Untapped Cities Insiders Events for January 2019

Every month Untapped Cities Insiders get to explore New York City’s most inaccessible places and attend exciting events hosted by the city’s leading cultural institutions like our partners The Museum of the City of New York and the Brooklyn Historical Society. Recently our Insiders toured the stunning Valencia Theater in Jamaica, Queens, went inside New York City’s Masonic Hall and Grand Lodge and were treated to a VIP racing experience at the historic Yonkers Raceway. You can gain access to all of our upcoming, free behind-the-scenes tours and special events all year long by becoming a member today! Here are the activities Insiders can take part in this January:

Tour the Historic Rare Book Room at the New York Academy of Medicine – January 10th

Photograph Courtesy of the New York Academy of Medicine Library

Join an intimate lunchtime tour of the beautiful Rare Book Room at the New York Academy of Medicine’s historical library, founded in 1847. Inside the Rare Book Room, you will see milestone anatomical illustrations, surgical texts, historical artifacts, and books on a range of topics, including alchemy, cookery, botany, natural history, and New York city history, which date back to as late as the 15th century!

Registration is open now!
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Tour the Historic Art Students League – January 17th

The Arts Students League at the American Fine Arts Society building on 57th Street. Photo courtesy of the Arts Students League

Go inside the landmarked American Fine Arts Society building to see where famous artists like Jackson Pollack, Georgia O’Keefe and Robert Smithson learned their craft at the Arts Student League. Led by the league’s Digital Communications Manager, Rudy Bravo, Untapped Cities Insiders will tour the historic building, which was constructed in 1892, see inside galleries and studios, and learn the storied history of the art school. The Arts Student League was founded in 1875 to explore and express ideas outside the artistic norms of the time and over the past nearly 150 years has turned out some of the most renowned names in American art history. Today, over 5,000 students a year take a wide range of affordable art classes at the Arts Students League under the direction of world class artists and teachers.

REGISTRATION OPENS: Thursday, January 3rd, at 12 PM EST

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Tour the Offices of SWA/Balsley with Principal Architect Thomas Balsley – January 24th

Photograph by Bill Tatham, Courtesy of SWA/Balsley

Join renowned landscape architect Thomas Balsley of SWA/Balsley in his recently redesigned studio for a conversation about his decades of design practice transforming the public realm–parks, plazas, and waterfronts– into the great spaces that make our urban lives more livable. Insiders will hear about Balsley’s iconic projects in the United States and abroad, as well as those right here in New York City. Balsley will also provide a brief history of Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park, which was co-designed with Weiss/Manfredi.

REGISTRATION OPENS: Thursday, January 10th at 12PM EST
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“Last Call: Prohibition in NYC at 100,” A Conversation and Cocktail Tasting at MCNY – January 24th

New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of prohibition, c. 1921. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. via MCNY

Presented by our partnership with the Museum of the City of New York

Raise a glass to Prohibition in a conversation and small batch rum tasting, inspired by the lasting legacy of this now legendary period, at the Museum of the City of New York. Prior to the program, there will be a happy hour and, afterwards, you can sample a Prohibition-era cocktail made with Owney’s Rum, which pays homage to the style commonly enjoyed in New York City speakeasies during the period.

REGISTRATION OPENS: Thursday, January, 10th, 2019 at 12 PM EST

“Capturing ‘The Deuce’: Times Square in the 1970s & ’80s,” A Conversation and Book Signing at MCNY – January 29th

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Eileen “Candy” Merrell, a Times Square sex worker, in “The Deuce” (courtesy of HBO); Photograph of Times Square by Jane Dickson courtesy MCNY

Presented by our partnership with the Museum of the City of New York

Hear from artist Jane Dickson and production designer for The Deuce Scott Dougan, in a conversation about what it means to capture the essence of a particularly infamous time and place in the city – and why we find these visions of New York’s gritty and not-so-distant past so alluring today. This conversation at the Museum of the City of New York will be moderated by Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker and a book signing will follow.

See our full list of Untapped Cities Insiders Tours and our upcoming Public Tours.