The best Earth Day events in NYC

The city will celebrate on April 20 by turning a portion of some streets into car-free zones from 10am-4pm. This year, 53 streets and plazas across all five boroughs will be part of the program, making it the largest-ever car-free Earth Day in the history of NYC. 

In addition to making areas more accessible to bike riders and pedestrians, the celebration will include musical and art-related programs for everyone to enjoy, plus a series of awesome activations.

Here's the full list of streets. 

On Saturday April 27, in celebration of Earth Month, Juilliard and Lincoln Center will present the New York premiere of Crossing Open Ground, an outdoor work by John Luther Adams for winds, brass, and percussion. From 11am until 4pm, an acoustic ensemble of Juilliard student and alumni dancers and musicians will perform the piece as it moves across Lincoln Center’s 16-acre campus, which is meant “ to encourage viewers to slow down and remember their place within the larger community of life on Earth,” per a press release. 

The free event will be directed and choreographed by Pam Tanowitz and co-music directed by Juilliard chamber music faculty member Nadia Sirota as well as Adams’ longtime collaborator percussionist Douglas Perkins. Tickets are not required—just show up and be awed!

Explore "The End of Fossil Fuel," the latest pop-up from the NYC Climate Museum. It's free to visit in Soho and offers a bevy of eye-opening activities for all ages.

The exhibition explores the history of the fossil fuel industry, traces inequality issues in the climate crises, and offers a chance to commit climate actions. In honor of Earth Day, they're hosting a celebration on April 21 with watercoloring, poetry, speed-friending, and snacks. RSVP here. 

Find the pop-up museum at 105 Wooster Street in Soho through April 30, 2024. The museum is free to visit and open to all. It's open Wednesdays-Sundays from 1-6pm. 

The Randall's Island Park Alliance (that's RIPA for short) is hosting an Earth Day Festival on Saturday, April 20 from 12-3pm. 

This free event celebrates nature, spring, and community engagement amidst the stunning cherry blossoms. Enjoy traditional Japanese drumming and movement performances by Soh Daiko, watch Japanese dance by the Japanese Folk Dance Institute of NY, listen to story time with Boogie Down Books, try spin art with Art in the Park, hula hoop with Hoop to Health, check out cooking demonstrations, and lots more. 

Grand Bazaar is one of NYC’s oldest and largest marketplaces where you can buy vintage treasures, antiques, clothing and more goodies from more than 100 local merchants. Photographers, jewelers and furniture designers sell their best on Sundays between 10am and 5pm on the Upper West Side (77th Street at Columbus Avenue). 

Each week offers a different theme, from featuring women-owned businesses to focusing on handmade items to spotlighting international wares. The market runs both indoors and outdoors each week all year long.

For Earth Month, the bazaar will host several eco-friendly events, beginning with the NYC Upcycled Pop-Up on April 14, followed by the NYC Earth Day Bazaar on April 21, and wrapping up with the Vintage Treasures Bazaar on April 28.

Fourteen international artists have come together for Fotografiska New York’s current exhibition Human / Nature: Encountering Ourselves in the Natural World, a mix of photographs, sculptures, and immersive video installations. These works from the likes of David Ụzọchukwu, Lewis Miller, Ori Gerscht, and more “explore the complex relationship between Earth and its human inhabitants," per a press release.

Though the show is open through Saturday, May 18, you’ll want to stop by the museum on Sunday, April 21 for a workshop on ikebana, the Japanese art of floral design, by instructor Paula Tam of the Ikenobo school, the oldest and largest school of ikebana. A ticket to the workshop ($110 for members, $125 for non-members) includes admission to Human / Nature, as well as the other world-class exhibitions on view at Fotografiska.

The annual EarthFest celebration returns to the American Museum of Natural History on Saturday, April 27, with a full day of family-friendly activities and performances to celebrate Earth Month. 

Free with museum admission, the festival will include hands-on science and art activities, engagements with real-deal scientists, and a “bioblitz,” where participants will join scientists in Central Park to discover the amazing variety of local insects in our urban ecosystem. Attendees can build their own solar “car” with environmental STEM educator Solar One, take inspiration from oceanic species at a marine-themed hair-and-makeup station, make their own antenna and wings at a bee-hive art activity and more.

Check out the full EarthFest schedule of events at the AMNH website. 

Taking over the Asia Society from through August 11, 2024, this immersive photography and video exhibition will bring together the works of more than 50 photographers and video artists from China and around the world to visualize the causes and consequences of the climate crisis.

The show—which will take attendees from deep within coal mines to the melting glaciers of the greater Himalaya—is co-curated by photographer Susan Meiselas and international exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries, and led by Orville Schell, Asia Society Vice President and Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations.

Along with the artworks themselves, the exhibition will feature a series of speaker events, performances, films and more throughout the run of the exhibition. 

Explore natural beauty at this secret garden on the Upper West Side where 15,000 tulips in vibrant orange, yellow, red and pink hues are in bloom. 

You can find the tucked-away garden at 123 West 89th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue. It's free to visit The West Side Community Garden's Tulip Festival, but you can make a donation to keep the volunteer-run garden beautiful year after year. 

You can find the tucked-away garden at 123 West 89th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue. Though it's free to visit, you can make a donation to keep the volunteer-run garden beautiful year after year. Garden volunteers will be on site on April 13-14 and 20-21 from 10am-6pm so you can learn more about the plantings and ask questions.

As effects of the climate crisis pop up in everyday life, The Poster House's new exhibition feels staggeringly relevant. The exhibit "We Tried to Warn You! Environmental Crisis Posters, 1970–2020" features 33 works that have shaped the worldwide public debate on environmental issues including clean energy, endangered species, and air and water quality. 

Ranging in style from whimsical to apocalyptic, the works examine international awareness campaigns and federal advertisements that aimed to address environmental crises as they evolved from regional problems to a global disaster. Exhibited works mark important events and movements, including the first Earth Day in 1970, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States a few years later, and the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. 

Artists whose posters are exhibited include: Amos Kennedy, Robert Rauschenberg, Per Arnoldi, Tom Eckersley, Freidensreich Hundertwasser, Hans Erni and Milton Glaser, among others. This exhibition is supported by the Simons Foundation. The show runs from April 25–November 3, 2024.

Here's a round-up of food and drink venues working to minimize food waste, reduce or reuse and aim to go green. From a bar minimzing its carbon footprint to a "certified green" barcade, you can have some fun while helping the planet.

In a city full of lost and discarded items, there’s beauty and meaning to be found in our trash.

As NYC deals with what seems like more garbage on its streets and the threat of climate change on its waterfront, an increasing amount of artists are turning to the sidewalks, alleyways and curbs to find their respective mediums. Sure, it may be your trash, but it’s their treasure.

Here are five of NYC’s sustainable artists who make radical art using found objects. Their work, piece by piece, aims to turn the effects of overconsumption and waste on their head and illuminate viewers on the imbalance in our ecosystem. 

In a city of 8.5 million, New York City sure has a ton of trash. Actually, it has tons of trash every year.

Whether we like it or not, garbage is so much a part of NYC living. It’s just part of the makeup of the city like pigeons or mystery puddles.

Here's a comprehensive guide on how to to recycle, compost and get rid of anything in NYC.