10 of the coolest places that will open to the public for Open House New York Weekend

For some New Yorkers, it’s the most wonderful time of the year: Open House New York Weekend, which runs from Friday, Oct. 20 through Sunday, Oct. 22.

If you haven’t experienced OHNY Weekend yet, think of it as the NYC lover’s dream come true. It offers access to dozens of spaces around the city, including many that are normally off-limits to the public: backstage tours at Lincoln Center, nighttime visits to museums and libraries, hard-hat trips high up into the scaffolding of under-construction skyscrapers.

For many fans of OHNY Weekend, the biggest problem is the sheer number of things to do – the website features 20 pages of listings.

Many of these events require entering a free ticket lottery, the first round of which closes Thursday at 9 a.m. Get your name in early!

But even if you don’t score any of the free lottery spots, there are still more than 150 no-reservation events around the five boroughs – meaning you can show up according to the hours on the event page.

Here are ten exciting events planned for this year’s OHNY Weekend.

1. High Bridge Gate House (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

In the 1830s, Manhattan was dying for fresh, clean water – literally. The 1832 cholera pandemic, which wiped out 1.4% of the population, was exacerbated by the fact that New Yorkers’ drinking water was polluted by their own sewage. After the damage, city elders raised funds to build the Croton Aqueduct, then the greatest engineering marvel in the city, which brought the city’s first sufficient supply of clean drinking water through the Gate House into what is now the Central Park Reservoir.

The High Bridge Water Tower in Washington Heights is regularly open to the public, but the High Bridge Gate House is not.

You can enter the lottery here.

Note that children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult, and that this event is limited to 20 visitors.

2. Domino Sugar (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

City residents – especially those who take the Williamsburg Bridge – have watched the Domino Sugar building be slowly transformed since demolition began in 2014, with a glass dome recently emerging from within the original facade. Once a sugar refinery, the 460,000-square-foot of state-of the-art space will be open for a tour of the penthouse event space as well as a look at the office floors.

You can enter the lottery here.

3. The Brooklyn Seltzer Museum (no lottery entry required)

This soda museum, attached to a fourth-generation family business on the edge of Cypress Hills already offers appointment-only tours. During OHNY Weekend, it’s open for self-guided tours celebrating the science of NYC’s iconic bubbly.

Please note this event does not have a wheelchair accessible restroom, and closed-toe shoes are advised.

4. Cathedral of St. John the Divine Crypt Crawl (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

One of the biggest cathedrals in the world – still unfinished 131 years after construction began – the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is regularly open to the public. But the crypt below the cathedral is rarely open – except for being one of the annual highlights of OHNY Weekend, of course.

This tour is not wheelchair accessible, and participants must be at least 12 years old.

You can enter the lottery here.

5. The National Arts Club (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

Gramercy Park has no shortage of famously inaccessible spaces, from the Players club to the eponymous keyed-entry square to the National Arts Club, founded in 1898 by New York Times art critic Charles De Kay. City luminaries such as J.P. Morgan and Henry Frick were among the earliest members, before the club moved to its current location, the mansion of former governor Samuel Tilden.

The Club offers free performances and lectures throughout the year, but is opening its private, members-only parlors and dining rooms for this tour.

You can enter the lottery here.

6. The Belnord, a.k.a. “The Arconia” (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

Fans already gather outside the Upper West Side’s landmarked Belnord apartment building due to its on-screen role as “The Arconia,” the setting of the Hulu hit “Only Murders in the Building.” But good luck getting past the sentries at either entrance to the gorgeous private courtyard on any other day except this architect-led tour, which will visit inside the building as well.

You can enter the lottery here.

7. One Madison Avenue (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

OHNY’s hard hat tours are reliably a highlight of the weekend – in 2010, visitors could go up the site of 1 World Trade and sign their names on a beam on the 25th floor. This year’s hard-hat construction tour is of One Madison Avenue, an “adaptive reuse” new design built on top of a mid-century building.

OHNY organizers say that closed-toed shoes are required and hard hats and vests will be provided.

You can enter the lottery here.

8. Floyd Bennett Field Hangars 1 & 2 (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

Visitors will have to slip on a flame-resistant suit to take this tour of the natural gas facility inside old airplane hangars at Floyd Bennett Field. Hangars 1 and 2 feature art deco interiors that were restored to their original condition, winning the 2016 New York State preservation award. If you live nearby, there’s a chance that the natural gas in your apartment is fed through this very spot.

Flame-resistant suits are mandatory for this tour and will be provided; photography is not permitted inside the gas facility.

You can enter the lottery here.

9. Perelman Performing Arts Center (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

The new Perelman Performing Arts Center, also known as PAC NYC, opened earlier this year at the World Trade Center site, and relatively few New Yorkers have gotten a chance to attend or visit yet. This architect-led tour will touch on the building’s architectural innovations and design features, such as the movable theaters that deconstruct and recombine like transformers into more than 50 configurations, depending on the needs of the event, as well as visiting areas not yet open to the public

You can enter the lottery here.

10. David Geffen Hall (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

The renovation of the Philharmonic's home base, David Geffen Hall, was completed last year. If you’ve already seen a performance in the newly re-opened space, you may enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at the backstage area, musicians’ lounge and stage wings.

You can enter the lottery here.

To learn even more about Open House New York Weekend, you can listen to WNYC’s Allison Stewart in conversation with OHNY executive director Pamela Puchalski on “All of It.”