OHNY Weekend Updates

Due to extremely heavy volume on our new host, the website server is experiencing slow downs. The site selection and reservation system is still operating. We apologize for any inconvenience. We appreciate your patience!

To make reservations: Click on the weekend tab on our website, then click on “plan your weekend.” From there you will see individual listings, click on a listing and then click “reserve tickets.”

If you try to make a reservation and you cannot pull down a date/time on the Eventbrite ticketing page, this indicates that the tour is now sold out. We apologize that this is not very clear, but this is how Eventbrite works.

Now Sold Out:

The Standard

The High Line

New Architecture: Washington Square, Cooper Square, Bond St. and the Bowery

Ghosts of Greenwich Village Scavenger Hunt

Making Midtown: Design, Manufacturing and the Built Environment of the Garment District

Contemporary New York Architecture Walking Tour

Night Lighting Tour of the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park

Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedom Park Construction Site Tour

7 World Trade Center

National September 11 Memorial Tour

Gowanus Canal Canoe Tour

Grand Central Terminal

Moynihan Station

Field Trip Friday: 5 Beekman Street

The staff at OHNY got a lucky treat yesterday afternoon. They were given special access to 5 Beekman Street near City Hall. Rushed through the space, they only had about 10 minutes to explore the space inside. But, what they found was amazing!

Abandoned for years, this building was built originally to house law offices.

The view when you first step in is of a wide open public space leading to the elevators. A huge amount of natural light fills the space and when you walk in further and look up you see why.

The building has a 9-story atrium with delicate iron work along each of the floor balconies.

Through the glass ceiling, you get great view of of the surrounding buildings.

Here is a gorgeous view of the Woolworth Building and on the other side, you can get a peak of Frank Gehry’s new residential tower.

It is impressive how well the atrium and building details have be preserved over the years since parts of it were shuttered back in the 1940s.

From the eighth floor down, you find more ornate details with iron work and ceiling panels that line the walkways around the atrium balconies.

The tile in the building is all original and in some parts it so well preserved that it has been covered in order to protect it for later use.

OHNY originally learned about this building from the blog Scouting New York. You can see the original blog post from November 2010 here.

OHNY is proud to have 5 Beekman Street as part of this year’s  OHNY Weekend that takes place this October 15 & 16. It will be a reservation only site and a lucky group of people will also be given access to this amazing abandoned treasure. Stay tuned for more details. Hopefully, this tour will last a little longer than 10 minutes!

5 Beekman Street

2011 OHNY Weeekend

illustration by Ingo Fast

OPENHOUSENEWYORK PRESENTS

THE NINTH ANNUAL WEEKEND CELEBRATION OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Saturday and Sunday, October 15 & 16, 2011

OHNY once again unlocks the city, offering rare access to hundreds sites, tours, talks and special performances that exemplify the city’s diverse and culturally rich built environment. This is the one weekend each year when thousands of New Yorkers and tourists alike are given entrée into places and spaces, many of which are not normally open to the public.

The 9th Annual OHNY Weekend Event Guide can be found in the October 5th issue of Time Out New York. 

Also beginning October 5th, the event guides will available at the following locations:

The Bronx

The Bronx Museum of the Arts

1040 Grand Concourse at 165th St

Thurs-Sun 11am-6pm

Fri 11am-8pm

 

Brooklyn

Brooklyn Historical Society

128 Pierrepont St/ Clinton St

Wed-Fri 12-5pm

Sat 10am-5pm

Sun 12-5pm

 

Mark Morris Dance Group           

3 Lafayette Ave/ Ashland Pl

Mon-Fri 9am-8pm

Sat 9am-5pm

 

Manhattan

openhousenewyork

115 W 27th St, Lobby/ 6th Ave

Mon-Fri 10am-5pm

 

Center for Architecture

536 LaGuardia Pl/ W 3rd St

Mon-Fri 9am-8pm

Sat 11am-5pm

 

Council Member Gale A. Brewer’s Office

563 Columbus Ave/ 87th St

Mon-Fri 10am-6pm

 

Hudson Square Connection–A Business Improvement District

180 Varick St/ Charlton St

Mon-Fri 10am-4pm

 

Van Alen Books

30 W 22nd St, Ground Fl/ 6th Ave

Tues-Sat 11am-7pm

Thurs 11am-9pm

 

Official NYC Information Center–Midtown

810 Seventh Ave/ 52nd St

Mon-Fri 8:30am-6pm

Sat-Sun 9am-5pm

holidays 9am-3pm

 

Official NYC Information Center–Times Square Alliance

Seventh Ave/ 46th St

Daily 9am-7pm daily

 

Official NYC Information Center–Harlem

The Studio Museum in Harlem

144 W125th St/ Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd

Mon–Fri 12-6pm

Sat-Sun 10am-6pm

closed holidays

 

Official NYC Information Kiosk–City Hall

Southern tip of City Hall Park on the Broadway sidewalk at Park Row

Mon-Fri 9am-6pm

Sat-Sun 10am–5pm

holidays 9am-3pm

 

Official NYC Information Kiosk–Chinatown

At the triangle where Canal, Walker and Baxter Sts meet

Daily 10am-6pm daily

holidays 10am-3pm

 

Queens

SculptureCenter

44-19 Purves St/ Jackson Ave

Thurs-Mon 11am-6pm

 

Staten Island

St. George Theatre

35 Hyatt St/ Central Ave

Mon-Fri 9:30am-2pm

NEW OHNY.ORG WEBSITE COMING SOON

We are hard at work building a new website for the 9th Annual OHNY Weekend. The new website will feature an improved navigation system and advanced and simple search capabilities, making it ever so easy for visitors to plan their Weekend adventures!

