Upcoming Programs

Thirty years ago a New Yorker article, “The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis,” recounted the little-known drama of the threatened collapse of a Manhattan skyscraper. In a new book, The Great Miscalculation: The Race to Save New York City’s Citicorp Tower, author Michael Greenburg further investigates the full story of how in 1978 structural engineer William LeMessurier became aware of a critical flaw in his innovative design and the chain of events and responses that followed. A team of engineers and building experts mobilized to analyze and correct a miscalculation that, a generation before 9/11, threatened Midtown Manhattan with a catastrophic collapse of a major tower.

The Business Core tour of the Museum’s three thematic walking tours of Battery Park City on Thursday, June 12 at 4pm will focus on the commercial core with its 1980s skyscrapers of the original World Financial Center (now Brookfield Place) by architect Cesar Pelli, as well as the expansive North Cove Marina and its public realm. This walk will investigate how the planning concept of public-private partnership was both the principle and economic engine of the Battery Park City project and how the goals of opening the waterfront to public access and recreation was realized over three decades.

This tour will meet in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place.

The Business Core tour of the Museum’s three thematic walking tours of Battery Park City on Friday, June 20 at 4pm will focus on the commercial core with its 1980s skyscrapers of the original World Financial Center (now Brookfield Place) by architect Cesar Pelli, as well as the expansive North Cove Marina and its public realm. This walk will investigate how the planning concept of public-private partnership was both the principle and economic engine of the Battery Park City project and how the goals of opening the waterfront to public access and recreation was realized over three decades.

This tour will meet in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place.

As the U.S. approaches its 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, we will walk Wall Street to recall its colonial history, recap its role as the banking center of capitalism, and observe its recent rise of a reinvented residential neighborhood. Skyscraper Museum director Carol WIllis will lead a 90-minute walking tour that meets in front of Federal Hall, at the juncture of Wall, Broad, and Nassau streets, and weaves its way through the Financial District, highlighting both the current uses of the landmark buildings that line Wall Street and discussing the generations of structures that occupied those sites and the cast of characters that populated this historic district.

As the U.S. approaches its 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, we will walk Wall Street to recall its colonial history, recap its role as the banking center of capitalism, and observe its recent rise of a reinvented residential neighborhood. Skyscraper Museum director Carol WIllis will lead a 90-minute walking tour that meets in front of Federal Hall, at the juncture of Wall, Broad, and Nassau streets, and weaves its way through the Financial District, highlighting both the current uses of the landmark buildings that line Wall Street and discussing the generations of structures that occupied those sites and the cast of characters that populated this historic district.

The North Neighborhood tour of the Museum’s three thematic walking tours of Battery Park City, on Thursday, July 17 at 4pm, will cover the north residential neighborhood, which was developed in several phases, beginning with Stuyvesant High School at the northeast edge and the esplanade and Rockefeller Park along the Hudson. A diagonal avenue lined with apartment buildings creates one face of the neighborhood, while the inner courts of the large blocks are connected by the delightful Teardrop Park. Located two blocks from ground zero, we will also explore the history and design of the Irish Hunger Memorial completed in 2001.

This tour will meet in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place.

In his new book Designing the American Century, Thomas J. Campanella argues that Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano were the foremost spatial designers at work in the mid-20th century. Their vast portfolio of public landscapes propelled the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux into the motor age, touching the lives of millions and changing the face of the nation. With the patronage of public-works titan Robert Moses, Clarke and Rapuano transformed New York over a span of fifty years.

The North Neighborhood tour of the Museum’s three thematic walking tours of Battery Park City, on Friday, July 25 at 4pm, will cover the north residential neighborhood, which was developed in several phases, beginning with Stuyvesant High School at the northeast edge and the esplanade and Rockefeller Park along the Hudson. A diagonal avenue lined with apartment buildings creates one face of the neighborhood, while the inner courts of the large blocks are connected by the delightful Teardrop Park. Located two blocks from ground zero, we will also explore the history and design of the Irish Hunger Memorial completed in 2001.

This tour will meet in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place.

The South Neighborhood tour on Thursday, August 7 at 4pm explores Battery Park City’s southern district, which is home to the Skyscraper Museum and includes some of BPC’s earliest landscapes and infrastructure, as well as the residential enclaves built in the 1990s that followed the 1979 Cooper Eckstut Master Plan. Starting in the Museum’s gallery to see historic views of the waterfront, the tour will visit South Cove and the green spaces that connect to the Esplanade, the first waterfront park in New York since the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade in 1951.

This tour will meet at The Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Pl.

The South Neighborhood tour on Friday, August 15 at 4pm explores Battery Park City’s southern district, which is home to the Skyscraper Museum and includes some of BPC’s earliest landscapes and infrastructure, as well as the residential enclaves built in the 1990s that followed the 1979 Cooper Eckstut Master Plan. Starting in the Museum’s gallery to see historic views of the waterfront, the tour will visit South Cove and the green spaces that connect to the Esplanade, the first waterfront park in New York since the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade in 1951.

This tour will meet at The Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Pl.