I always wanted to host a meet-up but I wasn’t quite sure where to start. During the beginning of April, my friend invited me on an underground NYC subway Untapped Cities tour. During the tour, we embarked on an underground subway original station loop scavenger hunt. It got me thinking that it may make sense to incorporate an accessibility check on that same route. It was clear that several stations along the route weren’t accessible. It’s disappointing that only 1/5 of New York Subway stations are accessible. In addition, the elevators aren’t always in service in those stations included in the 1/5. It’s imperative for us to continue to encourage more accessibility throughout New York City and the world.
After I submitted my meet-up and it was approved, I mentioned the idea to my friend Jessica and she was on board to help me plan an accessible route for my first Local Guides meet-up. Then we decided to incorporate things to look out for at each of the accessible stations. The SubwayNut currently has photo essays of almost every NYC Subway station. This was a great resource for planning the scavenger hunt meet-up this past weekend!
We had 9 people at our meet-up, including two of the youngest future #LocalGuides!
We also had a guest from Chicago. She’s in NYC for work and decided to join us for her first #LocalGuides meet-up and an excuse to see a different side of NYC. Since we all love taking photos that we can upload to Google Maps and social media with the tag #LocalGuides, the SubwayNut helped us map out something unique to find at each station we visited. The weather cooperated and we had fun. We wrapped up our afternoon with some lunch at the historic Grand Central Station. I appreciate everyone’s support as I learned a lot about hosting a meet-up and will plan to be even more prepared next time!
Below are some photos and here’s a link to our shared photo album from the afternoon. I hope to plan another meet-up in the near future and it would be great to see more smiling faces with similar passions. Feel free to reach out for any guidance or advice!
