AIA New York organizes several different walking tours throughout Manhattan and the boroughs, with a special focus on modern and contemporary architecture. Expert guides, all members of AIA New York, walk intimate groups of visitors through some of New York City’s most distinctive neighborhoods, exploring the city’s rich history and stunning new buildings, as well as creative examples of adaptive reuse, urban planning, and development.
Questions? Email [email protected].
Upcoming Walking Tours
Walking Tour: Madison Avenue, High Fashion, and Historic Preservation
In-Person- General Public: $30
In-Person- Student with Valid ID: $25
Join AIANY and the Madison Avenue BID as we set out to discover the history behind Madison Avenue’s landmark buildings and explore how high-fashion retail has been incorporated into the district to create a world-famous shopping destination. The area has evolved from brownstones built in the 1870s and 1880s to lavish Beaux Arts townhouses by celebrated architects such as McKim, Mead & White, Carrère & Hastings, and Ernest Flagg, to luxury apartment buildings designed by Rosario Candela, Emery Roth, and others. Since the early 20th century, many of these historic residential buildings have been transformed to accommodate prestigious stores. The tour will examine architecture from 1870 to the present on and near Madison in the East 60s and 70s, an area entirely within the Upper East Side Historic District. We will consider how landmark designation has preserved the avenue’s distinctive character.
This monthly tour is offered in partnership with the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District (BID), a public-private partnership established in 1996 with the goal of enhancing the quality of life for the community and its visitors. The BID focuses on public safety, sanitation, promotion and advocacy for the district, striving to make Madison Avenue a more attractive and dynamic place in which to shop, live, work and visit.
AIANY Guide: John Arbuckle, Assoc. AIA
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Please arrive 15 minutes prior to the start of the tour. Tour is limited to 17 attendees. Walkups cannot be guaranteed a spot on the tour.
Health and Safety Guidelines:
AIANY cannot be held liable and assumes no responsibility for any injury or loss incurred by participants in these programs.
Cancellation Policy:
AIANY Walking Tours take place rain or shine, please dress for the weather. There are no refunds, cancellations, or exchanges, unless we cancel a tour.
Walking Tour: Medieval Lower Manhattan
In-Person- General Public: $30
Meet across the street from Trinity Church at 89 Broadway. Please arrive 15 minutes before the start of the tour.
New York City was originally known as New Amsterdam when it was founded in 1625 as a trading and resupply post for The Netherland’s West India Trading Company. In 1664, the British took control of New Amsterdam and changed its name to New York City. It became a key city in England’s expansionist colonization of North America, yet the Dutch culture of commerce and trade is embedded in the core of NYC’s purpose and history. The downtown district is rich in the city’s historic development of buildings, national political history, and the evolution of a capitalist economy centered on Wall Street. We will walk the circumference of New Amsterdam as it existed in 1664—sites include Wall Street, the NY Stock Exchange, Fraunces Tavern, India House, and Federal Hall National Memorial. This walking tour highlights the contrast in urban form actualized during the Netherlands' transition into its late Medieval and Renaissance eras and into the 1811 NYC Commissioners’ City Plan—the city’s famous street grid.
AIANY Guide: William M. Singer, AIA, LEED AP BD + D
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AIANY cannot be held liable and assumes no responsibility for any injury or loss incurred by participants in these programs. Tour is limited to 17 attendees. A personal audio system will be in use for this tour. The tour is limited to 17 attendees. To insure each guest will receive a device, please arrive promptly 15 minutes prior to the start time. Walkups cannot be guaranteed a spot on the tour.
Cancellation Policy:
AIANY Walking Tours take place rain or shine, please dress for the weather. There are no refunds, cancellations, or exchanges, unless we cancel a tour.
AIA Brooklyn Double Header: Sunnyside Gardens Tour followed by Nerton Construction Shop Tour and Reception
Join AIA Brooklyn for this double-header and earn 3 learning units. We’ll begin at 3:00 Friday afternoon at the architectural offices of Laura Heim, who will generously lead a tour of Sunnyside Gardens – the first full-scale application of the English Garden City movement in the United States. High points of the tour will include the Louis Mumford house, Sunnyside Park (still private like Gramercy Park), the Phipps Gardens Apartments and the interior courts – the originally shared backyards – that give Sunnyside Gardens its unique charm and scale.
