out not to be the case. Some locations will be added, and some will fall off.
And don't assume all these places are only open for Open House New York. Some do give better access than normal (such as the tunnels under New York City's first airport,) but others are merely providing tours with special guests -- such as the architects or historians. Such was the case in past years with spaces such as the United Nations and the Chrysler Building lobby. Earlier this week, NewYorkology rounded up a list of upcoming tours in New York City that overlap with some OHNY sites -- but are offered on additional dates through the fall. For example, the High Bridge Water Tower will be open for free again on October 21.
One other new thing this year is that the non-profit OHNY is selling $150 VIP passes that allow you to jump the lines (at spots that don't require reservations.) For $250, you get the VIP pass plus one extra tour -- either one that gets you inside the exclusive Gramercy Park or on an artist-led tour of "The Encampment."
Also note that OHNY leads right into Architectural Digest’s Architecture Days, which runs from October 9 through 14. The ticketed events there include a tour of the Frank Gehry-designed IAC/InterActiveCorp Building for Barry Diller (which has sold out,) a tour of the Mayer-Loeb Townhouse, and a keynote from architect Robert A.M. Stern.
September 28, 2007 08:34 AM in Architecture, Cheap Stuff, Downtown, History, Kids, Midtown, Out of Manhattan, Sightsology, Tours, Upper East Side, Upper West Side
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