AIA-NY Around Manhattan Boat Tours

	AIA-NY Around Manhattan Architecture Tour  Guided by AIA New York members, the New York City architecture tour will circumnavigate Manhattan. You will take in the “starchitecture” of the West Side, skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, and the icons of the East River. These world famous monuments and more recent waterfront architecture can be viewed in comfort and style from the climate-controlled, enclosed back deck observatory, or from our open bow for some fresh air and sunlight. Light hors d’ oeuvres and a complimentary beer, wine, or Champagne is included..  • Get info, check availability, and buy tickets
	AIA-NY Around Manhattan Bridge Infrastructure Tour John Kriskiewicz, professor of Architecture and City Planning at Parsons and FIT, is your host for a full circumnavigation tour that takes an in depth look at the engineering marvels of all of New York City's fantastic, historic, and wildly different bridges and tunnels! Historical anecdotes and tales of great human engineering feats tell the story of these great 18 bridges and 4 tunnels. Light hors d’ oeuvresand a complimentary beer, wine, or Champagne is included. • Get info, check availability, and buy tickets

AIA-NY Around Manhattan Architecture Tour: Featured Guide Series The season's first Featured Guide, Catherine Seavitt, architect, landscape architect, and Associate Professor at the City College of New York will join the tour to share insights from the visionary 2010 study On the Water: Palisade Bay. This book co-written with Guy Nordenson and Adam Yarinsky, FAIA, was the generative text for MoMA’s 2010 exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront. The Construction of soft infrastructure, inter-tidal biodiversity, and waterborne transportation are among the many themes explored while looking at specific examples along NYC’s waterfront.  Light hors d’ oeuvres and a complimentary beer, wine, or Champagne is included.  ( More Featured Guide Tours will be added throughout the season.  Please check the AIANY calendar for updates) • Get info, check availability, and buy tickets

AIA New York and its Architecture Tour Committee, in partnership with Classic Harbor Line, is pleased to announce the commencement of AIANY Around Manhattan Boat Tour Series.

Now in its fourth year, this season features three distinct tours: NYC Architecture, NYC Bridges & Infrastructure, and the Featured Guide Series. Join us almost every day of the week a for complete tour of the city’s architectural and engineering landmarks as seen from its historic waterways.

The Manhattan is a meticulously designed 1920s-style yacht within whose climate-controlled cabin all seats afford excellent views. Guests are free to wander out on the open decks for even greater viewing and photo opportunities. While guests enjoy the narration by their thorough and insightful AIANY guide, the Manhattan’s crew caters to their comfort with a complimentary beer, wine or Champagne from the bar as well as light snacks.

Architectural highlights include not only Art Deco spires such as the Chrysler Building, enduring monuments like the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the U.N., but also recent examples of the work of world-renowned architects including Frank Gehry, FAIA, Jean Nouvel, Hon. FAIA, Renzo Piano, Hon. FAIA, and Richard Meier, FAIA. These structures are not simply identified but form part of a thrilling narrative focused on the waterfront’s evolution from shipping and industry to one of residential development and ecologically-designed public parks.

The two hour and 45 minute circumnavigation affords sufficient time to both relax and discover new shoreline landmarks like Roosevelt Island’s just-completed FDR Four Freedoms Park, the High Line, and the innovative landscape architecture in place at Brooklyn Bridge Park and underway at Governors Island.
 

As noted by New York Times, this is the tour that reintroduces New Yorkers to the marvels of their waterfront, or as some now call it, the "Sixth Borough.". 

Click here to read what the NY Times said about the NYC Architecture Cruise 2012

Click here to read what the NY Times said about the NYC Architecture Cruise 2010

John Kriskiewicz - A native New Yorker, John holds a professional degree in Architecture from Pratt Institute and is an associate member of the American Institute of Architects.  Over the past two decades he has taught courses focused on architectural and planning history at Parsons School of Design, The Cooper Union, Fashion Institute of Technology, Stern College for Women and Manhattan College while designing tour programs and lectures for many of New York City’s institutions and corporations. Exhibitions and articles have revealed history and preservation issues to a broad audience.  John admits to a special affinity for New York’s extensive infrastructure as well as its Mid-Century Modern heritage.

Arthur van der Gracht Platt, AIA  As co-chair of AIANY’s Architecture Tour Committee, Arthur administers and regularly leads the Around Manhattan Architecture Boat Tour.  He also created and hosts the Featured Guide Series. The series, introduced in 2012, invites a diverse range of recognized NYC waterfront experts to narrate a tour and share firsthand insights about their work along the city’s ever transforming edge.  Through the AIA, he also leads walking tours and organizes tours of notable new buildings. Arthur is also active in rural preservation through Adirondack Architectural Heritage.  Arthur’s early professional experience at Platt Byard Dovell Architects and Robert A. M. Stern Architects helped foster his interest new York City’s architectural history. He started his own practice in 1996 and in 1998 co-founded Fink & Platt Architects. Fink & Platt Architects creates highly crafted spaces, integrating a sustainable approach to architecture, restoration, and interiors.  The firm recently completed a renovation and addition for JBI International, a non-profit providing the blind and visually impaired with books in audio, large print, and Braille.  At present, the firm is working on a master plan for Coney Island USA, the creator of the Mermaid Parade.

Julie Engh, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP is an intern architect currently completing her IDP requirements at Avinash K. Malhotra Architects.  With experience on new construction and adaptive reuse residential, mixed-use, hospitality and medical projects throughout New York City, Julie’s most notable project experience includes the completed 57-story W Downtown Hotel and Residences and a currently under construction far East Village mixed-use development containing 135 rental apartments.  Julie is the 2012 AIA New York State Intern-Associate Honor Award winner and the AIANY nominee for the 2013 AIANYS Board of Directors Associate Director Position.  She is an active member of both the Architecture Tour (ATC) and Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) AIANY Committees, and a contributor to the AIANY e-Oculus digital publication.  Through ATC, Julie helped develop the “The Around Manhattan Official NYC Architectural Boat Tour” and “New Architecture on Washington Square, Cooper Square, Bond St. & the New Bowery” walking tour. She continues to guide both tours.  Julie is actively involved with ENYA, helping plan networking, continuing education, and competition events. For the Harlem Edge | Cultivating Connections 2012 ENYA Biennial Design Ideas Competition program, Julie co-edited the digital and print publications.

Kyle Johnson, AIA, has spent most of his professional career in the office of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, where he worked on buildings of various types in numerous locations, including a hospital facility in Manhattan seen on our boat tour.  He is co-chair of the AIA New York Chapter’s Architecture Tour Committee, for which he leads architectural walking tours as well as Classic Harbor Line’s architecture boat tours since 2011.  In addition to the AIA, Kyle has conducted architecture tours for the Museum of the City of New York, South Street Seaport Museum, Municipal Art Society, DOCOMOMO, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and various private tour groups.  He was Guest Curator of the 2011/12 exhibition Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment at the Museum of the City of New York.