Keep Exploring the City with Bloomberg Connects
Each October, Open House New York Weekend throws open the city’s doors, inviting you to step inside landmarks, hidden spaces, and cultural gems across all five boroughs. The festival is made possible with support from Bloomberg Connects, a free mobile app featuring in-depth guides to 1,000+ museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and more.
The 2025 festival has concluded, but you can explore cultural spaces across the city year-round with Bloomberg Connects. More than 50 OHNY Weekend partners offer digital guides with curatorial insights into their exhibitions, collections, artists, and history.
In collaboration with Bloomberg Connects, we’ve rounded up a list of festival favorites in each of the five boroughs that offer guides that you can experience on the app right now. Plan a route using a behind-the-scenes audio tour, enhance your visit to festival cultural partners with in-depth guides, or explore Weekend sites from home.
BROOKLYN
MADE Bush Terminal in Sunset Park. Photo: Take Out Creative.
The South Brooklyn NYC Ferry route gives passengers a unique perspective on the warehouses, gantry cranes, shipyards, and piers of Brooklyn’s working waterfront: key components of the city’s industrial history, now being transformed for a new era of manufacturing and transport. Board at any ferry stop on the South Brooklyn route and accompany your voyage with an audio tour narrated by Turnstile Tours, highlighting the past and future stories of these waterfront landmarks.
Disembark the NYC Ferry at Sunset Park, or make your way there by train to visit the historic Green-Wood Cemetery, a 478-acre National Historic Landmark where art, history, and nature converge. Founded in 1838 as one of the United States’ first rural cemeteries, the rolling hills now provide a panoramic view of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn’s skyscrapers, and are home to a variety of wildlife and celebrated trees living amongst the Gothic Revival memorials and famous permanent residents.
MANHATTAN
Get a new perspective on The High Line and the notable buildings alongside this former rail corridor with an audio tour by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. BWAF advocates for gender equity in leadership and recognition in the architecture, design, landscape, engineering, technology, real estate and construction industries. This audio tour, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Alexandra Lange, brings the voices of women designers, architects, and cultural leaders to the fore. Sites include Moynihan Station, the High Line–Moynihan Connector, David Zwirner Gallery, and Little Island.
Built on the former site of the New York Central Railroad’s 60th Street Yard, Riverside Park South was once the primary import, export and classification area for Manhattan’s sole all-freight train line. Though the rail yard is no longer active, the landscape architecture of Riverside Park South reflects its history, including an authentic (and newly renovated) locomotive stationed in the park. As you explore the park, take in Hudson River views and uncover remnants of rail history with this audio guide, produced in partnership with the Riverside Park Conservancy.
BRONX
The New York Botanical Garden is a living museum — from the soaring glass-domed Enid A. Haupt Conservatory to 250 acres of lush landscape. Since 1891, it’s been both a hub for plant science and a green refuge in the heart of The Bronx. Take a seasonal walk to see what’s currently blooming, follow ancient trails in an old-growth forest, and see awe-inspiring displays of horticultural beauty.
Maya Ciarrocchi, Super Outbreak, 2023. Tapestry thread on needlepoint canvas. Courtesy of the artist.
Located at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, the Derfner Judaica Museum houses both an extensive repository of Jewish ceremonial objects and a permanent art collection of over 4,500 works. The Museum’s building, designed by Louise Braverman, provides breathtaking views of the Hudson River and allows persons of all abilities to architecturally explore the role of nature in an art environment.
QUEENS
Brooklyn Navy Yard. Photo: Ben Tso.
In one hour, the Astoria NYC Ferry route takes riders past 100 years of New York City history. Board at any Astoria route stop and start the audio guide, narrated by Turnstile Tours, to learn about landmarks of the industrial age in Wallabout Bay; sky-scraping housing along the Lower East Side, Midtown Manhattan, and Long Island City waterfronts; the past and present of East River’s barge traffic; and the natural and manmade islands that stretch along the river.
'TILT (what if these plants get out)' by Landon Newton. Photo: Bob Krasner.
Once an abandoned landfill, Socrates Sculpture Park was reclaimed in 1986 by artist Mark di Suvero and local residents — transforming it into a dynamic waterfront space where art and nature coexist. Today, the park stands as a model for community-driven revitalization, an evolving landscape where large-scale sculptures rise amid native plantings, industrial remnants, and open skies. Hear from the artists featured in current and past exhibitions and learn about the park’s ongoing commitment to exploring storytelling, survival, and community through contemporary art.
STATEN ISLAND
Alice Austen House. Photo: Dani Groza.
The Alice Austen House is both a historic home and museum dedicated to the pioneering photographer who captured New York life at the turn of the 20th century. Follow shoreline paths to the park’s overlook for sweeping harbor views, then step inside the home where Austen lived and worked for nearly fifty years. The site reflects her adventurous spirit, her lifelong partnership with Gertrude Tate, and the creative dialogue between art and place.
Historic Richmond Town. Photo: Matthew Carasella.
Historic Richmond Town is New York City’s living history village. More than 300 years of local history come to life through restored buildings, exhibitions, and interactive programs that immerse visitors in the trades, traditions, and daily life of past generations. Go behind-the-scenes with Historic Richmond Town’s preservation and restoration team and get a close-up on everyday artifacts in the collection.
Open House New York is supported by Bloomberg Connects, a free mobile app featuring guides to 1,000+ museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and cultural spaces.
