This Thanksgiving, our Chief Experience Officer reflects on his gratitude for the play that changed his life!
This now-obscure holiday was once bigger than Thanksgiving...and the 4th of July!
Explore a different building in NYC nearly every day of October on special architect-led tours!
Each day in October, a different building in New York City will open its doors to curious visitors interested in learning more about our urban architecture. Through the annual Building of the Day program presented by Archtober, a month-long celebration of NYC architecture and design, the public can step inside the city’s newest, most iconic, and most unique spaces for architect-led walking tours.
Building of the Day tours are presented by the Center for Architecture and they sell out fast, so check out our full guide below and secure your spot!
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 Saint Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10012
📐 Art Restoration: Material Whisperer
🎟️ $15 - This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Louise Nevelson's Chapel of the Good Shepherd is a unique, comprehensive sculptural environment at Saint Peter's Church. Nevelson was instrumental in the conception and introduction of the form, which “sought to break down the historical dichotomy between life and art.” Following years of restoration and necessary improvements to the environment, hear how Nevelson Chapel, a beloved New York City treasure, will be cared for now and for future generations.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 213 Water Street, New York, NY 10038
📐 Architect: Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
🎟️ $15 - This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Newly restored and modernized by Beyer Blinder Belle, the A.A. Thomson & Co. warehouse provides a large-scale exhibition space, a hub for engaging educational programming, and community gathering space for the South Street Seaport Museum. It is the last city-owned parcel in the Seaport to be restored according to a 1980 master plan by BBB, which balanced historic preservation with new development and largely shaped the neighborhood as it appears today.
⏰ 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm
📍333 Kent Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249
📐 Architect: JAZ Architect
🎟️ $15 - This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
The Williamsburg Biannual is a new nonprofit artist space in Brooklyn, New York. Located steps from the Williamsburg Bridge and Domino Park, the Williamsburg Biannual’s home is an adaptive reuse and expansion of a 1920’s 10,000sf warehouse, designed by JAZ Architect. The premises includes over 7,500 square feet of public gathering space, a black box event space, double height galleries and a private outdoor space. Artwork by James Casebere will be on view.
⏰ 12:00pm – 3:00pm
📍 Manresa Island, 200 Woodward Aven, Norwalk, CT 06854
📐 Architect: SCAPE and Bjarke Ingels Group
🎟️ $15 - This tour is NOT accessible by wheelchair
Designed by SCAPE, Manresa Wilds will be a 125-acre publicly accessible park anchored by a 1950s-built power plant facility, to be transformed into a dynamic community hub by Bjarke Ingels Group. The park will offer year-round programming, educational and event spaces, and university-led research centers, becoming an unparalleled public amenity for the Norwalk community, where visitors of all ages, abilities, and interests can experience the coast and explore the ecology of Long Island Sound.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
📍 331 Beach 35th Street, Far Rockaway, Queens, NY 11691
📐 Architect: Bernheimer Architecture
🎟️ $15 - This tour is accessible by wheelchair
Beach Green Dunes III brings 146 all-affordable apartments to the Arverne East neighborhood. Located on a challenging site in the flood-prone Rockaways, it has a “jack-knife” parti with an eight-story wing facing the beach and a four-story wing facing the bay. It incorporates a range of flood-resiliency measures, is passive house certified and fully electric—utilizing a geothermal system—and is crowned by a large photovoltaic array.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
📍 One Manhattan West, 395 9th Ave, New York, NY 10001
📐 Architect: Field Operations; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
🎟️ $15
Decades in the making, Manhattan West is one of New York City’s largest and most complex developments. The project transforms a previously undeveloped district into an entirely new seven-million-square-foot, mixed-use neighborhood with 2.6 acres of open space, offices, residences, and retail—all built above active railroad tracks. This joint tour will explore how Manhattan West revitalizes the Far West Side of Manhattan and reimagines the pedestrian experience from Moynihan Train Hall to the High Line.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
📍 62 Mill Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
📐 Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF)
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
KPF and NYCHA devised a resiliency and renewal program that would lessen the community’s vulnerability to natural disasters and improve the sustainability and livability of the development’s 28 buildings housing over 6,000 people. The project’s “lily pad” concept, its major resiliency component, offers a nonobtrusive landscape solution for flood protection. Raised earth at the center of internal courtyards offer permanent flood barriers to support a porous campus. Low floodwalls doubling as benches will automatically deploy in the event of high water. During normal weather, these elements transform the resident experience by providing vibrant, social spaces. KPF’s approach to the project incorporated community input at every phase of design. Focus groups, interviews, surveys, design workshops, and update meetings brought vital, local knowledge into the design process, enabling the development of a successful new vision of success for NYCHA’s largest development in the borough.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
📍 750 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11232
📐 Architect: Architecture Research Office
🎟️ $15
ARO’s new 17,000-square-foot building will strengthen visitors’ experience of The Green-Wood Cemetery as a cultural institution for nature, art, and history. Nestled around a restored historic Victorian greenhouse, the L-shaped volume, clad in terra cotta, will consolidate previously disparate programs and offices into one accessible location, support existing and expanded public programs, and orient visitors before they chart their own paths through the main entrance across the street. The project opens Spring 2026.
