Advance Preview of 2016 Open House New York Weekend

NEW YORK -- On Saturday and Sunday, October 15 and 16, 2016, Open House New York presents the 14th Annual Open House New York Weekend (OHNY Weekend). A highly anticipated New York City celebration of architecture and urban design, OHNY Weekend will open the doors to more than 250 sites across the five boroughs, from historic to contemporary, residential to industrial, for tours, talks, and exploration.

"Open House New York uses buildings, and city itself, to explore ideas and tells stories, all with the goal of creating a more informed conversation about the choices we make about New York's future," says Gregory Wessner, executive director of OHNY. New additions to this year's OHNY Weekend include Pier 17, one of The Seaport District's first redevelopment projects, currently under construction; Westbeth, the largest artist community in the United States, located in the former Bell Telephone Laboratories building in West Village; the state-of-the-art facilities and studios of WABC-TV in Lincoln Square; the Metropolitan Opera House, at Lincoln Center, the home since 1966 of the nation's leading opera company; The New York Wheel, the observation wheel currently under construction in Staten Island; and the richly decorated Tabernacle of Prayer for All People in Jamaica, the first of of five Loew's "Wonder Theatres" built in the late 1920s.

The 2016 OHNY Weekend also features a number of special series curated by Open House New York and its partners. To celebrate the centennial anniversary of the National Park Service, a dozen NPS sites--some of the most significant places in our nation's history--will be open for exploration, historical re-enactments, and NPS Ranger-guided tours. Special experiences include a sunrise tour of Ellis Island before it opens to the public; tours of the recently restored Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in Gramercy; after-hours tours of the General Grant National Memorial and the Hamilton Grange National Memorial; and more.

Each year, Open House New York also partners with a different professional association to highlight the important work that its members do to enliven and enrich the built environment. For this year's OHNY Weekend, Open House New York and the American Society of Landscape Architects-New York (ASLA-NY) are partnering to provide tours of recent projects that highlight the integral role of landscape architects in designing and stewarding the city's built and natural environments. Sites range from residential courtyards to public plazas, and include Via 57 West's VIA Garden with Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners; the Naval Cemetery Landscape with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects; and the High Line with James Corner Field Operations, among others.

For the second year in a row, Open House New York has partnered with Curbed to provide access to a series of residences around the city that celebrate the Curbed mantra, "love where you live." Sites showcase a range of New York City homes and include a model apartment in the recently converted Art Deco skyscraper 70 Pine; four-bedroom apartments with bespoke contemporary interiors designed by the late David Collins in The Charles; and the under renovation Clifton Residence, one of the first Passive House wood frame buildings in New York City that features recycled materials throughout.

Open House New York is also collaborating with ARTNOIR--a global collective of culturalists who offer alternative perspectives to the traditional arts narrative--to highlight select locations throughout New York City that illustrate how the built environment is a catalyst for cultural exchange. Sites such as The Studio Museum in Harlem, the nexus for artists of African descent and for work inspired and influenced by black culture; Museum of Art and Origins, a private collection of African art inside founder George Preston's Sugar Hill brownstone; and Parlor Jazz at Marjorie Eliot's, a weekly jazz salon in Eliot's Edgecombe Avenue home with a rotating roster of performers and vocalists, will help visitors understand how architectural form and function reveal certain truths about the sociological climate in which these buildings were imagined and are used today.

Many OHNY Weekend favorites will be returning as well, including the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, Brooklyn Army Terminal, City Hall, Masonic Hall, Google, Jefferson Market Library, Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse (of Little Red Lighthouse fame), New York State Pavilion, and Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, among hundreds of others. The full list of participating sites will be revealed to the public on Wednesday, October 5 on www.ohny.org. A free event guide with all Open Access sites will also be inserted into the October 5 issue of Time Out New York at all street distribution locations.

While the majority of sites are Open Access and can be visited free-of-charge during open hours, some sites and tours require Advance Reservations with a $5 fee per person. Reservations for these sites will begin on Thursday, October 6 at 11am.

The 2016 OHNY Weekend will kick off with a special Launch Party on Thursday, October 13 at A/D/O--a new, 23,000 square-foot design space that opens this fall in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Tailored for design professionals (yet open to all), A/D/O aims to stimulate and inspire interdisciplinary collaboration, while offering resources and a platform for developing talent.

For more information about Open House New York Weekend, visit www.ohny.org.