A giant new street festival is coming downtown later this month

You can never have enough festivals, right? Good thing there's one more coming downtown very soon—celebrate the reopening of Astor Place with the first ever Astor Alive! street fest from September 16–17.

Hang around town for two days of performances, live music and a lot more. Take tours of historic landmarks like Cooper Union; explore Astor Place's four new plazas; check out a parade; and get special prices at local restaurants. Local theaters La MaMa, Joe’s Pub, The Public Theater, Theater for the New City and several others will present performances on four stages from 4th to 9th Streets focusing on five historical themes including Theater for All, Alternative Cultures and Radical Politics, Thinkers and Writers, Immigrant Populations and Architectural Frontiers.

See cabaret on September 16, then dance, theater and a parade—including the puppeteers of the NYC Village Halloween Parade, The Processional Arts Workshop—on September 17. The procession will include mini-cubes commemorating the famous Astor Place Cube, which, sadly, will not be restored to the area till the fall.

But for now, you can check out what a $16 million restoration brings!