Michelle Young and Justin Rivers of Untapped New York discuss the neighborhood of Morningside Heights. Michelle and Justin will discuss five hidden and unique spots including Columbia University's Alma Mater, the Guastavino Dome at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Riverside Church’s Labyrinth, Ulysses S. Grant’s Tomb, and the meeting of 125th and 129th Streets. This podcast episode was originally produced in partnership with Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Plann...

Sad news from Queens...After multiple patchwork repairs, a set of colorful mosaics depicting highlights from the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World's Fairs have been completely replaced with pavers. Michelle, Justin and Nicole discuss this piece of very sad news, broken by Untapped New York and the most read article this month so far. The Passarelle Plaza mosaics were installed in 1997 to commemorate the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World's Fairs. Now, they are another lost relic of World's Fair history. ...

In this episode, we’re talking about a very adorable secret: pandas in New York City! Who doesn’t love pandas? In fact, the story of how pandas came to America is deeply tied to New York City. We're joined by an expert on this story, Nathalia Holt, author of The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda. Learn the New York City origin story behind the discovery of the panda, about Theodore Roosevelt and his sons in Prohibition Era New York, all...

We delve into one of our favorite New York City secrets: the champagne and wine vaults inside the Brooklyn Bridge. If you haven't heard of this delicious tidbit, you're in for a ride through a bygone New York. If you do know about it, Michelle and Justin from Untapped New York are sharing additional insider secrets about this subject that are not publicly known, or have ever been written about. Cheers! Music by Kittens Ablaze. If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' mo...

A conversation between Michelle Young, Untapped New York's founder and Justin Rivers, our Chief Experience Officer, about Michelle's newest book, The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland. Michelle and Justin delve into who Rose Valland was and the brave things she did, the story of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg and his family, which allowed Michelle to write about her first love, New York City, and Rosenberg's clients including characters like Pablo P...

We’re kicking off season 4 of the Untapped New York Podcast with New York City literary sensation, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, whose newest book The Aviator and the Showman, just came out about Amelia Earhart’s marriage with publisher George Putnam, which set her on a collision course with fate. Because we’re a New York City obsessed podcast, we’ll be talking with Laurie about all of Amelia’s New York City connections (there are many!)—from studying at Columbia, riding the subway, and eating Chinese...

In the latest episode of the Untapped New York Podcast, Michelle Young, author, journalist, and the founder of Untapped New York, tracks down the answer to her latest burning question about New York City: Why is the FDR Drive Purple? If you’ve been wondering or…have yet to notice, prepare to have your mind blown. A lot of myths abound, none of them true. No, the New York State D.O.T. did not just happen to have a ton of extra purple paint. It's also not inspired by the color of someone's tie ...

The new book The Blood and the Badge, by former New York Times editor Michael Cannell, chronicles a true tale of police corruption, mafia, and murderous mayhem in 1980s New York City. Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy describes the book as a “harrowing story...Cannell misses nothing." In our latest episode of the Untapped New York podcast, Untapped New York founder Michelle Young (the author of the forthcoming book The Art Spy) talks with Cannell about the crazier than fiction story.&...

The Stolen Queen, the newest historical fiction novel by New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, publishes today, January 7, and is set in the hallowed halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the Met’s prized Egyptian artifact goes missing, an unlikely female duo—curator and anthropologist Charlotte Cross and eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins from the Met’s costume department—team up to investigate the theft, unraveling decades old secrets particularly in Charlotte’s own past. Char...

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 a...

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 a...

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...

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 Yor...

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 ...

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 p...

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 o...

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 an...

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 ...

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 S...

The newest episode of the Untapped New York podcast is out! Discover a dozen of the most interesting places in the Bronx, from the book The Bronx Nobody Knows: An Urban Walking Guide by William Helmreich, who walked every street in New York City’s five boroughs. That's more than 6,000 miles! The book was published posthumously, as Helmreich sadly passed away from COVID in 2020. His wife, Helaine, who walked much of the city with William had the book published after his death and jo...