woodworking in NYC ???????

[joe valsi]

I'm going to NYC the first weekend in May, is there anything I can see in the Big Apple related to wood working ? Thanks in advance !

[Jim Matthews]

These guys also have an apprentice program.
http://www.woodconservation.com/

They likely know other things about woodworking in the 5 boroughs.

[Prashun Patel]

More design and furniture related, AND I think the museum itself is closed, but worth a little research:

http://www.cooperhewitt.org/

[Jon Nuckles]

Tools for Working Wood has its showroom in Brooklyn. I haven't been, but it looks interesting. Here is a link (http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/more/directions.html)to the directions on the website.

[Jim Matthews]

You visit Joel's sanctum at the peril of your wallet....

[Peter Kelly]

Tools for Working Wood has its showroom in Brooklyn. I haven't been, but it looks interesting. Here is a link (http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/more/directions.html)to the directions on the website.You'll need a car to get down there fyi. Also no weekend hours.

I recommend a Circle Line cruise or a trip up to the Cloisters ;)

[Jim Falsetti]

Also, the American wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a tons of old furniture.

[Edward Oleen]

The short answer is NO. Woodworking in NYC is NOT a very popular activity. Most NYer's live in apartments: landlords, co-op and condo boards of directors frown on running a table-saw in the living room, or a router in the bedroom, etc.

Private houses are mostly jammed cheek-by-jowl - "party" walls are very common, and the "party" in "party walls" means that the wall in question is shared between two dwelling units, as if you lived in a one-story apartment building with nobody either above you or below you. Be very sure that the adjacent "parties" will appreciate power tools no more than they would in an apartment building.

Stand-alone houses, for the most part, are separated from their neighbors by very little space. Also, the houses tend to be rather small in foot-print, going UP rather than OUT. This means rather limited basement space, especially if the basement also houses the car. On-street parking can be risky - cars are broken into all too often.

I'm lucky, sort of: my house was built in 1932, and is of brick, and my basement has thick walls - not the usual cinder block or concrete block stuff they use today. I am also separated from my neighbors by two driveways each 10 feet wide - one on each side, and my rear opens into my back yard - the front is underground.

Even so, I limited my woodworking to the daylight hours on weekends, until I retired a few years back: now I can work week-days as well without annoying people.

There is a man in my neighborhood who has converted an external, free-standing, garage to a wood shop. He has insulated rather heavily, for sound control more than temperature control, and still works only during daylight hours.

Lastly: better not have a wood-shop visible, especially one with lumber visible, and definitely NOT A SPECK OF SAW-DUST, when your house is inspected for insurance purposes. Paint, varnish, any sort of solvent, even a spare can of motor oil will also drive your inspector nuts. A can of gas for a lawn mower or a snow blower? Forget ever getting insurance.

If the building department comes around it can be much worse. Ditto the fire department. The cops don't know what a band saw is: anything they can't identify must be a terrorist device.

They used to teach wood shop and metal shop and so in the public schools in the city: after all, there was a lot of light manufacturing in the city, as well as some not-so-light. Two aircraft engine manufacturers were located in Queens during WW II, and Grumman Aircraft was all over Long Island. (My father worked for Ranger Aircraft, an engine producer, which fed Grumman with engines.)

Then the "educational reformers" got control, and the curricula were purged of anything that they thought was "demeaning" to the students. Or that they could use to hurt themselves, or for any other reason, or "reason", they could think of. Also, "property values" went up, and working space got turned into residential space: light manufacturing either closed it's doors, went to New Jersey, or went over-seas.

We have to hire immigrants to do construction work these days. I had a new roof put on my house a year back: the crew spoke only Spanish, with the sole exception of the crew boss, whose English was marginal, at best.

Lots of museums: look but don't touch. Also expensive to enter. Almost all exhibits behind armor glass. If not, there is a guard nearby - very nearby. In addition, they frown on taking pictures - they make a buck selling illustrated guides to the collections. Measuring something? You'll be lucky if they don't have you arrested.

So no - there is not much woodworking activity in NYC. There used to be Constantine's, but that is long since gone. Rosenzweig - a real lumberyard - is still around, but they have gotten very expensive. There is a plywood wholesaler in the Bronx, but they won't sell less than a pallet's worth.

There are building supply places: Home Depot among them, but they either sell junk (HD) or aren't interested in anything other than high volume building supplies.

