Book excerpt: epic story of legendary warship Intrepid
The legendary USS Intrepid returned to Manhattan this week after a $120 million overhaul that will allow her to return to duty as New York City’s sea air and space museum. And although most people know there’s been a retired aircraft carrier docked in the Hudson River (and then infamously stuck in the mud,) less has been known about what made the ship important.
Gandt and White, who is the president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, fill in the ship’s World War II and Vietnam history though the eyes of the men who served on her during wartime.
Through a special arrangement between NewYorkology and the publisher, you can read the first two chapters of the book after the jump.
Brooklyn Navy Yard bus tours to start monthly schedule
Starting this weekend, the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard will open up once a month for public tours, allowing visitors to get a glimpse at spots including the still-in-use dry dock where the ironclad USS Monitor was outfitted for the Civil War.
Founded in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard still works on ships, but also houses a 300-acre industrial park, Steiner movie studios, and soon, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Historical Center. Active during WWI and WWI, it’s where the USS Connecticut, USS Arizona, and USS Missouri were launched. It’s also the spot from where the first song was broadcast over wireless radio. In 1907, opera singer Eugenia Farrar sang “I Love You Truly” from the USS Dolphin docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The bus tours will be offered the first Sunday of every month, staffed on alternate turns by the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Center for the Urban Environment.
This weekend’s tours will be offered as part of OpenHouse New York. And although they’re free, all the reservations have already filled up. (However, no reservations are needed to attend this Saturday’s Brooklyn Navy Yard Arts Open Studio from non to 6 p.m.)
The CUE tour on November 2, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., is priced at $30 and will be led by Adam Schwartz. Advance registration is required. (718) 788-8500, ext. 217.
The December 7 tour, led by the Brooklyn Historical Society, is the same price. It departs at 1:30 p.m. Reservations required: (718) 222-4111 ext. 250
Transit Museum tours, bus fest, Metro North open house
The Transit Museum has a slew of interesting tours on offer for this fall and winter, but they’re so popular that the entire season’s offerings have sold out, except for one.
The only tour still on sale is the December 14 visit to the city’s abandoned, 1904 chandeliered, Guastavino-tiled Old City Hall subway station, (pictured, top.)
However, a couple of entirely free events are also on tap.
This Sunday, there’s free admission to the Transit Museum in Brooklyn, and the (also free) 15th Annual Bus Festival will be set up at the big Atlantic Antic street fair, showcasing vintage buses from the city’s retired fleet.
Also free, Metro-North will host a free one-day open house at Harmon Shop, its largest maintenance and repair facility. Visitors can get up close to the fleet of locomotives and work equipment and meet the railroaders who keep the trains running.
The open house is scheduled for October 11 (changed from the original date on October 18.)
To get to the open house, you’ll need to buy a ticket on the Metro-North’s Hudson Line to Croton-Harmon Station, where you can catch a free shuttle bus to and from the shop.
As for those sold-out Transit Museum tours, the last available one is only open to people with Transit Museum membership ($40 for the friend level.) Joining also gets you first dibs at next season’s transit tours before they’re announced to the general public.
“Many of the New York Transit Museum Shop and Behind-the-Scenes tours have space limitations and often sell out quickly because Museum Members get advance notice,” Roxanne Robertson, New York Transit Museum Director of Special Projects, told NewYorkology via e-mail.
Picture source: Old City Hall station skylight, and 2006 Bus Festival by Amy Langfield/NewYorkology. Harmon Shop image provided by MTA.
High Line tour lottery deadline at 4 p.m. for Open House
If you’re hoping to get one of the 700 in-demand spots for the free tours of the undeveloped section of the High Line during Open House New York, you must register online before 4 p.m. today.
The tours will take place October 4 and 5 during Open House NY.
Another section of the High Line — an abandoned, elevated freight train track built on the West Side of Manhattan in the 1920s and ’30s — will soon open as a public park.
The OHNY lottery system was put in place following the huge demand for last year’s tours.
“Last year’s tours (for which we had 700 slots) filled up on our online registration program in 5 minutes, and we had an additional 5,000 inquiries about them,” a High Line spokeswoman told NewYorkology earlier this month when the first 2008 OHNY sites were announced.
Many of the best OHNY tours have already filled to capacity, but a lot of the 200 sites and programs will be available for walk-ups as well. However, this year’s list appears to have more reservation requirements than in past years.
Among the sites with openings, is Ellis Island’s shuttered South Side buildings. Of the tours scheduled both Saturday and Sunday at 9:30, 11 a.m., 12:30, 2 and 3:30 p.m., only two on Sunday are so far full: the 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. ones. To reserve, call (212) 363-3200, extension 580. (Tuesday update: All the Ellis tours are now full, a Save Ellis Island representative told NewYorkology.)