Just as the sun is setting, we’ll arrive at AIA Brooklyn Gold Sponsor Nerton Construction for a celebratory reception and a tour of their substantial millwork shop. The shop tour will educate us about the materials and methods that go into premium, custom cabinetry including a discussion of finish and hardware types, moisture and warpage resistance and assembly and joining techniques.
Leave work a little early on Friday and experience one of those secret New York City Havens that you’ve probably never seen. Finish the afternoon with a glass of wine and a hearty snack at Nerton Construction.
Walking Tour: Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) in Midtown North
In-Person- General Public: $30
The large, undeveloped, untaxed open spaces provided to the public by the Lever House and the Seagram Building triggered a significant innovation and experiment in New York City’s 1961 Zoning Resolution (61ZR). One of several new zoning initiatives was "Incentive Zoning", which, in this case, was implemented through the creation of Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS). The concept of POPS is New York City’s reinterpretation of the modernist urban design concept of the “Towers in the Park,” applied to an extraordinarily dense, urban core where available land is limited and cost is at a premium. POPS are a triple win: owners and developers are allowed to build larger buildings as-of-right; the public gains access to additional public space; and New York City receives increased annual property tax revenue generated by the added taxable building square footage.
This walk weaves through a variety of POPS (Open, Enclosed, and Arcades) from 58th to 46th Streets and from Third to Sixth Avenues. If we encounter inclement weather, we can take refuge indoors. If it is brutally hot or frigidly cold, we will find relief in climate-controlled interiors. If it is gorgeous outside, we will enjoy the city from its open spaces. We may even find a rare New York City gem— a clean and available public restroom!
AIANY Guide: William M. Singer, AIA, LEED AP BD + D
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A personal audio system will be in use for this tour. To ensure each guest will receive a device, please arrive promptly 15 minutes prior to the start time. Tour is limited to 17 attendees. Walkups cannot be guaranteed a spot on the tour.
Health and Safety Guidelines:
AIANY cannot be held liable and assumes no responsibility for any injury or loss incurred by participants in these programs.
Cancellation Policy:
AIANY Walking Tours take place rain or shine, please dress for the weather. There are no refunds, cancellations, or exchanges, unless we cancel a tour.
Walking Tour: Two Squares (Union to Madison)
In-Person- General Public: $30
Powerful political and economic forces are captured in NYC’s urban texture from 14th to 26th Street; recorded in this micro walk of Manhattan are 65 years of macro-U.S. history (1865 to 1930). The impact of America’s first Industrial Revolution (steel, transportation, electricity, communications, insurance, mass-produced consumer products with the development of department stores and the leisure class to start our consumer society) can be easily imagined in the limited geography from Union to Madison Square. By walking Broadway from its Union Square hinge point—its urban shift from orthogonal to angled—by way of Madison Square we will follow a short section of this anomalous Indian trail, now embedded in NYC’s most famous street, as it blazes across the rigidity of the mighty Grid. From open space riot control to English Romantic Garden, the two squares of this walk bookend a compelling narrative of NYC history, with highlights including the Lincoln Building, Zeckendorf Towers, the Warren Building, the Flat Iron Building, One Madison Park, and the commemorative Madison Oak tree in Madison Square.
AIANY Guide: William M. Singer, AIA, LEED AP BD + D
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A personal audio system will be in use for this tour. To insure each guest will receive a device, please arrive promptly 15 minutes prior to the start time. Tour is limited to 17 attendees. Walkups cannot be guaranteed a spot on the tour.
Health and Safety Guidelines:
AIANY cannot be held liable and assumes no responsibility for any injury or loss incurred by participants in these programs.
Cancellation Policy:
AIANY Walking Tours take place rain or shine, please dress for the weather. There are no refunds, cancellations, or exchanges, unless we cancel a tour.
Policies
AIANY Walking tours take place rain or shine, please dress for the weather. There are no refunds, cancellations, or exchanges, unless we cancel a tour.
Accessibility
Please note that AIANY walking tours are not ADA accessible. However, since accessibility requirements can vary from person to person, please email [email protected] prior to purchasing your tickets for more information.