Westchester County is not much better.

When you come to the Big Apple you will be regarded as a purse-on-legs, and the effort will be to empty that purse as rapidly and completely as possible, from the taxi that takes you from and to the airport to the hotel people and restaurant people, to the Transit Authority - the people who run the subways and buses. Taxis charge by the foot and the second - they just say it's by the 1/4 mile and 5 minutes, or what-ever they are charging by these days. (I haven't taken a taxi or subway in years.) (My wife and I live in a private house 3 blocks from the city line. We shop in Westchester for just about every thing, and weekends (and some weeks) during the summer we escape to Orange County, where we have a small bungalow. They only reason we stay in the city is for our daughter, her husband, and out grand-daughter. The only reason we lived here was because of our work.)

Good luck, and enjoy your visit to the Big Apple.

[jesse ross]

Brooklyn is jammed with small and mid sized design, build, and finishing shops from the navy yards to greenpoint to bushwick. If you're in the city, go see BDDW's showroom and see some of the most amazing furniture in the world in one of the most gorgeous, aesthetically special spaces. It's on Crosby and Howard. Roam around Soho and see countless furniture stores, end your city trip at Lockwood for wood dyes, then shoot over to Brooklyn and visit Joel at Tools for Working Wood (2 stop on the N train from canal st.)
If you'd made that trip a few weeks later, you could have caught ICFF, maybe the most extensive convergence of furniture from anywhere and everywhere.

Woodworking is not a popular activity in NYC? I don't think so.

[Steve Juhasz]

Sounds to me like someone is ready to move out of town?



The short answer is NO. Woodworking in NYC is NOT a very popular activity. Most NYer's live in apartments: landlords, co-op and condo boards of directors frown on running a table-saw in the living room, or a router in the bedroom, etc.

Private houses are mostly jammed cheek-by-jowl - "party" walls are very common, and the "party" in "party walls" means that the wall in question is shared between two dwelling units, as if you lived in a one-story apartment building with nobody either above you or below you. Be very sure that the adjacent "parties" will appreciate power tools no more than they would in an apartment building.

Stand-alone houses, for the most part, are separated from their neighbors by very little space. Also, the houses tend to be rather small in foot-print, going UP rather than OUT. This means rather limited basement space, especially if the basement also houses the car. On-street parking can be risky - cars are broken into all too often.

I'm lucky, sort of: my house was built in 1932, and is of brick, and my basement has thick walls - not the usual cinder block or concrete block stuff they use today. I am also separated from my neighbors by two driveways each 10 feet wide - one on each side, and my rear opens into my back yard - the front is underground.

Even so, I limited my woodworking to the daylight hours on weekends, until I retired a few years back: now I can work week-days as well without annoying people.

There is a man in my neighborhood who has converted an external, free-standing, garage to a wood shop. He has insulated rather heavily, for sound control more than temperature control, and still works only during daylight hours.

Lastly: better not have a wood-shop visible, especially one with lumber visible, and definitely NOT A SPECK OF SAW-DUST, when your house is inspected for insurance purposes. Paint, varnish, any sort of solvent, even a spare can of motor oil will also drive your inspector nuts. A can of gas for a lawn mower or a snow blower? Forget ever getting insurance.

If the building department comes around it can be much worse. Ditto the fire department. The cops don't know what a band saw is: anything they can't identify must be a terrorist device.

They used to teach wood shop and metal shop and so in the public schools in the city: after all, there was a lot of light manufacturing in the city, as well as some not-so-light. Two aircraft engine manufacturers were located in Queens during WW II, and Grumman Aircraft was all over Long Island. (My father worked for Ranger Aircraft, an engine producer, which fed Grumman with engines.)

Then the "educational reformers" got control, and the curricula were purged of anything that they thought was "demeaning" to the students. Or that they could use to hurt themselves, or for any other reason, or "reason", they could think of. Also, "property values" went up, and working space got turned into residential space: light manufacturing either closed it's doors, went to New Jersey, or went over-seas.

We have to hire immigrants to do construction work these days. I had a new roof put on my house a year back: the crew spoke only Spanish, with the sole exception of the crew boss, whose English was marginal, at best.

Lots of museums: look but don't touch. Also expensive to enter. Almost all exhibits behind armor glass. If not, there is a guard nearby - very nearby. In addition, they frown on taking pictures - they make a buck selling illustrated guides to the collections. Measuring something? You'll be lucky if they don't have you arrested.

