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Untapped Cities is excited to announce our June lineup of bespoke events for Untapped Cities Insiders. Every month, Insiders get to explore New York City through exclusive behind-the-scenes tours and exciting events hosted by the city’s leading cultural institutions, like our partners the New York Public Library, The Museum of the City of New York and the Brooklyn Historical Society. Recently, Insiders got to visit the researchers-only Berg Room inside the New York Public Library to see highlights of the library’s extensive collections, and take a walk atop the employees only catwalk in the Rose Reading Room. Another recent experience was a guided tour of Battery Park City led by the urban designer who created its master plan. You join us on our next adventure by becoming a member today! Check out all of the activities taking place this coming June:
Go inside the historic “Little Red Lighthouse” in Fort Washington Park on a private tour for Untapped Cities Insiders led by an Urban Park Ranger. While you climb the long iron staircase to the top of the tower, a Park Ranger will provide information about the history of this unique landmark, which is rarely open to group tours. You will also learn about the natural and human history of the surrounding area including Fort Washington Park, The George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River as you walk down to the lighthouse from Washington Heights.
njoy a day out exploring uptown Manhattan with this two-for-one event. This experience will include a tour of the historic Dyckman Farmhouse as well as free access to Taste of Uptown, a brand new food festival that celebrates the diverse restaurants and culture of Uptown. These events will showcase the history as well as the vibrant cultural scene of the area today.
Built in 1784, the Dyckman Farmhouse is a leftover of rural uptown Manhattan. On a docent led tour, Insiders will discover what early 19th century life was like on a northern Manhattan farm through the story of the Dyckman family. After this tour, Insiders will enjoy a short walk to the Taste of Uptown food festival to enjoy free foods from local restaurants. Over fifteen different restaurants will be represented including: Pat’e Palo, Tipico Dominicano, H Bar and Grill, Empanadas Monumental, Pop and Pour, Guadalupe, Papasito, 809 Bar and Grill, Seawalk, Tampopo Ramen, Casa de Mofongo 207, Lucky Seven, Cañave, Mamasushi, Mamajuana, Bocaditos Bistro, Chinito Latino, Made in Mexico, Tabaco y Ron, Inwood Bar and Grill, Taboga, and Retazitos.
June 11th: Live Oak, With Moss: Uncovering Walt Whitman’s Queer Private Life at the Brooklyn Historical Society
Explore the unpublished works of Walt Whitman at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Illustrator Brian Sleznick (who has illustrated such works as the 20th edition of the Harry Potter Series), Whitman scholar Karen Karbiener and author and executive director of Brooklyn Poets Jason Koo will examine Whitman’s series of poems Live Oak, With Moss. These poems were written privately as Whitman was turning forty and they portray his most ardent explorations of same-sex love. These poems were never published and remained largely unknown until now. Selznick recently released an edition of Live Oak, With Moss containing his own illustrations.
Explore the abandoned structures at Fort Totten Park before the park is opens to the public for weekend activities. Insiders will have access to the 1867 Water Battery Fort which was abandoned and never finished. Here, on a self-guided exploration, Insiders will be the very first to see a new art installation by New York City artist and Untapped Cities contributor Aaron Asis and a guided theatrical experience by Untapped Cities’ Chief Experience Officer Justin Rivers. The installation, Fortified, includes a series of over-head corded installations that will weave through existing structural passages to encourage visitors to observe and appreciate the structural nuances of the Battery. There will also be a series of wall markings that highlight specific details, variations, and anomalies within the Battery structure. River’s Dark Passage will take place in the fort’s completely dark Main Magazine. After this self guided experience, where Asis and Rivers will be on-hand to chat about their work, Insiders will get to go on a ranger-led tour of the Endicott Battery, an off-limits ruin that is usually closed to the public.
Join a special behind-the-scenes tour of Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which has just completed Phase One of a 10-year, comprehensive restoration – the first in the history of the almost-130-year-old church. Led by Rev. Dr. Daniel Meeter, Insiders will learn the fascinating history of the congregation, which was founded by early Dutch settlers in the 17th century, and the church structure itself which was built 1891. The Rev. Dr. Daniel Meeter has been pastor of “Old First,” since 2001. He grew up in Brooklyn, as his father was a Reformed pastor in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He took his Ph.D. from Drew University in 1989. He studied liturgy and church architecture at the Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen in the Netherlands.
