10 of the coolest places that will open to the public for Open House New York Weekend

For some New Yorkers, it’s the most wonderful time of the year: Open House New York Weekend, which runs from Friday, Oct. 20 through Sunday, Oct. 22.

If you haven’t experienced OHNY Weekend yet, think of it as the NYC lover’s dream come true. It offers access to dozens of spaces around the city, including many that are normally off-limits to the public: backstage tours at Lincoln Center, nighttime visits to museums and libraries, hard-hat trips high up into the scaffolding of under-construction skyscrapers.

For many fans of OHNY Weekend, the biggest problem is the sheer number of things to do – the website features 20 pages of listings.

Many of these events require entering a free ticket lottery, the first round of which closes Thursday at 9 a.m. Get your name in early!

But even if you don’t score any of the free lottery spots, there are still more than 150 no-reservation events around the five boroughs – meaning you can show up according to the hours on the event page.

Here are ten exciting events planned for this year’s OHNY Weekend.

1. High Bridge Gate House (lottery entry required by 9 a.m. Oct. 12)

In the 1830s, Manhattan was dying for fresh, clean water – literally. The 1832 cholera pandemic, which wiped out 1.4% of the population, was exacerbated by the fact that New Yorkers’ drinking water was polluted by their own sewage. After the damage, city elders raised funds to build the Croton Aqueduct, then the greatest engineering marvel in the city, which brought the city’s first sufficient supply of clean drinking water through the Gate House into what is now the Central Park Reservoir.

The High Bridge Water Tower in Washington Heights is regularly open to the public, but the High Bridge Gate House is not.

You can enter the lottery here.

Note that children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult, and that this event is limited to 20 visitors.