2025
Open House New York Weekend
We lie back, a beautiful, beautiful time lapse
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, which of course means that it is time yet again for another Open House New York Weekend. And this year I’m trying something different. Instead of waiting until after the weekend to write the slideshow, I’m writing it day by day as I head home on a Morristown Line train. So that means that not only will there (probably) be more immediacy (and less clumsy foreshadowing) in the descriptions, but it also means that you are more likely to see adherence to actual chronological order, something that these slideshows are never known for. So since Open House New York Weekend starts on a Friday, we’ll start on a Friday too with the first site in what (likely) promises to be another busy Open House New York Weekend.
This year’s first site was a great one to start with, a visit to the 80th (and then the 79th) floor of Roger’s Stirk Harbour’s 3 World Trade Center to see the WTC Rebuilding Gallery and Artists Studios. The WTC Rebuilding Gallery featured some amazing models, including this one that shows the full buildout with giant models all of the buildings, even the yet to be built 2 and 5 WTC(s).
A floor below the WTC Rebuilding Gallery featured artists studios, most of which were fun to see, even if (or perhaps because of the fact that) you had no idea what artist did what or why.
The WTC Rebuilding Gallery really was interesting in and of itself, and the same could be said of the artists studio floor, but truthfully the thing that appealed most to me about being on the 80th and 79th floor of 3 World Trade Center was the unparalleled view, one that was even better than the one at the overcrowded observation deck in that slightly taller building on the other side of the plaza.
After coming down from such great heights (one thousand feet down in just forty seconds in the elevator according to our guide), I headed off to my next nearby site, the NYC Department of Records and Information Services Exhibitions at the Surrogate Court House, located inside one of the prettiest interiors in the city. The exhibit itself was also worth seeing- it included original hand drawings from (The) Central Park and artifacts from the 1964 Worlds Fair, but for me at least, the building’s lobby was its star attraction.
Next I headed uptown to Central Park to see two Open House New York sites. The first included a backstage visit to the Naumberg Bandshell, proving that not all backstage visits are actually interesting (sorry, Naumberg Bandshell). But the other Central Park site at the Kerbs Boathouse was wonderful, which more than made up for any disappointment the bandshell visit may have created.
The last site on this first day was a ticketed tour of the landmark Starrett-Lehigh Building, visiting interior tenant amenity spaces, a high empty floor and the rooftop terrace bar just as sunset set in. A great way to end a first day, with the hope that the next two will be just as great- this doesn’t count as foreshadowing since I’m writing this on Friday with (just about) no idea as to what really comes next.
Open House New York used to be on Saturday and Sunday only and, when that was the case, my Saturdays were always non stop crazy busy. This Saturday however was (for me at least) uncharacteristically quiet with only four stops to see, and three of them were even in the same neighborhood. That said, Saturday started with the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, now the New York home of Vanderbilt University, a wonderful hidden gem and a site that reminded me once again just why Open House New York is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. Over the years there have been so many places like this that I would have never found, or never would have had access to, that remind you just how interesting the city can be.
The campus was wonderful to walk around, and I was happy that its green spaces- called The Close- were open that day, but the real highlight was the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, which dates back to the 1880s and feels like it hasn’t changed at all since then, something I mean that in the best way possible.
This next site could be considered the polar opposite of the General Theological Seminary in just about every possible way, with the clear exception that they were both open for Open House New York. This is Noble Signs in East New York, only a block or two from the massive Broadway Junction subway stop in Brooklyn. Noble Signs offers tours of their sign museum, which is a loving tribute to a collection of discarded signs that call back to a New York that is slowly being lost to time. During the tour it was explained that New York signs are different than other city’s signs, that they were based on a directness that other cities lack, and designed by people who were not graphic designers, something which you might have been able to figure out on your own just by looking at them. For (just about) as long as New York has existed it has been changing, and the city that I remember as a child being shuffled down Eighth Avenue to see the circus at the garden is so different than the city I remember when I was in graduate school, and whole neighborhoods are almost unrecognizable to what they used to be like ten or twenty years ago. The Sign Museum at Nobel Signs is a wonderful archive and another stellar site at another great Open House New York Weekend, at least so far.
This year I visited a total of fifteen sites, and while all were worth visiting, some of the sites don’t necessarily warrant individual descriptions. So instead of actually learning anything about them, why not just enjoy the National Academy of Design, the Print Center and the Pellettieri Stone Carvers' Academy just as nature intended, smooshed together in a single uncomfortable collage image along with some of the other things I saw this weekend.
It’s Sunday already (and, even though it doesn’t really matter that much, it really is Sunday as I type) and today’s agenda focuses on three or five sites, depending on how you count them. And today’s first site, a ticketed half hour long express tour of the Woolworth Building’s lobby, was certainly a great way to start. I’ve been to the landmarked lobby before but it’s been some time since I last visited, and the last time I was there I remember taking lots of pictures to stitch together using Kolor Autopano Giga, now defunct panorama software which used to (sometimes) work like magic. Today instead of assembling panoramas I was able to just use the wide angle lens on my iPhone 17 Pro instead, saving me (literally) hours and hours of post production work, which, when you think of it, is also kind of like magic.
My Woolworth Building lobby tour ended at 11am, and I quickly crossed City Hall Park, hopped (not literally) onto a 4 express train all the way up to the Bronx to see the Bronx General Post Office on the Grand Concourse and its New Deal era murals, an interesting collection that almost made me feel like I was back in Mexico City again, which (if you know murals, me or Mexico City) is high praise indeed.
I ended my weekend in Rockefeller Center where everyone else did too. From 12pm to 4pm, three rooftop gardens were open for anyone willing to spend some time being patient while standing on a big ass line. I took the 4 train back from The Bronx, got off at 59th Street (one of my least favorite stations in the whole damn system), walked west south west to Radio City Music Hall and rode the elevator up to the first rooftop and Radio Park, as spectacular of a space as I hoped.
The other two Rockefeller Center rooftops were twins. Located on either side of the Channel Gardens are the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise, two low buildings in a great location with rooftop gardens that kind of look at each other just as much as they look at Fifth Avenue, 30 Rockefeller Plaza and St Patrick’s Cathedral. Both gardens were open and both had separate daunting lines that literally wrapped around the block(s). Luckily, much like the oligarchy currently destroying the country, I was able to buy my way out of this problem. This year I bought an Open House New York Weekend Passport and for only $150, it allowed me to get the same pass and line privileges that Open House New York Weekend volunteers had, something which really paid off at Rockefeller Center where lines were averaging two hours for each of the three separate lines at each of the three separate sites.
As for the two Channel Gardens rooftop sites themselves, both were pretty damn nice and a great way to end this year’s busy Open House New York Weekend. Already looking forward to 2026 and my 24th consecutive year of discovering places I never heard of before, of running around from site to site to site like a crazy person, of riding the subway to some far off outer borough station that I’ve never been to, of thinking I have enough time to do things that always seem to take way longer than I think they will, of taking way too many pictures and, just like every year, loving every minute of it.
Keep going back in time.
See One Domino Square, STREB and Carroll Hall, Open House New York 2024 is next…
