New Yorkers got a chance to be tourists in their own city this past weekend through the Open House New York Weekend Festival.
If you live in Williamsburg, you may have seen the colorful murals outside of the National Sawdust performing arts venue. Maybe you’ve wondered what’s inside.
What You Need To Know
New Yorkers could choose from more than 300 sites to visit as part of Open House New York Weekend Festival
The National Sawdust is a performing arts venue built inside a former sawdust factory
Open House New York is a citywide three-day festival allowing New Yorkers to explore places that are usually off limits
“It’s that magical thing about you walk down the street in New York and you don’t have a sense of what you’re walking by, ” said Ras Dia, the deputy director of creative projects at National Sawdust. “But then you go inside and you understand that the murals are a kind of expression of what happens inside.”
This past weekend New Yorkers got a chance to take a peek inside hundreds of unique sites around the city that are typically off-limits or off the radar as part of the Open House New York weekend, a citywide three-day festival.
“We are trying to give curious New Yorkers access to the city and we believe when we give people access they start to care about their city and when they care about their city they can invest in a better future,” said Kristin LaBuz, the executive director of Open House New York.
National Sawdust was just one of the sites for New Yorkers to explore. It’s a performing arts venue built inside a former sawdust factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“Sawdust, first and foremost, is an artist incubator. It’s a lab, so it’s a place where artists come to try things out. So that’s a bit of the experience that Open House New York visitors get,” said Dia.
National Sawdust’s unique design is what sets it apart.
“The most special thing is the thing you can’t see, which is more than 100 speakers in our walls, the Meyer Sound Constellation System, that allows us to move sound around the room,” said Dia. “It is an immersive experience. We can sound like any room in the world, from St. John the Divine to a small jazz club like the Village Vanguard.”
“It’s hard to convey over TV, but if you were here, you would hear sound coming from the ceiling, the walls behind you,” said Dani Joseph, the senior producer for National Sawdust. “So, when artists come here, they get to experience their own music in a way they’ve never heard before.”