⏰ 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm
📍 2100 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103
📐 Architect: Herzog & de Meuron
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Calder Gardens builds on the legacy of Alexander Calder (1898–1976), one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Set within a landscape of more than 200 varieties of plants created by Piet Oudolf, the 18,000-square-foot building designed by Herzog & de Meuron features a series of Calder’s sculptures chosen for their responsiveness to the environment.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
📍 505 State Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217
📐 Architect: Alloy
🎟️ $15
505 State Street is a mixed-use residential and retail tower that is part of the first phase of a larger full block development in Downtown Brooklyn that is on track to become the most sustainable block in Brooklyn. 505 State Street is New York's first All-Electric skyscraper powered by local renewable energy. Completed Spring 2024 the project includes 441 rental apartments, 45 of which are affordable and retail at grade and below along Flatbush Avenue.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
📍 25 Water Street, New York, NY 10004
📐 Architect: CetraRuddy
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Located at 25 Water Street in Lower Manhattan, SoMA is the country's largest completed office-to-residential conversion to date. With 1,320 apartments and 100,000-plus square feet of amenity space, a tour of this building highlights the transformative potential of adapting underutilized commercial space for housing. It also illustrates the remarkable design achievements making these initiatives possible, from light wells in the building core, to a 10-story rooftop addition and the insertion of thousands of new windows.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 231 W 151st Street, New York, NY 10039
📐 Architect: Curtis + Ginsberg Architects
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Holistic renewal of landmarked Harlem River Houses modernizes the buildings and enhances the spacious grounds, restoring or recreating character-defining features including a natural amphitheater and historic public art. The much-needed restoration and rehabilitation brings energy and safety improvements promoting personal health and social well-being in the community with new social services, management offices, and refreshed retail. Harlem River Houses received a 2025 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award and 2025 SARA NY Design Award of Merit.
⏰ 3:00 pm – 4:15 pm
📍 46 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10013 United States
📐 Design Architect: Gloria Vega Martín AOR- VIQ architecture
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
The design of Jack Shainman Gallery explores the synergy between art and architecture. A dynamic, adaptive environment, it transforms with each artist’s needs, inviting visitors into immersive experiences. More than a gallery, it is an ever-evolving ART–ARCHITECTURE LABORATORY, where each transformation offers insight and inspiration to shape future temporary structures.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 1001 Thieriot Avenue, Bronx, NY 10472
📐 Architect: Magnusson Architecture and Planning
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Replacing an underutilized parking lot at the Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses, this 204-unit affordable senior building is named for the Justice’s mother, Celina Baez. A variety of social spaces; fitness room with adjacent rooftop terrace, lounges on each floor, a library, laundry and community rooms aim to prevent isolation, a frequent challenge for seniors. At the ground floor, social services are available to eligible community members and storefront windows ensure visual connections to the neighborhood.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 60 Furman Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
📐 Architect: Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
The new Pier 1 Entry Pavilion serves as both an accessible meeting space and a welcoming gateway to Brooklyn Bridge Park. A collaboration with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the Pavillion is an inviting place of calm amid city life. Architecture and landscape are integrated through curving pathways and plantings on the raised bosque. New public amenities, including restrooms and concessions, are housed in separate stone structures allowing for porous movement through the space.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 40 Bruckner Blvd, Bronx, NY 10454
📐 Architect: S9 Architecture
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Located in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx, Bruckner House sits at the intersection of a historic district and a new generation of development along the Harlem River. The building is designed to bridge those contexts, reinterpreting the area’s industrial character into a modern loft aesthetic. A sunken indoor garden anchors 30,000 square feet of amenities, while interiors pair loft-inspired design with a classic New York material palette. The building includes 365 residential units, 110 of which are designated affordable.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 125 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019
📐 Architect: FXCollaborative
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair.
Come tour the new home for the historic Calvary Baptist Church congregation, nestled within a new Class-A office tower on West 57th Street. Designed by FXCollaborative, this unique project balances the modern needs of a growing congregation with the demand for dynamic commercial development in midtown Manhattan. Occupying 8 of the project's 30 stories, the church's new home doubles its worship space and creates new ones for education programming, community outreach, and other ministries. Its architecture and interior design are inspired by the symbolism of water and reflection, with a double-curved, wood-clad sanctuary conceived as a precious, protected object within the larger space.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
📍 Central Park at 106-51 East Dr, New York, NY 10026
📐 Architect: Susan T Rodriguez | Architecture • Design; Mitchell Giurgola Architects
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair
The Davis Center brings architecture and landscape together to create a new recreational experience integrated into Central Park’s historic landscape and accessible to the public throughout the year. The project is a capstone effort of a decades-long commitment to reestablish the northern end of the Park as a vital resource for the surrounding community. The design is a collaboration between the Central Park Conservancy, Susan T Rodriguez | Architecture • Design, and Mitchell Giurgola Architects.
⏰ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
📍 20 Battery Place New York, NY 10280
📐 Architect: Thomas Phifer and Partners
🎟️ $15, This tour is NOT accessible by wheelchair
The redesign of Robert F. Wagner Park raises the level of the landscape and structures to conceal a flood wall and to decrease vulnerability from storm inundation and flooding. Thomas Phifer and Partners’ Wagner Park Pavilion will provide a welcoming sanctuary with a community room, restaurant, restrooms, parks storage, and an accessible roof deck that provides sweeping views of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty. The Pavilion will achieve ILFI Net-Zero Carbon Certification.
⏰ 10:00 am – 11:15 am
📍 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10028
📐 Architects: WHY Architecture; Beyer Blinder Belle Architects
🎟️ $15, This tour is accessible by wheelchair
Following a multiyear renovation, The Met’s collections of the arts of Africa, the ancient Americas, and Oceania, returned in May 2025 in a reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.
Designed by WHY Architecture in collaboration with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects, and with The Met’s Design Department, the reimagined galleries have been designed to transform the visitor experience and incorporate innovative technologies that allow The Met to display objects in new ways.
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