Gangsters: Birth of Organized Crime in America Tour

Gangsters: Birth of Organized Crime in America
Sunday, February 28, 2010

In collaboration with the Lower East Side History Project, OHNY offers a unique walking tour covering 150 years of crime and vice in NYC. Trace the steps of criminal legends like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel–who earned their criminal stripes on the streets of the Lower East Side–and explore the roots of organized crime in America.

Dissect the myths and learn about how the Italian Mafia was established; visit the sites of Black Hand headquarters, Prohibition era speakeasies, shootouts and assassination attempts, and the homes and headquarters of some of the most powerful and infamous criminals in American history.

Led by Eric Ferrara, executive director of the Lower East Side History Project and the East Village Visitors Center and author of A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers and Weirdos of New York City’s Lower East Side. Purchase your tickets here.

UPDATE: The tour is currently sold out, we are working on offering another one, so please stay tuned!

Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tours

Photo courtesy of Ellen McKnight

More Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tours
Saturday & Sunday, January 23 & 24
Saturday, January 30

Due to high demand, OHNY and the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association are again offering special guided tours of the world’s oldest subway tunnel, built in 1844 and constructed in seven months using only hand tools and primitive equipment. Bob Diamond, who rediscovered the tunnel in 1980, will lead two tours through the half-mile long underground space. Purchase tickets here.

Guests should wear sneakers or boots (no high-heeled shoes) and bring a flashlight.

Please be aware that all attendees will have to sign a waiver and please take note of the following:

• the tunnel entrance is a manhole in the middle of Atlantic Avenue, which you climb down via ladder
• there is also a set of wooden steps that are unevenly spaced, without a hand rail
• remember to wear appropriate footwear and clothing– it is an underground tunnel and a bit dirty
• there will be 70 people on each tour
• the tour takes about 1 1/2 hours, as we all have to enter and exit from one manhole

That being said, there will be volunteers to help you down the steps and accompany the tour group. Check out photos from our recent tours and read comments from past attendees below:

I am so happy to have access to this – without heavy security, merchandising, and everything else that usually gets in the way of feeling directly linked to a historical place… but that’s why I love OHNY already!

This was awesome! If anyone has any doubt to go check this out don’t this is coolest urban spelunking experience your gonna get.

Thanks again for putting the tour on.  It was very fun and Mr. Diamond gave quite a presentation.

Tour The Belnord Courtyards

Private Garden Courtyard Tour on the Upper West Side

This month, visit the private garden courtyard of The Belnord, a palatial, Renaissance-style apartment building occupying a full city block in the heart of the Upper West Side. At 22,000 square feet, the courtyard was touted as the world’s largest when The Belnord was completed in 1908.

To attract upper-class tenants, architect H. Hobart Weeks designed the building around the courtyard to guarantee pleasant garden views for most of the building’s approximately 200 apartments. Functional as well as beautiful, the courtyard is encircled by a driveway loop linked to the street by barrel-vaulted passageways painted with neoclassical frescos.

Self-guided tours of the courtyard are available weekday afternoons, free-of-charge, now through December 16th, and are managed by the Trust for Architectural Easements. For more information, email rsvp@architecturaltrust.org or visit their website.

Belnord Courtyard Facing West

Archway Frescos

Behind the Scenes at the Woolworth Raffle

Behind the Scenes at the Woolworth Raffle

Enter OHNY’s raffle with a donation of $20 or more. Ten winners will receive two tickets to an exclusive, behind the scenes tour of the Woolworth Building on Saturday, November 14 at 5 pm.

Join resident historian Roy Suskin and Gail Fenske, author of The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York for an intimate evening that ends with drinks on the terrace at sunset.

(Image courtesy of Jeffrey Donenfeld.)

Field Trip Friday: Murray’s Cheese

Murray’s Cheese, in Greenwich Village, has participated in OHNY Weekend since 2006 and after the popularity of its OHNY tours, Murray’s Cheese began offering 90 minute private tours of its storage caves and facility. Rob Kaufelt purchased the cheese shop over 30 years ago and established longstanding relationships with specialty cheesemakers here and overseas, widening the selection.

Murray’s Cheese was also one of the sites featured on the cover of the 2008 OHNY Weekend event guide, illustrated by Maira Kalman. OHNY staff joined Maira for a special tour of the cheese caves, for cover art inspiration. Everyone was outfitted with hairnets and booties and led through various cheese caves, set at different temperatures for different cheeses. We learned about cheeses from all over the world and how they ripen or age and got to ask lots of questions!

Murray’s Cheese has been a generous supporter of OHNY, donating cheese for many of our events. Visit their website to learn more and to order from their selection of cheeses.

Inside one of the cheese caves

 

Cheese shelves

Cheese aging

Wearing a hair net in the cheese caves

Murray’s Cheese
254 Bleecker Street, New York, NY