Picture credit: OHNY 2007 High Line tour and OHNY 2006 Ellis Island abandoned hospital surgery room. Amy Langfield/NewYorkology
OpenHouse NY official site list, with reservation picks
(This entry will be updated for a few days as NewYorkology can obtain clarifications to the OHNY guide. See the list of best spots that don’t require reservations.)
The full list of the free Open House NY events for October 4 and 5 is now live, and a significant number of the events will require reservations this year.
Among the free events one of the the coolest additions this year may be Governors Island, which for the first time ever will open up the entire island to the public. (Reservations are required for the all-island tram tour: info-gipec@empire.state.ny.us; but “walking tours with special access to several buildings are not reservation based,” an OHNY spokeswoman told NewYorkology via e-mail on Friday morning. But a Governors Island rep e-mails: “The entire historic district is open to the public, including buildings that are normally closed. The only way to access the southern part of the Island is with a tram reservation.” )
There are about 200 sites and programs scattered all over the five boroughs. Novices be warned, many of these sites are open other times during the year. If you’re trying to maximize your weekend, look for the private residences and the unique opendialogue programs, often with the architects who designed or reconstructed the spaces.
Also be warned that many sites will change their offerings and hours if the past years are any indication. Indeed, tonight’s list already has cancellations (McCarren Park Pool,) and several additions.
But most importantly for now is the snagging of the reservations. … (Items in bold may still have openings.)
Reservations required
Woolworth Building tour of the lobby and a 21st floor office - Saturday only; e-mail openhouse@controlgroup.com - FULL The High Line - tours both days awarded by lottery. You can register online for the High Line lottery until September 29 (corrected date.) Details from High Line email: The tours are “30-minute walks on the High Line’s northern section, which still exists its wild, self-seeded state. Please note, tours will not enter any of the areas of the High Line currently under construction.” Great Interiors of the Financial District walking tour including the Collector’s Office at the former U.S. Custom House, the great hall at the former Cunard Building at 25 Broadway, and the huge rotunda of the former Merchant’s Exchange at 55 Wall St. - Sunday at 2 p.m. FinancialDistrictInteriors@gmail.com - FULL Guggenheim Museum dialogue with restoration project manager and museum staff - Saturday at 2 p.m. - FULL Ellis Island’s shuttered South Side buildings - 9:30, 11 a.m., 12:30, 2 and 3:30 p.m. both days, (212) 363-3200 × 580 - FULL Radio City Music Hall tour with restoration architect Hugh Hardy at 1, 2:30 and 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday ohny@h3hc.com - FULL 7 World Trade Center dialogue with the architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill with Silverstein Properties - Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. - FULL Grand Central Terminal dialogue/tour with renovation architects on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. ohny@bbbarch.com - FULL BBG-BBGM Design Studios on the 25th floor of the Empire State Building - several tours both Saturday and Sunday Trolley tour of 1939 and 1964 World’s Fair monuments - Saturday at 10, 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. (718) 846-2731 - FULL Porter House condominium tour with SHoP architect Gregg Pasquarelli - Saturday at 6 p.m. - FULL Morgan Library & Museum - Sunday noon and 2 p.m. dialogue with with BBB architect Meghan Lake - FULL New Museum tours with former SANAA architect Florian Idenburg - Sunday at noon and 1 p.m. - FULL NYC’s first airport, Floyd Bennett Field, will offer tours of the control tower and the passenger loading tunnel - Saturday and Sunday from 11a.m. to noon and 1 to 2 p.m., a ranger told NewYorkology on Friday afternoon. Brooklyn Navy Yard by bus - Saturday and Sunday at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. chidalgo@brooklynnavyyard.com - FULL Temple Emanu-El dialogue with restoration architect Tom Lindberg of Beyer Blinder Belle - Sunday at noon and 2 p.m. ohny@bbbarch.com
Private tours of MoMA’s “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” - Saturday and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. - FULL The BankNote tour with Nadia Shirazi of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners of this landmark building, which is being redeveloped as a center for creative industries - Saturday at 2 p.m. ohny@bbbarch.com. Lefferts House attic-to-cellar tour - Saturday and Sunday at noon (normally $10) Times Square: Peeling Back the Neon tour - Saturday at 11a.m., 4 p.m. and 11p.m.; Sunday at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. (variation of the weekly free Friday tour, but the 11 p.m. tour will focus on “the sex scene, late night movies, and notable nightlife spots”)
Flux Factory’s Living Room site-specific installations in eight private homes and OHNY sites - Shuttle to all sites leaves at noon on Saturday and Sunday
Lower East Side Forsyth Street Loft tours with architects of an apartment blurs the boundaries between the public and private - Saturday and Sunday at 1:30, 3, 4:30 p.m. left@leftish.net - FULL Transit power station tour with Robert Lobenstein, General Superintendent of New York City Transit - Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. - FULL Japan Society tours of its 1971 Junzo Yoshimura-designed building , the only building in NYC of modern Japanese design.- Saturday and Sunday at 12:30, 2 and 3:30 p.m. - FULL Williamsburg Bridge Walk with former Chief Engineer/First Deputy Commissioner for NYC Department of Transportation “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz - Sunday at 1 p.m. - FULL Woodlawn Cemetery tours of the mausoleums - both Saturday and Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (718) 920-1470
There are still more sites that require reservations. See the OHNY list and look for sites marked with a scripted R.
