Upper East Side Architectural Royalty: Gracie Mansion and the Cooper Hewitt

NEW Take a docent-led tour of Gracie Mansion and learn its storied path from 1799 to being known as “the People's House,” the official residence of the Mayor of New York. Next travel to Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, housed in Andrew Carnegie's former mansion. After lunch on your own in the museum cafe or neighborhood restaurant, enjoy a guided tour and discover how improvements enhanced this fabulous building to transform an historic mansion into a modern design museum. NOTE: Due to a just-scheduled Mayoral Event, Gracie Mansion will be closed to the public on 9/27 and MLSN's tour there cannot take place. MLSN's Upper East Side bus trip will now include a guided docent tour of The Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden built in 1795 as a carriage house on property once owned by Abigail Adams Smith (daughter and sister to US Presidents) and her husband and named for George Washington's beloved estate in VA. New York City's only surviving day hotel, this unique museum brings this bygone era of 1820's New York alive with a fine collection of American furniture and decorative arts, costumes, quilts and textiles, as well as works on paper. Following lunch on your own in the neighborhood, the afternoon guided tour of the Cooper Hewitt Museum will go on as planned. Please note the walking/standing scale for this activity is 3 FEET which means Extensive Walking and Lengthy Periods of Standing. There are steps into The Mount Vernon Hotel, and to the second floor exhibit space.