AIA New York is currently offering a limited number of virtual and in-person walking tours. Please check back regularly for new additions, as we hope to expand our offerings into the summer and fall. Please email tours@aiany.org with any questions.
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.
Upcoming Walking Tours
Roosevelt Island: 1970s New Town, Cornell Tech & Four Freedoms Park
Meet at Roosevelt Island Tram Station on Roosevelt Island.
View a sampling of buildings spanning four centuries on the island first as Blackwell’s Island, later Welfare Island, and—since 1973—Roosevelt Island. Join us as we explore a community planned by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, the recently completed FDR Four Freedoms Park designed by Louis Kahn in 1973, and the new Cornell Tech campus. Other highlights include the restored Blackwell farmhouse and Good Shepherd Chapel, James Renwick’s Smallpox Hospital ruins, housing by Johansen & Bhavnani, Sert, Jackson & Associates, and Gruzen Samton, and new Cornell Tech buildings by Snøhetta, Morphosis, and Weiss/Manfredi.
Tours will run rain or shine. Please arrive 15 minutes prior to tour start time. Registration is limited to 15; walk-ups are not guaranteed a spot on the tour.
Guide: Kyle Johnson, AIA
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Health and Safety Guidelines for AIANY Outdoor Tours:
The safety and comfort of our guides and guests is our number one priority. By registering for this tour, you acknowledge and agree to adhere to the following guidelines:
- This tour will primarily be conducted outside, but may briefly visit some interior spaces. Masks are optional for vaccinated individuals when outside. When entering interior spaces, all guests are required to wear masks. In accordance with CDC guidelines, unvaccinated guests must wear a mask throughout the tour.
- Maintaining six feet of distance from the guide and anyone not in your party is strongly encouraged.
Failure to follow these guidelines may result in your guide requesting that you kindly leave the tour group. Refunds will not be provided for tours canceled due to a failure to comply with safety guidelines.
In-Person Tour: Madison Avenue, High Fashion and Historic Preservation
Meet at the Madison Avenue BID offices: 29 East 61 Street, Third Floor, New York, NY 10065
Join AIANY and the Madison Avenue BID as we set out in person 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, and 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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Health and Safety Guidelines:
The safety and comfort of our guides and guests is our number one priority. By registering for this tour, you acknowledge and agree to adhere to the following guidelines:
- Face masks will be required for all during the introductory remarks inside the Madision Avenue BID offices. Once outside, vaccinated individuals may remove masks. In accordance with CDC guidelines, unvacccincated guests must please wear a mask throughout the tour.
- Maintaining six feet of distance from the guide and anyone not in your party is strongly encouraged.
Failure to follow these guidelines may result in your guide requesting that you kindly leave the tour group. Refunds will not be provided for tours canceled due to a failure to comply with safety guidelines.
AIANY cannot be held liable and assumes no responsibility for any injury or loss incurred by participants in these programs.
The Architecture of Bryant Park
General Public: $20
Before Bryant Park became New York’s “Living Room” and home to the New York Public Library, Bryant Park served the city as a potters’ field, as a receiving reservoir for the Croton Water System, and as the site of the Crystal Palace Exhibition building. A revised landscape plan executed during the Great Depression, but following a decline in the social and physical conditions of the area in the 1970s and 80s, the park underwent a major restoration, which was completed in 1990. Today, Bryant Park, one of the premier outdoor spaces of Manhattan, serves as a model for public and private revitalization. This walking tour will explore the architecture lining the perimeter of the park, which offer an interesting timeline of the development of Midtown. Keynote projects include the New York Public Library by Carrère and Hastings, the Radiator Building by Hood and Howells, One Bryant by COOKFOX, the Grace Building by SOM, and the Bryant Condominiums and Hotel by David Chipperfield. Urban and architectural issues will be discussed, including NYC zoning law, business improvements districts, and the evolution of skyscraper design.
AIANY Guide: Joe Lengeling, Assoc. AIA
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Health and Safety Guidelines:
The safety and comfort of our guides and guests is our number one priority. By registering for this tour, you acknowledge and agree to adhere to the following guidelines:
- Face masks will be required for any remarks made inside. Once outside, vaccinated individuals may remove masks. In accordance with CDC guidelines, unvaccinated guests must please wear a mask throughout the tour.
- Maintaining six feet of distance from the guide and anyone not in your party is strongly encouraged.
Failure to follow these guidelines may result in your guide requesting that you kindly leave the tour group. Refunds will not be provided for tours canceled due to a failure to comply with safety guidelines.
AIANY cannot be held liable and assumes no responsibility for any injury or loss incurred by participants in these programs.
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 tours@aiany.org prior to purchasing your tickets for more information.