Share this on

Lecture Series Provides Access to Hidden NY

Free to the public, tours visit unusual places such the city’s first subway station and McKim, Mead & White’s premiere skyscraper.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 11/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Once each month through February 2007, Access Restricted, an innovative, free “nomadic” lecture series will take participants on tours through Manhattan’s rarely visited, often prohibited spaces—the city’s first subway station, the first U.S. custom house, the Tombs. Led by docents who double as artists, writers, DJs, and architects, the tours offer peeks into various hidden gems around the city.

The series is produced by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, which focuses on seeing art in unused, abandoned, or hidden places, as well as the overlooked narratives of downtown Manhattan. Attendance to the events is free, but RSVP is required.

The first tour, led by urban archaeologist Julia Solis, kicks off tonight, November 1, at the abandoned City Hall Subway Station. Guests will board a charted subway car to see the original glass tiles and chandeliers of the now-defunct station.

On November 29, Access Restricted will meet again, this time led by Andrea Geyer, former Lower Manhattan Cultural Council resident-artist. Geyer will talk about the infamous municipal power-monger and crook, William Marcy “Boss” Tweed at the Tweed Courthouse. Across the street and atop the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, Geyer’s gang will have an opportunity to gaze across at Adolph Weinman's 20-foot-high "Civic Fame" copper sculpture—New York’s largest. Then it’s on to McKim, Mead & White’s first skyscraper, the Municipal Building, atop which “Civic Fame” takes in one of the most commanding views in all of New York.

In January (date to be announced), a talk will be held in a grand, early 20th century international shipping tariff collector’s room. The following month, a discussion on the topic of research will be held in the municipal archives—where more than 30,000 boxes are kept on file—with an artist, an archivist, and a DJ.