So no - there is not much woodworking activity in NYC. There used to be Constantine's, but that is long since gone. Rosenzweig - a real lumberyard - is still around, but they have gotten very expensive. There is a plywood wholesaler in the Bronx, but they won't sell less than a pallet's worth.

There are building supply places: Home Depot among them, but they either sell junk (HD) or aren't interested in anything other than high volume building supplies.

Westchester County is not much better.

When you come to the Big Apple you will be regarded as a purse-on-legs, and the effort will be to empty that purse as rapidly and completely as possible, from the taxi that takes you from and to the airport to the hotel people and restaurant people, to the Transit Authority - the people who run the subways and buses. Taxis charge by the foot and the second - they just say it's by the 1/4 mile and 5 minutes, or what-ever they are charging by these days. (I haven't taken a taxi or subway in years.) (My wife and I live in a private house 3 blocks from the city line. We shop in Westchester for just about every thing, and weekends (and some weeks) during the summer we escape to Orange County, where we have a small bungalow. They only reason we stay in the city is for our daughter, her husband, and out grand-daughter. The only reason we lived here was because of our work.)

Good luck, and enjoy your visit to the Big Apple.

[Peter Kelly]

Just remembered--if you're in TriBeCa, Best Made Co has some pretty cool metric / English folding rulers.
http://www.bestmadeco.com/collections/tools

They're at 36 White Street.

Touristy but also check out the Highline.

[Edward Oleen]

In a way... YES!!!. I'm buying a compressor and stuff: never needed one before - not to own: I've always rented. Now renting has gotten too expensive, and what I rent is, shall we say, "heavily used". I can buy what I want in Orange county (where we have a cottage for summers) for 3/4 the best price in NYC and Westchester County.

PLUS the dealer in Goshen welcomes my business: the guys in the city look upon me as small potatoes - they'll order it when and as they get around to it.

The Goshen dealer is 20 miles and 25 minutes away, and has it's own parking lot.

The NYC dealer is 8 miles and an hour away (or more) away, and the parking is only for trucks.

Buying anything in Manhattan is for the birds: if you can't carry it on the subway, don't bother, unless you've got a big van or bigger. The driving, needless to say is rapidly approaching theMISSION IMPOSSIBLE level.

Brooklyn and Queens, and the rest of Long Island.... A whole new country on a whole new continent: the bridges are expensive right off the bat, and the prices are sky-high, just as they are in all of NYC.

The lumber dealers in NYC (as opposed to building supply places) - all one of them in the Bronx (Rosenzweig) - are nice, but very busy and won't help load, and once again - parking only for trucks. If my wife sits in the car she gets yelled at to "MOVE IT, LADY".

The places in Upper Westchester county and Orange County are polite, take the time to make sure you get what you want, not what they "think" you want, or what they want to unload.

I deal in OC and upper WC: we stay in the Bronx because of my daughter and grand-daughter.

Yes, I've had it to the gills with NYC, with the scarsely plowed streets, with cleaning my driveway only to have the City or the "neighbor" across the street fill it up again, with the "gardeners" running thieir leaf blowers starting at 6:30 AM and sometimes continuing until 7:30 or 8:00 PM, with the people behind me complaining about my table saw at 3:00 PM, while playing "music" at full blast until 3:00 AM. Yes, you can call the cops, who are legitimately too busy to respond, and the one time all last summer that they did, the noise was back inj 20 minutes.

[Michael Kellough]

Joe, if you like cherry stop by the Thos. Moser showroom on Madison Av. (http://www.thosmoser.com/newyork)

You can take the subway to get to Tools for Working Wood. (http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/more/directions.html)

[Peter Kelly]

I've never actually had a problem parking at Rosenzweig. The "yard" guys are great, people in the office, not so much.

[stevo wis]

check out the cathedral of st. John Divine. I think its on Amsterdam near the top of Central Park. Inside the door they have a Nakashima table. There may be a dollar or two donation, but the building and the table are worth seeing.

[Ruperto Mendiones]

If you have a car and Westchester Co is a possibility, check out The Tool Nut in Yorktown Heights. They have a fairly extensive showroom of woodworking tools as well as a very broad selection of trade tools: drills, sawmills, levels etc.

[John Downey]

Edward's making me really glad that my mom married a hick from Maine :D

[Von Bickley]

I went into NYC about 3 years ago...... When I left, I promised myself I would never do that again.