Join American Folk Museum curator Elizabeth Warren for an after-work walkthrough of the museum’s latest exhibition, Made in New York City: The Business of Folk Art. Curated by Warren, the exhibition contains around 100 works of art, created by self-taught artists, that tell the story of New York City as the center of America’s financial and commercial world. During the approximately 50-minute tour, Insiders will have a chance to see a wide variety of folk art made in New York City between 1760 and 1920. The exhibition is divided into two parts. “The Art of Business” includes paintings, quilts, sculpture, and signs that either depict or relate to businesses that operated in the five boroughs of New York during this time period. “The Business of Art” encompasses works that were the products of businesses that were producing what we today call folk art: pottery, portraiture, show figures, carousel animals, weathervanes, and furniture. The tour will include lots of behind-the-scenes information about the works on view and historical facts and trivia about New York City.
Courtesy of Williams New York
Go inside the luxurious apartments of Manhattan’s Upper West Side on a special tour of two buildings, The Astor and The Chatsworth. Both were constructed at the turn of the 20th century and have since been converted into modern condominiums. On this tour, Insiders will learn about the history of each building, admire its unique exterior architecture and go inside to see the modern upgrades as well as original details that have been preserved for over 100 years, such as mosaic tiling, marble fireplaces, iron railings, and more.
Photograph by Jonathan Grassi
Hosted by the Prospect Park Alliance in “Brooklyn’s Backyard,” the Prospect Park Soiree is an outdoor dinner party that offers guests an evening of dining and dancing among the bucolic setting of Prospect Park‘s Peninsula. Untapped Cities Insiders can enter to win a pair of free tickets to the one-night-only event, a $90 value! Plus, the winner will get to use the VIP entrance to the party.
Untapped Cities Insiders can enter to win a pair of free tickets to a Times Square theaters walking tour at the 50th Annual TheatreCon! TheatreCon is “an annual week-long architectural tour highlighting the cultural and social relevance of America’s historic theaters” presented by the Theatre Historical Society of America. The Society is offering Untapped Cities Insiders the chance to win 2 tickets to “The Center of the Universe” tour of Times Square on Tuesday, June 25th, a $50 value! This walking tour will make stops at Radio City Music Hall, Times Square Church (Warner’s Hollywood, Mark Hellinger Theatre), Sony Hall, New Amsterdam Theatre, New Victory Theatre, Times Square Theatre, AMC Empire Theatre and Liberty Theatre.
Tour three floors of the historic Greenwich Village home and studio of sculptor Chaim Gross. On this guided tour of Gross’ 1830s townhouse, Insiders will visit the first-floor sculpture studio and gallery, renovated in 1963 by the artist and later restored in 2017-18, as well as the Gross Foundation’s special exhibition space on the second floor. Insiders will also gain access to the third floor living and dining spaces which are filled with hundreds of works from Gross’ extensive private art collection. Pieces featured in the Gross home include important American paintings by artists like Marsden Hartley, Willem De Kooning, and Milton Avery, as well as African, Oceanic, Pre-Columbian, and European works as well. Gross’ collection remains installed inside the townhouse just as it was when he lived there. All together, including Gross’ own sculptures, drawings, and prints, photographic archive and his personal art collection, there are 10,000 in the home.
This summer marks the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, an event that spurred the gay liberation movement. To commemorate this anniversary and finish off Pride Month, Untapped Cities Insiders are invited on a docent-led tour of two new exhibits and a special installation that make up Stonewall 50, a three part exhibition at the New-York Historical Society which runs through September 22nd. Stonewall 50 is made up of two unique exhibits, Letting Loose and Fighting Back: LGBTQ Nightlife Before and After Stonewall and By the Force of Our Presence: Highlights from the Lesbian Herstory Archives. The exhibits are accompanied by Say It Loud, Out and Proud: Fifty Years of Pride, a special installation which features imagery from New York City Pride marches and other LGBTQ protests from the 1960s to the present day, as well as a timeline of milestones and objects from LGBTQ history.
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