We are in home stretch and should be up and running soon.

Thank you for your patience an support during this exciting time!

2011 OHNY Weekend Launch Party

In celebration of the 9th Annual OHNY Weekend openhousenewyork cordially invites you to the

2011 OHNY Weekend Launch Party

Friday, October 14, 2011

7 – 9pm

HOK Office – 1065 Avenue of the Americas, 6h Floor

Join us for a cocktail reception to kick off OHNY Weekend at HOK’s New York Office, a LEED® platinum design studio overlooking Bryant Park, with drinks and light refreshments.

Tickets are $50 in advance, $60 at the door.

Purchase tickets here.

About HOK New York Office:

Located at 1065 Avenue of the Americas, HOK New York Office represents the firm’s growing influence and commitment to the built environment in the New York metropolitan area. HOK relocated to Bryant Park and its new state-of-the-art LEED certified office space on the 6th floor. The project speaks of HOK New York philosophy on design and exemplifies both OHNY’s and HOK’s commitment to innovation, collaboration and design excellence.

Tickets to this event are non-refundable. Should you not be able to attend, the full price of unused tickets may be treated as a donation at openhousenewyork and is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Archtober OHNY Tours

In conjunction with Archtober, OHNY is offering three tours throughout October. Tickets are now on sale! See information below.

image courtesy of David Sundberg

7 World Trade Center Tour

Monday. October 3, 2011

1:30-3:30pm, $20

A tour of 7 World Trade Center, the city’s first LEED certified office building. We will visit the newly opened WTC Marketing Center on the 10th Floor, which includes large-scale models and interactive videos about the project and neighborhood. The tour will conclude on one of the high raw floors of 7 WTC, offering sweeping news of the city.

Click here for tickets.

image courtesy of Frank Oudeman

Lower East Side Walking Tour featuring the Switch Building

Monday, October 17, 2011

1:00-2:30pm, $20

The 2009 AIA Merit Award Switch Building by nArchitects was the first in a wave of outstanding architect designed residential buildings built on the Lower East Side. In the immediate vicinity, 115 Norfolk St by Grzywinski+Pons and Bernard Tschumi’s big Blue glass building makes Norfolk street an innovative design hub of lower Manhattan. But the Lower East Side from the creation of the ubiquitous brick walk tenement building to union financed co-operative blocks on Grand Street and Robert Moses era public housing has long been a place of housing experimentation. This tour will locate these new housing prototypes in the long tradition of experimental housing in the area and meet the architects of the Switch Building nArchitects.

Click here for tickets.

image courtesy of Thomas Loof

The Standard New York Tour

Friday, October 28, 2011

4pm-6pm, $20

The eighteen-story, concrete and glass structure defines the identity of the Standard Hotel and engages its urban context through contrast. The building straddles the High Line, an abandoned section of a 75-year-old elevated railroad line, which passes over the Meatpacking District and today is the city’s newest linear public park. The tour will be led by Ennead Architects.

Click here for tickets

Field Trip Friday: Vitra Design Museum

While living in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2008, OHNY program coordinator, Jailee Rychen, took a trip to the Vitra Design Museum. Located just outside of the Swiss city of Basel in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the museum is situated outside of a major city in a quiet setting that is also the location of the Vitra factory campus.

The main building of the museum was design by Frank Gehry and finished in 1989. It was his first building in Europe and its unconventional design became a focus of interest in the international architecture community. The Vitra’s campus includes a number of buildings all designed by the top names in architecture including Zara Hadid, Nicholas Grimshaw, Herzog & De Meuron, etc. The museum offers architectural tours of the entire campus.

The museum was founded and is funded by the Vitra Corporation whose intention was to document the history of the company and to showcase its large collection of furniture by designers such as George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto, and Jean Prouvé. The museum is located on Charles Eames Straße.

Outside of the museum is a sculpture titled Balancing Tolls by Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen (1984). The tools are the tools of a furniture maker. This sculpture was given to Willi Fehlbaum, Vitra’s founder, on his 70th birthday.

During Jailee’s visit there was an exhibition of the design of George Nelson who was known for his unique wall clock designs, many of which New York’s might recognize from the MoMA design store or in other design boutiques around the city.

Another signature design of Nelson’s is his Marshmellow Sofa that comes in a variety of colors from simple white to multicolored.

The design of Gehry’s building is an artwork and design masterpiece in itself. It is whimsical and daring, like most of Gehry’s other buildings. If you ever find yourself in Basel, Switzerland, it is worth a bus trip to see the Vitra Design Museum and factory campus. Take a take a tour of the architectural marvels and enjoy a museum dedicated masters of design excellence.

