October 8, 2009

Open House NY 2009 guide, links, updates, RSVPs

Now in its fifth year, Open House New York this weekend will open hundreds of sites for free tours, allowing the public to wander through cheese caves, a subway power station, the abandoned hospital buildings of Ellis Island, and into well-appointed private apartments, hotels and offices.

And while all the events are free, not all the sites are accesed with equal ease.

While there is a free printed OHNY guide (also available online in PDF) there have been many changes since its publication, including cancelations, new sites, and altered hours. Official updates can be found on the OHNY website and its blog. (Yes, you need to go to three different locations to get a full list of changes.)

Note that in past years, the OHNY site was almost impossible to access on Saturday mornings as thouusands of people started planning their outings simultaneously.

In addition, expect that some sites will make changes during the day, either closing early because something has gone wrong, or because the listing was faulty to begin with. A great way to keep up with these ad hoc changes is through Twitter Search, which you can use even if you don’t have an account. Even better, use #OHNY on Twitter Search to see if other people have offered advice from the site.

Likewise, if you are on Twitter, please add #OHNY to your tweets with precise, useful information. If a line is long, ask the guy at the front how long he’s been waiting and tweet that. Or use Twitpic to show why it’s worth schlepping to a far-flung location.

Unfortunately many locations will feel far-flung due to the MTA’s widespread service disruptions. Use their TripPlanner for directions, which should incorporate the subway changes and offer the best alternatives.

Also useful: Serious Eater’s map/guide to OpenHouse NY 2009

While the majority of the tours are available to anyone who walks up, there are several dozen that require advance reservations and most of those are full. But as of Thursday afternoon, several RSVP-required tours still had openings.

The New York Transit Museum this year is not taking RSVP’s for its free power station tour (because they had too many no-shows in the past,) but instead is taking people first-come first-serve for Saturday tours at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The location is 225 W. 53rd Street in Manhattan. Expect the subway groupies to show up early for this as it’s not a tour that routinely available any other time of the year.

However, many of the other OHNY sites are indeed open other times, sometimes even for free. For example, the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association offers tours about once a month of the old train tunnel under Atlantic Avenue (for a fee) and the New York City Parks Departmant opens the High Bridge Water Tower for tours several times during the year.

October 8, 2009 9:46 PM in Architecture, Cheap Stuff, Downtown, Hotelology, Kids, Midtown, Museums, Out of Manhattan, Sightsology, Tours, Transportology, Upper East Side, Upper West Side

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