Sunday, October 30, 11:30AM
Join us for a tour highlighting two very different historic districts in The Bronx! We will begin with a stroll through the charming Clay Avenue Historic District, a one-block stretch of remarkably intact and refreshingly unchanged rowhouses. Following this treasure of a block, the tour will loop back to the Grand Concourse Historic District to take in a smattering of Revival and Art Deco apartment buildings. This juxtaposition of small-scale, late 19th century rowhouses and large-scale, early 20th century apartment buildings will allow participants to compare and contrast trends in the development of middle-class housing a generation or so apart. The tour will end at another locally designated gem, the Andrew Freedman Home, located on the Grand Concourse at East 166th Street. The home has a colorful and unlikely origin story, having been built by millionaire philanthropist Andrew Freedman as a retirement facility for wealthy people who had lost their fortunes.
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Saturday, September 24, 11:00AM
Following up on the success of our first tour of East New York in the spring, HDC is pleased to offer a repeat tour of this fascinating corner of Brooklyn! East New York has certainly been the talk of the town lately, as the City moves forward to rezone the neighborhood, along with 14 others. However, East New York is also known for its rich and somewhat troubled history. Join us for this tour, led by Farrah Lafontant, neighborhood resident and member of Preserving East New York, the newly formed civic group working to preserve the neighborhood’s built heritage. The tour will begin at the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church and include visits to a Magistrates Court, the former site of the East New York Savings Bank, Maxwell’s Bakery and the Borden Dairy Company factory complex, which was recently heard by the Landmarks Preservation Commission for potential landmark status.
After the tour we will head to Arts East New York for a reception. The party will allow neighbors to learn more about PENY and the work they are doing in East New York. The party is free and open to the public, you do not have to attend the tour to attend the party.
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Wednesday, August 10, 6:00PM
Join us for a tour of some of the highlights of one of Manhattan’s most historic and storied neighborhoods, the Lower East Side! The area has been experiencing rapid change in the form of large-scale development projects over the last decade. In the seeming blink of an eye, entire blocks have been demolished, leaving gaping holes in the landscape, while individual tenements have been replaced with glassy new condo buildings. Yet, its character-defining tenement architecture still exhibits the Lower East Side’s illustrious past as a dense immigrant enclave of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To save a representative piece of this historic tableau, advocates have been working hard to preserve sections of the neighborhood so that its story might live on through its physical fabric. The tour will include the intact areas that are the subject of preservation focus, but will also explore its changing landscape.
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Crown Heights South Fun(d)raiser BBQ Potluck
$25 per person
RSVP to crownheightssouth@gmail.com
Thursday, July 7 at 6:00PM: The Morningside Heights Historic District Committee has long been advocating for a historic district in the neighborhood. To help this effort, HDC selected the area as one of its Six to Celebrate in 2012. With some very exciting new developments bolstering and reinvigorating the cause, the Committee and HDC invite you to join us for a walking tour of this beautiful Manhattan hilltop. Led by architectural historian and preservation consultant Gregory Dietrich, this walking tour will explore the east side of Morningside Heights, encompassing its early apartment houses, row houses, and institutions situated within the vicinity of Morningside Park.
Friends/ Seniors $10
General Admission $20
Saturday, May 14 at 10:00AM: Richmond Hill
Join architect and president of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, Ivan Mrakovčić, for an informative walking tour of the historical and architectural significance of this planned suburban community in Queens. The tour will include examples of Richmond Hill’s Victorian-era architectural legacy: all situated in beautiful tree-lined streets in proximity to the south slope of Forest Park.
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Saturday, May 7 at 9:00AM: Inwood
Join Inwood residents and members of Volunteers for Isham Park and Transportation Alternatives for a Jane’s Walk focused on the design history of Inwood, the community at the northern tip of Manhattan. The tour will also highlight potential changes to its cohesive Art Deco streetscapes and WPA-funded park spaces, as well as proposed improvements to the existing street infrastructure.
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Saturday, June 25 at 10:00AM
Crown Heights South, on the southern side of Eastern Parkway, has fascinating streetscapes and a great history. Sandwiched between the 19th century communities of Bedford and Flatbush, CHS developed primarily between 1900 and 1930 as a fine residential neighborhood with a unique mixture of mansions, rowhouses and apartment buildings. Mixed in are large, important institutions of learning, an armory, theaters, and on its southern border, the site of Ebbetts Field and the remains of one of the area’s most popular breweries. Bedford Avenue, once famous as Brooklyn’s Automobile Row, bisects the neighborhood, and forms a boundary for our two-part tour. Part 1 takes us to the western end of the neighborhood, where big buildings abound. This tour introduces the neighborhood, and some of its most iconic buildings. Part 2 features the mansions of Doctor’s Row, fine rowhouse blocks, apartment building and cultural institutions. The tours will be led by Suzanne Spellen, recipient of a 2015 Historic Districts Council Grassroots Award and the writer of the “Montrose Morris” columns on Brownstoner.com.
Friends/ Seniors $10
General Admission $20
Click here to register for part two
Thursday, June 23 at 6:00PM
Crown Heights South, on the southern side of Eastern Parkway, has fascinating streetscapes and a great history. Sandwiched between the 19th century communities of Bedford and Flatbush, CHS developed primarily between 1900 and 1930 as a fine residential neighborhood with a unique mixture of mansions, rowhouses and apartment buildings. Mixed in are large, important institutions of learning, an armory, theaters, and on its southern border, the site of Ebbetts Field and the remains of one of the area’s most popular breweries. Bedford Avenue, once famous as Brooklyn’s Automobile Row, bisects the neighborhood, and forms a boundary for our two-part tour. Part 1 takes us to the western end of the neighborhood, where big buildings abound. This tour introduces the neighborhood, and some of its most iconic buildings. Part 2 features the mansions of Doctor’s Row, fine rowhouse blocks, apartment building and cultural institutions. The tours will be led by Suzanne Spellen, recipient of a 2015 Historic Districts Council Grassroots Award and the writer of the “Montrose Morris” columns on Brownstoner.com.
Friends/ Seniors $10
General Admission $20
Click here to register for part one
Thursday, June 16 at 6:00PM
The distinctive footprint that disrupts Manhattan’s grid west of Broadway between 155th and 158th Streets—the Audubon Park Historic District—did not come about by accident or from the demands of local topography. It unfolded from careful planning and alliances among like-minded property owners, whose social and political connections ensured that when progress swept up Manhattan’s west side, they would benefit. Take a leisurely walk with local historian Matthew Spady through the architectural gems in today’s Audubon Park Historic district and the proposed expansion area and learn about the Grinnell family, who controlled this neighborhood’s rapid evolution from suburb to city at the turn of the twentieth century.
Friends/ Seniors $10
General Admission $20
Click here to register