[John T Barker]

http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ad/web-thumb/DP116692.jpg
Hmm, I recall seeing some of the finest pieces of furniture in American history in NYC. Go to the Met if you like to see great MASTERPIECES of American furniture.

[Dimitrios Fradelakis]

I've never actually had a problem parking at Rosenzweig. The "yard" guys are great, people in the office, not so much. I've never had a problem with the office guys. The yard guys are helpful though. As far as tools for working wood goes the showroom is tiny. They only allow you up to the festool display which is a mere 15 feet or so in length and that's it. The guy behind the counter said that since I'm local it's better to order online since I'll receive the order next day anyway. The commute there isn't bad but parking is a nightmare.

[Edward Oleen]

I am glad for you. We've (wifey and I and daughter and "son" (a Westi) went to visited the Down Easters twice. The first time just for the hell of it, the second time to look at colleges for the (distaff) offspring. The first time we got to Portland at around 10:00 PM. The motel eatery was closed, and the clerk (very nice young woman) directed us to the Roy Rogers down the block. Rather dubious, but hungry, we took her advice. Much to our surprise what we found was nothing like the RR's in the NYC area. The place was spic and span, the help welcoming, the coffee VERY good, and they had on the menu Lobster Salad Roll.

This epicurean delight was a truly massive hot dog role absolutely stuffed with Lobster, with a little bit of dressing thrown in for good measure to justify the name of Lobster Salad, instead of Lobster. And for a lower price than the NYC RR's would charge for a "regular" (6") hot dog.

We were in Seventeenth Heaven.

True Yankees are friendly - very friendly. We were made welcome everywhere we went. Portland Old Town is a very nice tourist area - definitely not a tourist trap. There are of course the less valuable - definitely not "junky" items, but it is calm, quiet, orderly, friendly, and low pressure. No hucksterism.

We took a harbor cruise - not rushed, knowledgeable answers to questions, explained in detail if needed, and no hurry - if we wanted to linger we could, and did.

The same with a (I guess it's called) party boat - we went "fishing" but little was caught - not the boat operators fault - they were on the radio all the time asking where the fish were.
Since the fishing was so poor we got coupons for half-price tickets for the next time we went out.

We drove up Rt. 1 to Freeport - the home of L. L. Bean. Another nice place (we didn't run across ANY Not-Nice place during either of our stays, of about a week each time.)

I wish I lived there - winters and all. It's civilized. NYC isn't. We just had a man - with children and grandchildren - killed by a young thug for no apparent reason: viciously beaten, had his head smashed against a brick wall, and then just left on the street. He was seen, and ignored, by several pedestrians before the emergency services (police and ambulance) were called. The reason given was that they "thought he was passed out drunk, or a homeless man..."

I make things - it's in my blood. A simple thing - a hook sort of thing (of a scrap of 3/4 ply, cut with a jig saw and hand sanded and then varnished) to hang on the separator of my cubical on which I can hang my coat and umbrella. "Where did you get it?" I was asked. I, of course, replied "I made it." The reaction? Disbelief. I overheard someone saying that I was snotty because "I expected people to believe that I made it and wouldn't tell them where I bought it." I left it hanging one night and it was gone - stolen - the next morning. So I made another, better one. Same reaction. This time I took it home with me each night.

Yes, Mr, Downey - you should be really glad.

And Mr. Ruperto is right - The Tool Nut is a very good store... but it is so far up in Westchester County that it doesn't really count as New York City.

[Edward Oleen]

Also try across the Park to the New York City Historical Society museum. Some absolutely gorgeous stuff - all behind glass with guards all over the place.

The glass makes taking pictures difficult.

They are really just interested in showing the stuff off - not in answering questions, or allowing closer examination.

I know: I asked. Very politely.

I was told "NO", Very bruskly.

[Edward Oleen]

once again - of course you can - if you want Festool... at prices I don't believe they have the nerve to ask, given that this is the Internet Age.

[Edward Oleen]

I've never actually had a problem parking at Rosenzweig. The "yard" guys are great, people in the office, not so much.

You got there on a GOOD day. The office people can verge on the impossible.

[Eric Kipker]

Plus one on the MET, we spent a day there and even my wife, the pharmacist, was impressed with all the American furniture. I took gobs of photos, no flash allowed so take some faster lens for the darker areas.