Open House New York - 2010 - 2012
A great fall weekend in New York City, Open House New York is a chance to get a peek into buildings around the city that often are not open to the public. I found out about Open House New York (OHNY) first through Time Out magazine only a few years ago, but this year will be the 12th annual weekend, October 11th and 12th. OHNY is a non-profit organization with goals to promote awareness of architecture, engineering and design around the city. Being lucky enough to live in NYC, we know there are amazing buildings all around us, but we often don’t take the time to even look up, let alone get a chance to go into the buildings.
My first year, my friend Alpa and I visited the Grand Lodge of Masons, a building with many different lavishly decorated meeting rooms and an interesting story, yet the outside of the building had never once peaked my interested walking down the busy 23rd street. Inside, the building reminded me of a palace in Europe. Each room had a unique style, elaborate from top to bottom. In many of the rooms, the incredible ceilings were my favorite part.
In 2011, I introduced Evelyn to the OHNY weekend and we toured the New York Marble Cemetery and the New York City Marble Cemetery, both fascinating places that we had no idea existed. We hadn't exactly planned on a tour of cemeteries that day, but both are only a few blocks apart. We learned a bit of history and also to be more curious about what lies behind the gates we walk past all the time. We next toured the Japan Society in midtown, enjoyed the art work and the unique design of the building, which includes an indoor waterfall.
In 2012, we got smarter and planned ahead. Some of the most popular sites require reservations. We put reminders on our calendar and managed to get tickets to tour the unopened portion of the High Line. Getting to tour something that is closed to everyone else always has a bit of extra excitement.
The High Line runs on an elevated track that used to be for trains that transported goods up to 34th street. The train stopped running in 1980, preservation efforts began in 1999 and by June of 2011, the first two sections were opened to the public. So, back in 2012, we got to visit the third section that was just starting construction and finally opened in September of this year.
The announcement of the available sites and the weekend guide for OHNY came out this year on September 30th and reservations opened on October 1st at 11am. We had scoured the list on the 30th and were all set and ready to go the next morning. Apparently so was everyone else. Things were booked up immediately and while we were able to reserve a few things, we didn't get everything we had planned.
Apart from the sites that require advanced reservations, there are more than two hundred sites where you can just show up. We plan to check out a few of those as well and recommend you do too if you'll be in NYC!
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