Join Untapped New York for exciting NYC walking tours this week as we explore an abandoned hospital on Ellis Island, visit the remnants of New York’s two World’s Fairs (from 1939 and 1964), head underground for a tour of the subway, and so much more.
Do you have photos from an Untapped New York tour? Send them to us at contact@untappedcities.com and you may be featured on our website or social media channels! You can also tag us @untappedny on Instagram. See the list below for all our upcoming experiences in May!
Wednesday, May 24th – Secrets of Bryant Park
Uncover hidden trap doors, learn about the 37 miles of books buried under your feet, and rediscover hidden mosaic installations both around and under the park on this live-streamed tour of Bryan Park with Untapped New York’s Chief Experience Officer Justin Rivers! This virtual tour is free for Untapped New York Insiders.
Use the NYC subway as your own personal time machine as you travel back to the early days of this subterranean transit system. We’ll go back all the way to opening days to uncover architectural ghosts of the nearly forgotten and partially abandoned stations, a hidden art installation, and fascinating stories such as that of the comically short route of the mythical “Subway before the Subway,” Alfred Ely Beach’s Pneumatic Transit System. These NYC walking tours are offered every Monday through Saturday!
Friday, May 26th – Fifth Avenue’s Gilded Age Mansions
Stroll along Fifth Avenue as it was during the Gilded Age when grand mansions of millionaires lined the illustrious street. As you revisit Millionaire’s Row, discover works of architecture lost to time and some that remain today with a new purpose. This tour will resurrect mansions that no longer stand with stunning historical images and scintillating stories of the affairs that took place inside. See the footprint of the largest single residence ever built in Manhattan, learn secrets of the famous Frick Collection, discover a charming bookshop tucked into a Fifth Avenue mansion, and more! These NYC walking tours are offered every Sunday.
Didn’t make it to the 1939/40 or 1964/65 World’s Fairs? Here’s your chance! Uncover remnants of both fairs such as hidden time capsules, the Fountain of the Planets, the Unisphere, and the historic New York State Pavilion. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park transformed from marshy wetlands to ash dump, to the site of not one, but two World’s Fairs. This tour explores the past, present, and future of this 900-acre park, an obsession of the late “Master Builder,” Robert Moses.
On this tour led by a Save Ellis Island docent, you’ll don a hard hat and enter the abandoned hospital complex on the island’s south side. Once the standard for United States medical care, the facility was later transformed into a US Coast Guard base and FBI detention center. This exclusive behind-the-scenes tour will take you into areas usually off limits to the public including the laundry building, contagious disease wards, autopsy room, and more! As you explore, you will see larger-than-life historical images of immigrants pasted on the walls, part of artist JR’s exhibition, “Unframed- Ellis Island.” This tour is offered every Saturday and select Sundays.
On this tour, you’ll uncover the hidden gems of one of NYC’s most popular landmarks. Walk through a lobby covered in gold, find out where there is a sterling silver model airplane made by the Cartier, and peer into a secret portal that ceremoniously marks the completion of Rockefeller Center’s construction (and is signed by John D. Rockefeller himself). These NYC walking tours are offered every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
