Are people who FaceTime while walking down the street literally insane?

If you’ve ever wished New York would hit the mute button on traffic for a few hours, your favorite summer fantasy is about to become reality. Summer Streets is back this month, turning more than 20 miles of roads across all five boroughs into giant, car-free playgrounds where walkers, runners, cyclists and roller skaters can take over roadways normally clogged with traffic. This year’s edition is already underway, unfolding over five Saturdays between July 25 and August 22. Participants can revel in the free activities, live performances, fitness classes, art installations and the space to simply wander down the middle of the avenue.

The season kicked off with simultaneous routes in Queens and Staten Island, and then another in Manhattan.

The next two Saturdays are in Manhattan—August 8 and 15—featuring the event’s longest route yet from the Brooklyn Bridge all the way north to Dyckman Street. It goes right through the heart of the borough following Lafayette Street, Park Avenue, East 110th Street, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Broadway. Streets will be open from 7am to 3pm, giving early risers eight uninterrupted hours to explore. The series wraps up on August 22, when Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway (from Grand Army Plaza to Buffalo Avenue) and the Bronx’s Grand Concourse (from East Tremont Avenue to Mosholu Parkway) become pedestrian-first corridors from 9am to 5pm.

The songs of Québécois nightingale Celine Dion are the stately vessel—or are they the iceberg?—in this campy spoof of James Cameron's 1997 romantic disaster film, written by Marla Mindelle (Sister Act) and Constantine Rousouli (Cruel Intentions) with director Tye Blue. After more than 1,000 performances Off Broadway, the ship sails onto the Main Stem this spring; original stars Mindelle, Rousouli and Frankie Grande are newly flanked by Jim Parsons (!) as meddling mother Ruth Dewitt Bukater and Deborah Cox as the ever-unsinkable Molly Brown. Time Out readers can enjoy a discount of up to 50% on select tickets thru 8/31 by using this link with code TONY26

Grab your sneakers and join Seconds Run Club for four miles of bliss. Come with friends or solo, and meet fellow runners for a group exercise that will take you down—and then back up—Park Avenue, which will be completely shut down as part of NYC's Summer Streets. The organizers, who specialize in bringing friends new and old together for a run, promise fun surprises and free treats while supplies last from Thayer's, Hint Water, Fruit Riot, VIO2 Mouth tape and Mezcla protein bars before the run. But if you plan on bringing any of those freebies home with you, you'll need to remember one of your larger running bags as they'll only be given out before you set off along the route.

The August 15 activity is what Seconds calls an 'out and back' run. It will start at Central Park Grand Army Plaza (59th St. and 5th Ave.), take runners down to 14th Street and then back up near 50th Street and Park Avenue. The target pace is set at 11 minutes and 30 seconds (per mile), and they've baked in stops along the way for water fountains and street activations. Seconds noted that all runners are welcome to participate, regardless of your typical pace.

Get to the starting point at 8:30am so the group can hit the pavement at 8:45am. The run is slated to end by around 9:45am. Tickets are free, just RSVP through events app Clyx.

Ballet is having a very good summer. Curated by ballet superstar Misty Copeland, The Joyce’s Ballet Festival brings two weeks of big-name dancers, boundary-pushing choreographers and enough elegant leaps to make your own daily commute to the subway feel appropriately pedestrian. The lineup pulls from American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Paris Opera Ballet and more, with works ranging from José Limón and Bob Fosse to brand-new choreography. Basically, ballet’s past, present and future, all in one expansive package.

Blues, barbecue and booze? We may have found the best way to send off the summer. 

On Saturday, August 15, Blues BBQ Festival is coming back for its 26th year. Held on Pier 76 at Hudson River Park, the longest-running free blues festival in the New York region will bring together soulful musicians, amazing BBQ chefs and family-friendly fun, all in one place. 

Gathering some of the best barbecue restaurants around town, this year's lineup includes Bark Barbecue, Dickson’s, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Kimchi Smoke, Jase’s BBQ and Tikkun BBQ. Those 21 and up can keep the good times rolling with drinks courtesy of Lagunitas or Tito’s Vodka. With two stages to jam to, main stage sets include music from Bobby Rush, Sugaray Rayford, Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and The Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band, Bywater Call and Howlin’ Hurd. Curated by the Jazz Foundation of America, the second stage will feature music from Radam Schwartz, Melvin Davis, Kathryn Farmer and Gregory Lewis’ Organ Monk Sings.

Blues BBQ Festival is free to attend and runs from 1-9pm. For a full list of vendors, performers and events, check out the website here. 

Joining a book club sounds fun in theory, but what happens when you're not feeling the group read? Well, Lit Club NYC has put together a fix: communal, BYOB (that second B is for book) reading.

You'll get cozy on the grass at the Upper West Side's 87th Street Garden and settle in for some quality you time. Then, all participants break up into small groups where you'll talk about what you're reading and swap recommendations. Tickets cost $15, and light refreshments will be provided—though, they haven't announced what those will be.

Dance takes over Lower Manhattan once again for the 45th annual Battery Dance Festival, where companies and choreographers from around the world turn Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park into one giant stage. The annual summer celebration brings free performances to the Battery, offering a chance to see everything from contemporary and experimental work to dance rooted in global traditions, all with the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor as a backdrop. It’s the kind of cultural event that makes you feel sophisticated for simply showing up. Every performance begins at 7pm, just in time for magic hour.

Puppets, rejoice: New York’s International Puppet Fringe Festival is back after a three-year hiatus, returning August 12–16 for five days of gloriously weird, wonderfully inventive puppetry from around the world, a welcome reminder that puppets are much more than The Muppets. The fourth edition brings more than 100 performances, 10 countries, workshops, exhibitions, screenings and enough creatures to make you question why creators ever bothered with live actors. Centered at The Clemente on the Lower East Side, it’s a full-on global celebration of an art form that remains delightfully impossible to explain to your parents.

Broadway’s biggest stars get their own music festival away from the lights of Midtown. The Broadway extravaganza takes over Hutton Brickyards in Kingston from August 14–16, bringing three days of outdoor performances across multiple stages. The lineup includes Adrienne Warren, Alex Newell, Mandy Gonzalez, Christopher Jackson, Kelli O’Hara, Norbert Leo Butz, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Betty Who, Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell, among many others. Plus, a 30th anniversary Rent reunion is on the docket. It’s basically Broadway camp, minus the stage door stalking and with considerably more room to breathe.

If you’ve ever wanted to dive headfirst into a giant pile of pastel beads without having to clean it up, your time has come. Salon 94 Design (3 E. 89th St.) and artist CJ Hendry team up for Pastel, a technicolor playground running from August 6 through August 16, where visitors can plunge into a massive bead pit and build their own bracelet, necklace or charm. Hendry’s signature characters, flowers and smiley faces join drawings, editions and plenty of branded swag, making this the rare exhibition where you’re actively encouraged to take a piece of the experience home.