The newest edition of Secret New York, An Unusual Guide, is out! Michelle Young, founder of Untapped New York and author of "Secret New York," interviews her co-author Hannah Frishberg, a native New Yorker and arts and culture reporter with Gothamist/WNYC. Discover some of the exciting new entries in the guidebook, including the IFC Center's spy holes, the Hess Triangle, a section of the Berlin Wall, and two quirky lighthouses in the Bronx and Staten Island. They also highlight the Red Room at One Wall Street, set to reopen in the spring. Michelle and Hannah also kick off our newest series, "Meet a New Yorker"!

Get an autographed copy of Secret New York, An Unusual Guide!

This week's "Take the 5" podcast episode is all about the pets and animals of New York City. We recorded the episode on Election Day, not knowing who would become President. But regardless of the outcome at the time, we hoped it will be a respite from political news for all of you!

Michelle, Justin, and Nicole talk about the new Pets of NYC exhibition at New York Historical, the former Canine Chief of Engine 203, the euthanization of squirrel Instagram star, Peanut, and more. We even have an audio reading from Peggy Gavan,  author of the The Bravest Pets of Gotham: Tales of Four-Legged Firefighters of Old New York. Michelle also talks about her experience when rats moved into her car during the pandemic. 

The newest episode, "How Long Does it Take to Be a New Yorker?" features guest host, audio journalist Francisco Kilgore, and members get early access to the episode! Francisco is a more recent transplant to New York City, and spent many months investigating how long it takes to become a New Yorker. Everyone has a different take on this question. Francisco went on the ground to interview everyone from his local bodega owner to experts in the city to find out an answer. You'll hear from Valerie Paley, Director of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New York Historical Society, architect Duane Blue Spruce, fromerly with National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, Tyler Anbinder, former chair of the History Department at George Washington University, and many more. 

The Untapped New York team is excited to revive our weekly (ish) show, Take the 5! In this short five(ish) minute episode, Michelle Young (Founder), Nicole Saraniero (Editor + Director of Events), and Justin Rivers (Chief Experience Officer) will discuss all of the timely, weird, wacky, and fun current events we covered over the week. We’ll also which upcoming Untapped New York events we’re most excited about in the week ahead. To close each episode, Justin will reveal a fun fact from New York City history this week. 

This week, we chat about a Wonka-inspired candy shop in Brooklyn, the Morgan Library's 1920s librarian, the chaos of Washington Square Park's Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest, the 120th anniversary of the New York City subway system, and why this year's Rockefeller Center Tree is so special. We also call for your help in learning more about a mysterious subway map that we stumbled upon at Grand Central Terminal and Justin shares a fun fact about New York baseball!

Ah...scaffolding. That ubiquitous, necessary, and perpetually present part of New York City’s landscape. In this episode, we do a deep dive into the history of scaffolding, reveal just how much scaffolding there is in the city, why it exists, how long it stays up, why it's always green, how much it costs, and answer everything you've ever wanted to know about this scourge/icon.

You’ll hear from three experts: Ken Buettner from York Scaffolding Equipment Corporation, based in Long Island City Queens, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, and architect Andrés Cortés who designed the Urban Umbrella, the beautiful sidewalk shed you often see in front of upscale businesses, particularly on Fifth Avenue. You'll hear a humorous clip from the HBO show, How to with John Wilson and also get a front row seat at the recent "Shed the Shed" rally on the steps of City Hall and learn what efforts the mayor and city council are taking to reduce the amount scaffolding. Oh, and it's not actually called scaffolding. Listen to find out more!

The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Michelle Young. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room" and "Branches"). Clip from How to with John Wilson courtesy HBO.  New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler. 

In this episode, we do a deep dive into one of New York City’s most recognizable pieces of street furniture: fire alarm call boxes. You know what we're talking about. They're (often) red and sit prettily on sidewalks with the ability to call the fire department and the police. Fire alarm call boxes have been around for more than a hundred years and come in different shapes and sizes, from the ornate Victorian ones to the more modern ones. Before the advent of telephones and much later, cell phones, they were the main way to get in contact with the fire department.

In this episode, you'll hear interviews with several experts including Gary Urbanowicz, the former Executive Director of the New York City Fire Museum and its de facto historian, Jan Borodo, the FDNY’s current Executive Director of the Bureau of Plant Operations, and Warren Fuchs, a retired dispatcher who is known was as "The Voice of Brooklyn." You'll learn how fire alarm call boxes work, how they evolved, the many types of fire alarm call boxes there have been (more than you think!), whether they work, and much more. You'll also hear how it sounded when one of the older mechanical call boxes was pulled.

The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Michelle Young. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room").   New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.  

New York City's lost opera houses are having their fifteen minutes of fame, thanks to the HBO show, The Gilded Age, which brought their dramatic histories to life in the most recent season. We dug into these former opera houses in our new extended episode which weaves in clips from The Gilded Age.  We'll cover some of the earliest of opera houses (some of which where were Italian!), the Astor Place Opera house which inspired one of the deadliest riots in the city's history, the Academy of Music, the first Metropolitan Opera house, and our backstage tour of the current Met Opera. You can follow along with this podcast episode using the visuals in our accompanying article on Untapped New York.

The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Michelle Young and co-hosted by Justin Rivers.  Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room").  All clips from The Gilded Age courtesy HBO.  Opera music is La Traviata by Verdi, from PremiumBeat performed by the Human Symphony Orchestra.  New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.  

Did you know there's a Main Street in New York City? Most people probably associate the idea of Main Street with quaint American towns and villages but New York City has not just one but five Main Streets. Join Untapped New York's founder Michelle Young as she goes on a quixotic mission to find all of NYC's Main Streets.

The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Michelle Young and co-hosted by Justin Rivers.  Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room"). Additional sounds by Daniel Simon and Mike Koenig.  New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.  

This episode is all about Oppenheimer, as the movie heads into the Academy Awards with thirteen Oscar nominations. Michelle Young and Justin Rivers from Untapped New York first delve into J. Robert Oppenheimer's early life in New York City where the character and moral beliefs of the precocious future scientist were forged. Our hosts also discover their mutual connection to the atomic bomb itself. Then, Michelle interviews Oppenheimer's production designer Ruth de Jong who is up for an Oscar for Best Production Design and dig into where the film was shot, how the incredible on location sets were designed, and how the worlds of Oppenheimer in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Princeton, New Jersey,  were created.

The  Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Michelle Young and co-hosted by Justin Rivers.  Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Gloom Doom Buttercups" and "Branches"). New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.  

When the young and beautiful Vivian Gordon was found strangled in Van Cortlandt Park in 1931, the case to find her killer unveiled the dark underbelly of New York City political power and policing. In this episode, author Michael Wolraich of the new book The Bishop and the Butterfly, which the New York Times calls  a “propulsive” “political thriller," recounts this story along with Pulitzer Prize winner Debby Applegate, author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler at the inaugural Lit Salon, a candlelit literary salon hosted in Untapped New York founder Michelle Young's Brooklyn brownstone.
Get an autographed copy of the book here! 

The  Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Michelle Young and co-hosted by Justin Rivers.  New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler. Speakeasy music in this episode Shane Ivers.