NYC's Most Exclusive Venues, Sights Revealed In New Book

NEW YORK, NY — Most books on New York City cover the basics. Pick up a travel guide and you can figure out the best way to cram visits to the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge into a weekend stay.

But for New Yorkers who want a deeper understanding of their city, these guides don't cut it. After all, anybody who's lived in New York City for a few years considers themselves an expert on the metropolis. Through 10 years of exploring the city, working on his PBS series "New York Originals" and writing a book of the same name, Jamie McDonald has a long list of sights and attractions that are usually left off the pages of New York City guidebooks.

"Everything's been done to death. So to trying to find something unique or different is very hard," McDonald told Patch. "A lot of these place you can't go to, or are hard to get access to, so a lot of great stuff has been left out of these books about New York City."

In "No Access New York City: The City's Hidden Treasures, Haunts, And Forgotten Places" McDonald chronicles more than 30 attractions that all take a bit of "finagling" to get into.

These attractions come in three different varieties, McDonald said:

1. You can’t go to them. Period.
2. You have to jump through hoops.
3. They're hidden in plain sight.

"I made it a point that pretty much all of these places you can finagle your way in," McDonald said. "Whether it’s begging and pleading or they’re just really under the radar and people just don’t know them. We want it to be interactive. It’s all stuff you can go see for yourself, pretty much."

"No Access New York City" is a good buy for both tourists with a taste for adventure or New Yorkers who want to dive deeper into the culture and history of the city, McDonald said. The author said the best feedback he got on the book was when he showed it to his neighborhos — who have lived in the city for decades — and was met with reactions such as "I didn't know that."

Here are some of Patch's favorite attractions listed in "

Gramercy Park: The small, private park that lends a lower Manhattan neighborhood its name is probably the city's most well-known exclusive venues. With just 236 keys —required to get both in and out of the park — and locks that change once per year, the serene green space is kept on lockdown. But there are some ways in. Staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel, while expensive, ensures guests acess to the park with a personal escort from hotel staff. If you don't want to shell out the cash to stay at the park, the wrough-iron gates are open for one hour every Christmas Eve for caroling open to the public.

Gotham Greens: Here's one that most New Yorkers won't get to the chance to see up close, but can find in the aisles of their local Whole Foods. Gotham Greens, the urban farm company, runs a massive operation on the roof of the Greenpoint Whole Foods. Consumers can pick up products such as kale, basil and baby tomatos that are harvested and packaged just hours before sale. The greenhouse itself is off-limits due to food safety restrictions, but Gotham Greens has an observation deck that's open between April and November.

Brooklyn Bridge Civil Defense: Here's one that even McDonald has limited information about. In 2006, when city workers were surveying the Brooklyn Bridge for structural defects, they stumbled upon a Cold War-era supplies stockpile. Supplies were marked "for se only after enemy attack" and dated on 1957 (the Sputnick launch) and 1962 (the Cuban Missle Crisis). The storeroom's exact location was never revealed, although a one-time press tour in 2006 determined it was kept on the Manhattan side of the bridge. The city has never answered any of McDonald's questions about the stockpile, and the room is most-definitely not open to the public.

Photos by Jamie McDonald/courtesy Globe Pequot Press