2014
Open House New York Weekend
Every breaking wave on the shore tells the next one they'll be one more
We’re starting this year’s Open House New York Weekend in chronological order at the first site I visited, Biber Architects in Lower Manhattan. There the offices were nice enough and the views out the window were killer, but that’s not the main reason this site was at the top of my list.
Biber Architect’s offices are located inside the Woolworth Building, meaning you have to pass through the lobby to get to the elevator, and that lobby is always off limits to curious architects or passers by interested at seeing probably the nicest lobby in the city. This year not only could you walk through, but the guards were kind of hands off and allowed visitors to not only linger a bit but also to take photos. A great start to the weekend this year.
Next up is Superdesk (or, possibly SUPERDESK!) located at the Barbarian Group offices in Manhattan. Superdesk (or, possibly SUPERDESK!) is a great big desk where everyone works, and it sometimes lifts up to create interesting little meeting spaces and library areas. Is Superdesk (or, possibly SUPERDESK!) the most efficient desk ever? The answer is no. But is Superdesk (or, possibly SUPERDESK!) more fun than the average, non super desk? The answer this time (of course) has to be yes.
Our next stop is a long subway ride uptown to the City College campus and the Spitzer School of Architecture, where this year’s Open House New York site is on the roof. Here you can see outside (and walk through) the Solar Roof Pod, the school’s entry into the Solar Decathlon contest. The Solar Roof Pod was interesting but the view from the roof was equally so, even though there were no sightings of Mordecai (the fictional falcon from The Royal Tennenbaums, which was filmed only a few blocks away)
I had to make advance reservations for the Sugar Hill tour, and I’m glad I did. Sugar Hill is an affordable housing project up near the Harlem River within view of Yankee Stadium (not a great view mind you). The building was designed by David Adjaye and it is fantastic and complex, and the tour really helped point out just how complex it is. For example, the concrete facade panels are textured, but from certain angles (not really pictured but viewable in person) you start to notice complex circular patterns that make a potentially boring facade really kind of wonderful. Great building.
Uptown, downtown, all weekend I find myself all over the city, hunting down sites and eventually memorizing all of the rerouted subways and service changes. But luckily it was still easy to get all the was to Williamsburg to see a pretty dramatic interior at the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank.
There are all sorts of typos throughout this site (I fix things when I notice them), but it is not a typo that the Williamsburgh Savings Bank has that extra h in it that Williamsburg no longer has- when Williamsburg(h) was its own city they had that extra h, but gave it up when they joined Brooklyn. The bank though kept the h and built this building back in 1875, and while they kept traditions alive with the h for as long as they could, they eventually ceased to exist and are now part of HSBC today. The building also survived, although not as a bank but instead as an event space, an expensive but really pretty space to hold your next wedding or party.
Not an Open House New York site, but since I was downtown anyway I thought I’d share a few pictures from inside and outside the Santiago Calatrava designed PATH Station, where you can actually see the future. A completed corridor is out of the way and hard to find (it connects to the Winter Garden) and it is kind of magical. I can’t wait to see this building actually finished.
Another reserved guided tour, this one in Queens at the Hall of Science, which looks interesting on the outside but way better on the inside.
Told you.
The Great Hall at the New York Hall of Science was designed by Wallace Harrison for the 1964 New York World’s Fair and has been closed for (what seems like) forever, in fact this construction tour was my very first time inside and wow, it was impressive. I’m not sure how the New York Hall of Science plans on using the space (and I’m not sure that the New York Hall of Science knows either), but just even having it open again makes the museum, Queens, New York and the world a better place.
I have signed up for (and ended up skipping) a few late night Times Square lighting tours for almost always the same reasons. First is exhaustion- I walk a lot and really, really push myself on these weekends and sticking around late doesn’t always seem like the best idea at the time. The second reason is that you just can’t hear the guide at night, and, of course, that happened again this time at the tkts Lighting Tour. But I’m sure whatever they said was really quite interesting and worthwhile.
We end this year with another good site, although to be honest, there really aren’t all that many bad sites, and even the ones I’m not a fan of are usually still good to see. This though was an all around winner, a walk up the tower at the Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village, with great views downtown and a chance to see their very own creepy Halloween spider decoration up close.
Thanks Open House New York. See you next year.
Keep going back in time. Open House New York 2013 is next.
