Skip to main content

OHNY Weekend, Part I: A Lobby and Two Libraries in Midtown

The 9th Annual OHNY (openhousenewyork) event took place this weekend, opening up rarely seen New York interiors to the public. Designed to promote architecture and design excellence, OHNY featured many venues and special programs at sites around the five boroughs, and as always, even seasoned New Yorkers found more surprises hidden within their city. Many places were open by advanced reservation only, with reservation limits filling up quickly, but several fascinating places were open for walk-ins during certain hours on either Saturday or Sunday or both.

Making the rounds for the open houses proves something of a challenge, like a marathon for architecture enthusiasts. Nevertheless, I managed to take in a few of the sites in three separate parts of Manhattan this weekend - Midtown, the Upper West Side, and the Financial District. Walking between the OHNY sites, I occasionally stopped to study other interesting buildings and street views along the way. I'll discuss a few of the Midtown sites here and save the other neighborhoods for subsequent posts.

• 505 Fifth Avenue
Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)

505 Fifth Avenue, entrance lobby
505 Fifth Avenue, light installation by James Turrell


The first stop of my OHNY weekend took me to the lobby of 505 Fifth Avenue to see the light installation by artist James Turrell (2005). The owner of the building commissioned Turrell to work with the architect from KPF to design this fascinating lobby. Stepping out of the frenzied world of 42nd Street and into the lobby seems both an extension of the neon world outside the doors but also a retreat from it.

505 Fifth Avenue, entrance lobby
505 Fifth Avenue, light installation by James Turrell


The light sculpture changes throughout the day. The work has a kinship with the paintings of Mark Rothko, and indeed the architect said that Rothko was an inspiration for this design. The pink, green, and aqua colored lights work in tandem with the careful chosen values of the wall paints. Turrell also designed the building's exterior lighting.

• General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 W 44th St
Architect: Lamb and Rich. 1890

General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 W 44th St.
General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 W 44th St.

Who knew what a fanciful library one would find inside these doors? The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, established in 1820, acquired this building in 1899. Its Library features 110,000 volumes on the "useful arts," meaning the work of urban craftsmanship, as well as a fascinating lock museum, the John H. Mossman Collection, on the upper balcony level. Between the skylight and the faux marble columns, surely any serious work in steampunk aesthetics must begin here.

General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, Library
General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 W 44th St.

General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, Library
General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 W 44th St.

For more information, see the website at www.generalsociety.org.

Bonus sites: This block of W. 44th Street is particularly clubby. See also the Harvard Club at 27 W. 44th Street, the Penn Club at 30 W. 44th St, and the New York Yacht Club at 37 W. 44th St. The wonderful Algonquin Hotel is at 59 W. 44th St.

• Horticultural Society of New York, 148 W 37th St

Horticultural Society, 148 W. 37th St.
Horticultural Society of New York, 148 W 37th St


An entirely different sort of library may be found thirteen floors up in a building on quiet W. 37th St. The contemporary and airy design (2006) by Marpillero Pollak Architects gives the Horticultural Society the needed light and air for its subject. The society is home to the largest collection of gardening and horticultural books in Manhattan, and as expected, several well-tended plants. Of particular interest is the current exhibit on display, the Fourteenth Annual International Juried Botanical Art Exhibition 2011. Botanical art is a demanding one, with a fine lineage in art history, and the society's headquarters makes a fine venue for the work.

Horticultural Society, 148 W. 37th St.
Botanical art at the Horticultural Society of New York, 148 W 37th St


Information about the society and its events and workshops may be found
at www.thehort.org.

Official Website of OHNY


View WOTBA OHNY Weekend in a larger map

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple from October 15, 2011.
Read more about OHNY weekend - Parts II (Upper West Side) and III (Financial District).
Labels:

Comments

  1. John de Guzman10:07 AM

    Love it, Teri! What a fun weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Teri Tynes10:27 AM

    Thanks, John. We'll catch up with one another eventually. Who knows where or when? Probably when we least expect it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

25 Radical Things to Do in Greenwich Village

A list of 25 things to Do in Greenwich Village with history of protest, old cafes, and signs of change. Hipstamatic iPhone images of contemporary Greenwich Village by Walking Off the Big Apple (Revised and updated.) Flipping through  Greenwich Village: A Photographic Guide by Edmund T. Delaney and Charles Lockwood with photographs by George Roos, a second, revised edition published in 1976, it’s easy to compare the black and white images with the look of today’s neighborhood and see how much the Village has changed. A long shot photograph of Washington Square taken up high from an apartment north of the park, and with the looming two towers of the World Trade Center off to the distant south in the background, reveals a different landscape than what we would encounter today.    On the north side of the park, an empty lot and two small buildings have since given way to NYU’s Kimmel Center and a new NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Center Life. The Judson Me...
Read more

