Open House New York Weekend starts tomorrow. From Friday, October 16, through Sunday, October 18, more than 300 places across all five boroughs open their doors for tours, talks and plain old looking around. According to OHNY, this is the 24th year of the festival, and most sites are free.
Here is how to plan your Open House New York weekend, what still needs a ticket and the few spots we would build a day around.
How Open House New York works
The festival runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day, per the event page. Individual sites keep shorter hours inside that window, so check each listing before you leave home.
There are two kinds of sites. Drop-In sites need no ticket at all. Ticketed sites need a reservation for capacity or security reasons, and only ticket holders get in. As a result, your plan depends on which kind you want.
Drop-in versus ticketed sites
More than half the lineup is drop-in. OHNY’s Weekend Planning 101 guide counts 158 places where you can simply show up. In exchange, you may wait in line, and popular spots fill fast.
Ticketed tours are a different game. Most tickets cost $7, and OHNY released them to everyone at once, on Friday, October 2, at noon ET. The guide says more than 10,500 tickets were available this year and that they always sell out quickly. In other words, if you did not book two weeks ago, build your Open House New York plan around the drop-in list. Keep checking the ticketed listings anyway, since you lose nothing by looking.
Finally, OHNY sells a Weekend Passport. It gets you and a friend faster entry at drop-in sites, and the money supports the festival. For anyone planning a packed Saturday at Open House New York, that may be worth a look.
Four picks from the Open House New York lineup
Gothamist picked five highlights when the lineup went public on September 25. Here are four of them, with the details as Gothamist reported them.
Roy Lichtenstein’s studio, West Village. The late artist’s studio, which was given to the Whitney in 2022, joins the festival this year. A Whitney art historian leads the tour. It is ticketed, with several times on Friday, and tickets went on sale October 2, so check the listing for openings. It pairs perfectly with our guide to pop art in New York and the Whitney’s new Lichtenstein show, which opened October 11.
Mount Morris Fire Watchtower, Harlem. This restored 1857 watchtower stands in Marcus Garvey Park. Visitors climb the spiral stairs and can ring the 5,000-pound bell. It is drop-in on Sunday from 1 to 2:30 p.m., with 12 people allowed up at a time, so expect a line.
New York Botanical Garden Science Open House, the Bronx. Tours run first come, first served on Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. According to Gothamist, they include the garden’s library, its herbarium and its plant science laboratory. No ticket is needed.
QueensWay walking tour, Forest Hills. This two-hour tour walks about a mile of the old rail line through Forest Park, before it becomes a planned park. Friends of the QueensWay leads it. It is ticketed, on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to noon.
Gothamist also points to returning favorites, including Colossal Media’s paint shop in East Williamsburg and two Rockefeller Center gardens. For times, look them up on the lineup.
A one-borough plan for Sunday
If you only have one day, stay in one borough. Subways eat time, and the best part of Open House New York is the wandering. Here is a simple Manhattan Sunday built only on hours OHNY and Gothamist have published.
Morning. Open the lineup, filter by Manhattan, Sunday and Drop-In, and pick two sites near each other below 59th Street. OHNY’s planning guide points visitors to these same filters for day, borough and access type.
Early afternoon. Then head uptown to Marcus Garvey Park and join the watchtower line before 1 p.m. It closes at 2:30, and only 12 people go up at once.
Late afternoon. Next, walk the brownstone blocks around the park and finish with an early dinner in Harlem. Sites close by 6 p.m., so there is no need to rush back downtown.
If you would rather leave the city, our guide to fall foliage near NYC has easy train day trips for the following weekend.
Tips for a smooth Open House New York weekend
- Check for changes. Hours and tours can shift during the weekend, so look at the listing on the morning you go.
- Use the filters. You can sort the lineup by day, borough, access type and accessibility, including wheelchair access and all-ages sites.
- Look for new sites. OHNY says there are more than 110 new experiences this year.
- Wear good shoes. Many visits involve stairs, and some sites are working buildings.
Why we love Open House New York
Most of the year, New Yorkers walk past these doors without a second look. For three days, they open, and the people who run these places explain how the city works. So pick a borough, pack a snack and go be curious.