No reservations required
The historic district of Governors Island - Saturday and Sunday Historic Richmond Town’s (pictured, left) restored 1720s farmhouse kitchen and a 1750s house - Saturday and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m.
1930’s-designed Jacob Riis Park, including grounds and renovated bathhouse - open Saturday from 9 to 5 p.m. with a no-reservations required tour 3 to 5 p.m., NPS rangers told NewYorkology late Friday. Also disregard the OHNY guide suggestion to take the Water Taxi; it no longer runs on weekends. Directions here.
Behind the scenes tours of the redesigned Queens Theatre in the Park (next to the Unisphere,) with its transparent, spiraling round pavilion - Saturday and Sunday The Montauk Club - open Sunday from 1:30 to 5 p.m.
Ellis Island to add $20 mln Peopling of America Center
The Ellis Island immigration museum is planning to expand and put more emphasis on immigration with a The Peopling of America Center, both the New York Times and USA Today are reporting.
About 75 percent of the $20 million budget has been raised for the project, which will move into the not-yet-renovated kitchen and laundry buildings, the Times reports.
Meanwhile, Save Ellis Island continues to raise funds to save the other abandoned buildings on the south side of the island. Some of those buildings will be open to the public for free (plus the cost of the ferry ride) for Open House New York on October 4 and 5.
Picture credits: Ellis Island entrance and Ellis Island laundry room by Amy Langfield/NewYorkology
Whoopi Goldberg is the proud godmother of Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises’ newest vessel, the Manhattan, which is the first of three new boats the iconic tour company is building for New York City in the next year.
“If you didn’t know that there was a big ocean out there, the Circle Line was what you had, and for me, for all of my youth, for all of my youth, the Circle Line meant that summertime was here. It meant that my mom would not have to sweat where she was going to take my brother and I because we knew that we were going on the boat. That was our boat. We saw people on television, people had yachts and things. We had the Circle Line. That was ours. That belonged to us, and other peple like us,” Goldberg said at Wednesday’s naming ceremony at Pier 81 on the East River. “This city is in my blood. Circle Line is in my blood.”
Watch the video of Goldberg talking about what Circle Line boats meant to her as a kid growing up in Manhattan (at 26th and 10th):
It’s the first time the 63-year old company has gotten a “new” vessel. Most of its fleet were built to transport U.S. troops to enemy beaches during World War II. The $5 million Manhattan, which is designed to look like the old boats on the outside, has several new features on the inside.
For one, it’s bigger: the new 165-foot boat can fit 600 people, the ceilings are a few inches higher and the boat itself is 34-feet wider. And while it’s slightly taller, it had to stay below the 24-foot clearance of the lowest bridge around Manhattan, the Broadway Bridge on the Harlem River.
The all-steel Manhattan has air conditioning, bigger windows, almost double the outside deck space, and a downstairs space entirely free of stanchions, which was a “real pain in the neck” to design, according to naval architect Andy Lebet. (See the DeJong and Lebet website for pictures of the Manhattan’s construction.)
The next new boats will be called the Brooklyn and the Queens. They’re expected to arrive in the spring.
With the three new vessels coming into service, that means others will be retiring. The plan is to convert Circle Line VIII into a floating dock in 2009. Circle Line XI (pictured, above) will be retiring later this year, and the company is in talks to find a home for her - possibly at the Hudson Maritime Museum or as a Coast Guard training vessel.
In her remarks at Wednesday’s ceremony, NYC City Council Speaker Christine Quinn noting that it’s only been in recent years that New York’s waterfront has been getting cleaned up with the addition of parks and public access. “For a long time, Circle Line was really the only thing on the river,” she said. ‘New York’s a river city and for a long time we turned our back on that. And Circle Line never did.”
The Manhattan next week will go into the regular rotation with the other vessels, so the only way to make sure you get on the new boat is to ask for that day’s schedule before buying your tickets.
Better than a bake sale: AIG should reopen its roofdeck
The American International Building, also known as the AIG building, is New York’s fifth tallest skyscraper (and among the top 50-tallest in the world) and it has an observation deck that’s been closed to the public for a very long time.
