Nosyparking in New York

Those of you who always wanted not only come to New York but get behind the scenes of its theaters, churches, private apartments and architects’ studios, even Masonic and Hindu temples, power stations and fireboats, this weekend present a perfect opportunity.
Annual Open House New York opens city’s doors for you for the third time.

Last 2 years I’ve planned the weekend way in advance; busied myself with reservations where required, checked viewing schedules and anticipated transport time loss. I have vivid memories of places I visited: Brooklyn Army Terminal, with its surreal inner rail yard, High Bridge Tower’s cast iron steps, pre-opening tour of deceptively named Jazz at Lincoln Center (located now at Time Warner at Columbus Circle), with all the mechanics of 3 stages exposed; others, with personal little anecdotes attached. Of course, it took a week to recover, but it was worth it.

For this year’s Open House I decided to see only the sites new to the program. I had the best of intentions: stick to the few rare treasures and stop running like crazy hare between Harlem and Park Slope.

It all went to the drain. Literally. To the street storm drains, under incessant rain that continues knocking into my skylight as I’m writing this, in my favorite pyjamas and having warmed myself up with a sizable portion of glintwein.

To start with, I got to work on interesting and challenging project in the office that required all my attention. Luckily, because when I wasn’t thinking of work, my mind was occupied with relative meaning of words like “bickering”, “nice” and “complain” – not my words but nevertheless worth pondering the mystery of their usage by various people.

Excuses, excuses, I know. Nevertheless, that’s how it happened that I did NOT make reservation to the MTA substation on 53rd Street. And Waldorf Astoria. And MOMA Conservation Department. And a tour with Kahn Architecture expert. And all of it was full! No exceptions allowed! If anybody among you, my [theoretically existing} readers did go to these highly desirable locations, please please tell me what did you see there and what were your thoughts. You know, the curiosity might kill me.

So, I floated with the stream. As it always happens, unexpected wonders appeared. Surprise finds, not listed in the OHNYprogram shined their wet facades. People provided excitement, too.

I'll post some of the pictures in the next post, with captions. Forgive me my clumsyness with graphics alignment, I'm not yet familiar with Blogger' ways of operation.