The Untapped New York Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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. 

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

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.  

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

Have you ever wondered about those orange and white cones you see in the middle of New York’s streets with steam flowing out of them? To find out more we’ve gone straight to the source by interviewing Frank Cuomo, the general manager for steam operations at ConEdison. We’ll also speak to Mark Reigelman, an artist who used the steam system for one of our favorite guerrilla art installations ever. 

The  Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Untapped New York. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room", "Liarbird"), Absent Tiger ("Take it or Leave It"), and additional sounds by GoGo. New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

You clamored for more episodes of the podcast and we listened! Michelle Young and Justin Rivers of Untapped New York share what's coming up, as we re-release our original episodes on our favorite New York City's secrets and add new shows, expanding the scope of the original podcast. 

The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Untapped New York. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Gloom Doom Buttercups"). New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.

This episode is a crash course into manhole covers 101 and why New Yorkers find them to be such curious objects. How many manhole covers are there in NYC? How are they made? Where do they lead to? Justin Rivers, Untapped New York’s Chief Experience Officer, will be talking about his personal experience going down into a manhole. Lisa Frigand, the former Manager of Cultural Affairs at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection will also be joining us, along with Natasha Raheja, an anthropologist at Cornell University who made a film about manhole covers and how they’re made. By the end of this episode, you’ll also have the answer to that famous interview question, why are manhole covers round? The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Untapped New York. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room", "Liarbird"), Absent Tiger ("Take it or Leave It"), and additional sounds by GoGo. New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

Who doesn't love the New York City water tower? This episode, hosted by Michelle Young, founder of Untapped New York, is an exploration of how water towers work and why New Yorkers find them so endearing. Guests include artist Tom Fruin, who makes those amazing glass water tower sculptures, Larry Hoffman, a New Yorker who spent his career installing water towers, the duo behind Boundless Brooklyn who designed a DIY water tower kit that we've put in every office and apartment we've had, and historian and playwright Justin Rivers, who knows everything about New York City. We'll even talk about a secret water tower speakeasy in New York City. The Untapped New York Podcast is produced by Untapped New York. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room", "Liarbird"), Absent Tiger ("Take it or Leave It"), and additional sounds by Daniel Simion. New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

Did you know mail used to be sent underground in New York City and other U.S. cities? Imagine an underground world where mail was zipping around in tubes beneath the incredibly crowded and busy New York City streets. That’s what was happening for over half a century 4 to 6 feet below street level. In this episode, host Michelle Young, the founder of Untapped New York, will explain how the system worked and how the technology can still be found today. Special guests: Lynn Heidelbaugh, Curator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum; Luke Kingma, former Vice President at the science magazine Futurism; Justin Rivers, historian, playwright and Chief Experience Officer at Untapped New York. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room", "Liarbird"), Absent Tiger ("Take it or Leave It"), and additional sounds by Ben Bynum and Mike Koenig. New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

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.  

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

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.  

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.

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.  

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.