Museums in New York Open on Mondays

UPDATED July 9, 2024 Please consult the museum websites for changes in days and hours. • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)  10:30 am - 5:30 pm •  The Metropolitan Museum of Art  10 am - 5 pm • Whitney Museum  10:30 - 6 pm •  American Museum of Natural History  10 am - 5:30 pm • Jewish Museum  11 am - 6 pm • International Center of Photography (ICP)  11 am -7 pm • Guggenheim  10:30 am - 5:30 pm •  The Museum of the City of New York  10 am - 5 pm •  Cooper Hewitt  10 am - 6 pm •  Neue Galerie  11 am - 6 pm The Whitney Museum of American Art General Information  American Museum of Natural History Central Park West and 79th Street See the post, Big Things to See at the American Museum of Natural History . Cooper Hewitt 2 East 91st St. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Ave Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Ave The Metropoli...
Read more

10 Short Walks from Grand Central Terminal

(updated March 2017) Famously crowded Grand Central Terminal functions as a major crossroads for the city, hosting busy commuters as they come and go from the suburbs via the Metro-North Railroad or within the city via a few subway lines, but the terminal also happens to be a good place to launch short walks. With its south side fronting E. 42nd Street and its massive structure interrupting Park Avenue, Grand Central provides quick access to many of the city's most well-known attractions. The New York Public Library and Bryant Park are only a couple of blocks away from the terminal, a quick jaunt on 42nd Street. And from there, Times Square is just another block or two farther west of the library, its neon shimmering in the distance. One wonders, standing near the intersection of 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, how many souls have been lured away from their well-meaning library studies by the beckoning lights of the Theater District. Grand Central Terminal : Before setting...
Read more

From Penn Station to New York Landmarks: Measuring Walking Distance and Time in Manhattan

(revised 2017) How long does it take to walk from Penn Station/Madison Square Garden to well-known destinations in Manhattan? What are the best walking routes ? What if I don't want to see anything in particular but just want to walk around? In addition to the thousands of working commuters from the surrounding area, especially from New Jersey and Long Island who arrive at Penn Station via New Jersey Transit or the Long Island Rail Road, many people arrive at the station just to spend time in The City. Some have questions. Furthermore, a sporting event may have brought you to Madison Square Garden (above Penn Station), and you want to check out what the city offers near the event. This post if for you.  The map below should help you measure walking distances and times from the station to well-known destinations in Manhattan - Bryant Park , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Empire State Building , Times Square , Rockefeller Center , Washington Square Park , the High Line ...
4 comments
Read more

25 Things To Do in Chelsea

On the High Line, with the Whitney Museum of American Art (revised and updated 2018) The phenomenal popularity of the High Line on the West Side has no doubt introduced many visitors to the pleasures of  Chelsea , the multifaceted eclectic neighborhood that stretches out below. On the west side of the rails, between W. 14th and W. 29th Streets or so, the  Chelsea Gallery District  is home to hundreds of contemporary art galleries in repurposed warehouses. New luxury residences rise up around these spaces, taking advantage of the stunning Hudson River views. On the east side of the line, the iconic Empire State Building comes into the picture, but closer in, the Gothic Revival outlines of the General Theological Seminary represent the neighborhood's roots in an earlier century. Chelsea is a remarkable neighborhood bound together by an artistic and visual history, but it's also a community held together by social institutions - schools, historic houses of worsh...
Read more

25 Things To Do Near the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

(updated 2016) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W. 53rd Street is near many other New York City attractions, so before or after a trip to the museum, a short walk in any direction could easily take in additional experiences. Drawing a square on a map with the museum at the center, a shape bounded by 58th Street to the north and 48th Street to the south, with 7th Avenue to the west and Park Avenue to the east, proves the point of the area's cultural richness. (A map follows the list below.) While well-known sightseeing stops fall with these boundaries, most notably Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the great swath of famous Fifth Avenue stores, cultural visitors may also want to check out places such as the Austrian Cultural Forum, the 57th Street galleries, the Onassis Cultural Center, and the Municipal Art Society. The image above shows an intriguing glimpse of the tops of two Beaux-Arts buildings through an opening of the wall inside MoMA's scu...
Read more