Vitra designs are sold in a number is retail locations in New York City. They also have a design store on 29th Ninth Ave.

Vitra Design Museum

Charles-Eames-Str. 1
79576 Weil am Rhein, Germany

Field Trip Friday: Beecher’s New York and the Grilled Cheese Martini

Earlier this year Beecher’s Handmade Cheese Company opened its doors in the Flatiron District of Manhattan.  On Tuesday, Ted capped his last day as an OHNY intern by braving the rains and heading a few blocks south to check out their new digs, and to try their much hyped Grilled Cheese Martini.

Beecher’s New York location is on the corner of Broadway and East 20th Street, a few blocks north of Union Square.  The street level storefront offers countless varieties of cheese and cheese accessories, food and drinks to compliment your cheese of choice, and a casual dining area overlooking their impressive cheese making facility.

The hostess, a young Boston transplant, was friendly and knowledgeable, and pointed out some specialty cheeses in the display case.  Beecher’s has a number of award winning varieties, and also carries brands from New York, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Washington, among other states.

After sampling their Flagship cheese, as well as the Smoked Flagship (delicious, by the way), it was time to leave the go-go-go world of artisan cheese craftsmanship and head down into the shadowy underbelly of Beecher’s, The Cellar, where the Grilled Cheese Martini was waiting.

The Cellar is an intimately lit lounge and bar area below the main store, and is limited to those visitors lucky enough to be of legal drinking age. Sitting areas and comfortable chairs upholstered with cowhide are flanked by cascading arrangements of candles and chain-mail curtains, invoking a sense of romance and decadence.  The effect is so complete you may forget that one mere floor above are stainless steel tanks where cheese curds are made.

After a round of the house wine ($6/glass, happy hour special) and some delicious macaroni and cheese (recommended by the hostess as the do-not-miss plate of the Cellar), it was time to see what all the fuss was about.  Our waiter seemed none too surprised to be asked about the specialty martini (absent on the menu, but plenty mentioned online), and was more than willing to explain the process of infusing vodka with different flavors like lemon, bacon, and in this case, grilled cheese.

Finally, the martini ($15) was served, and it was time to taste.  While not as close in taste to an actual grilled cheese as one might have expected, the drink was still excellent.  Instead of the rich, creamy goodness of its inspiration, this martini boasts notes of basil and vinegar which may sound unappetizing, but worked well.  The general consensus was that the flavor profile was largely reminiscent of a basil, tomato, mozzarella salad.

What makes a grilled cheese sandwich such a classic comfort food is the perfect meeting of melted cheese inside warm crunchy bread… characteristics that are probably nearly impossible to translate into a cocktail.  Despite not making us feel like red-nosed nine-year-olds called in from the snow, the drink is well worth asking for.

And should you make the trip down to Beecher’s New York, and decide that the Grilled Cheese Martini is not for you, fear not, the bar has plenty of whiskey.

Beecher’s New York – 900 Broadway

Recap: Exploring Harlem’s Black and Jewish Music Culture, Aug 11

On August 11, OHNY joined Harlem One Stop for a walking tour, “Exploring Harlem’s Black and Jewish Music Culture.”  OHNY Volunteer Council member Leah Strigler came and helped out on the tour. She recaps the sites and history that was explored during our evening in Harlem.

Over forty participants followed tour guide John Reddick for a walk in central Harlem, starting at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.

the group gathers around tour guide John Reddick

John shared samples from his extensive collection of sheet music to illustrate the rich musical life that was prevalent in Harlem in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when music was sampled in clubs and theaters and enjoyed at home via sheet music.  The Apollo Theater, which opened as the 125th Street Apollo in 1934, was a later institution in this mold and stands on the site of an earlier theater, Hurtig and Seamon’s.  The Apollo later merged with the Harlem Opera House, which had been located up the street.

the Apollo Theater

Another major site was the Hotel Theresa, which opened in 1913 at the corner of 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.  Years ago, the hotel was a focal point for the vibrant Harlem neighborhood. Guest included Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker and Lena Horne. Malcolm X also heald an office there. The Hotel also receive a lot of publicity when Fidel Castro famously stormed out of the Shelburne Hotel and took his entourage with him to Harlem, occupying 40 rooms in the top floor of Hotel Theresa during his 1960 visit to the U.N.

Hotel Theresa

Another stop on the tour included the old studio of James Van der Zee, the Harlem photographer whose is famous for his portraits and documentation of the Harlem Renaissance. Van Der Zee’s work was first exposed to a larger audience during the controversial exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harlem on My Mind in 1969.

the photography studio of James Van Der Zee, a prominant figure in the Harlem Renaissance

The tour’s last stop was at Tian, a restaurant in Riverbank State Park on 145th Street, with Panoramic views of the Hudson, live Swing Dance and Big Band Music performed by the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra. John Reddick’s exhibition on this era will be showing this fall at the Casa Frela Gallery, a site that will be featured during the upcoming Open House New York Weekend.