But hey, if the U.S. taxpayers now own 80 percent of AIG, how about a little look see?
The Gothic-style top of the building and its 66th-floor glass observatory are off limits to the common folk, instead open only to those super-smart AIG executives.
An art deco gem, it was designed by Clinton & Russell and Holton & George and opened in 1932. Located at 70 Pine Street, map, the building was made for the Cities Service Company and was known as the 60 Wall Tower - as it was connected by a bridge to that address a block away, according to “Art Deco New York” by Cervin Robinson and Rosemarie Haag Bletter.
So while we’re on the subject of high in the sky observatories, it’s worth pointing out that the highest you can get in New York City is the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building, though most people only go to the 86th floor because the smaller, enclosed space only reopened a few years ago and it’s not well advertised.
The brand new Bank of America Tower across from Bryant Park is now the second tallest and has no public access. The Chrysler Building is the third-tallest, and while its lobby is open to the public, it’s fancy Prohibition-skirting lounge Cloud Club is off-limits. (Though you can make a dentist appointment near the top.)
Renzo Piano’s new New York Times building is the fourth tallest, and while it’s had a few illegal tourists scale to the top, public access isn’t available from the inside.
The only other Top 10 New York City skyscraper with public access (at this time, at least) is the GE Building, Rockefeller Center, which reopened to the public in 2005 as Top of the Rock. (The views are excellent.)
The Woolworth Building, the city’s 15th tallest structure, has a 58th floor observatory deck, which you can see next month if you’re willing to shell out $500 to Open House NY. Normally, even the Woolworth’s lobby is closed to the public, though it will open for free in October, by reservation during Open House NY like it was last year.)
So let’s do the math, a visit to the top of the Empire State Building costs $34; a trip to the top of Rockefeller Center costs $18; or Woolworth costs $500 (which is mostly tax-deductible, by the way.) So to get $85 billion, divided by 3.8 million (which is how many people visit the Empire State Building observatories each year,) AIG would need to charge $22,368.42 per taxpayer, er, visitor to its observation deck.
That makes even the Woolworth looks cheap by comparison.
The third annual Brooklyn Book Festival gets under way today at Borough Hall and int he surrounding neighborhood, this year featuring five outdoor stages, indoor reading rooms and 140 booksellers, publishers and literary organizations.
The free event will include authors such as Richard Price, Pico Iyer, Jonathan Lethem, Dorothy Allison, Russell Banks, A.M. Homes, George Pelecanos, Terry McMillan, Jonathan Franzen, Mo Willems, Esmeralda Santiago, Chuck Klosterman, Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill.
See the long schedule of events, which includes a 3 p.m. music and books talk with Ian MacKaye and Thurston Moore; a 4 p.m. Warren Adler reading on Brooklyn’s Murder, Inc. boys; a 5 p.m. talk on Brooklyn’s place in history; and also at 5 p.m., a presidential politics talk with Joan Didion, Mark Danner, Ronald Dworkin, and Darryl Pinckney.
Woolworth, High Line on OpenHouse NY list for 2008
(Update: the full OHNY list is now available. Please see NewYorkology’s list of the reservation-required sites that are likely to max-out fast.)
The 6th Annual openhousenewyork Weekend — set for October 4 and 5 — this year will open nearly 200 sites to the public for free, plus almost 150 tours, talks, and workshops.
Also on the list: tours with the architects of the new Museum of Art and Design; a pre-renovation tour of the American Banknote Company Building in the Bronx; the addition to Queens Theatre in the Park originally designed by Philip Johnson for the 1964/1965 World’s Fair; the underground tunnels of the city’s first airport at Floyd Bennett Field; the John J. Harvey Fireboat; the site of the 1939 and 1964/1965 World’s Fairs; and the 2008 AIA/NY Design Award Winner Banchet Flowers event space.
Ellis Island’s shuttered South Side buildings and the recently renovated Ferry Building will also be open both days of OHNY weekend through reserved tours, possibly five tours per day, a Save Ellis Island spokesperson told NewYorkology.
The High Line tours will be be of the same area as last year, a spokesperson for Friends of the High Line told NewYorkology via e-mail today. The tours will cover the west side rail yards just south of the Javits Convention Center. This is the undeveloped portion of the elevated train tracks”still in its self-seeded state.”
Like last year, the High Line tours will require hard-to-snag reservations: “Last year’s tours (for which we had 700 slots) filled up on our online registration program in 5 minutes, and we had an additional 5,000 inquiries about them. We’re anticipating another big rush this year, so we’re going to fill the tour slots up by lottery. Again, we’ll have 700 slots available. The lottery will open on the same day as the other OHNY tours.”
