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 streets normally clogged with traffic. This year’s edition unfolds over five Saturdays between July 25 and August 22, with free activities, live performances, fitness classes, art installations and plenty of room to simply wander down the middle of the avenue.

The season kicks off on the 25th, with simultaneous routes in Queens and Staten Island. In Queens, Vernon Boulevard will be closed to car traffic between 44th Drive and 30th Road, creating a waterfront route through Long Island City and Astoria. Staten Island’s route runs along Broadway between Richmond Terrace and Harvest Avenue, linking West Brighton with one of the borough’s busiest commercial corridors.

Then come three straight Saturdays in Manhattan—August 1, 8 and 15—featuring the event’s longest route yet. Participants can travel from the Brooklyn Bridge all the way north to Dyckman Street, following Lafayette Street, Park Avenue, East 110th Street, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Broadway through the heart of the borough. Streets will be open from 7 am to 3 pm, 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 9 am to 5 pm.

Beginning this week, Seaport Cinema outdoor movies will again be taking place on the Heineken Riverdeck at Pier 17 (89 South Street), running every Tuesday night at sundown around 8 p.m. with stunning waterfront views of the Brooklyn Bridge and movie-themed concessions. The seasonal tradition kicks off on Tuesday, July 21 with the Nicolas Cage-led caper National Treasure, followed by a string of beloved comedies including She's The Man (July 28), Legally Blonde (August 4) and 13 Going on 30 (August 11).

Things get romantic later in August with screenings of Crazy Rich Asians (August 18) and Dirty Dancing (August 25), before the summertime series finishes off on September 8 with the sporty biopic King Richard, starring an Oscar-winning Will Smith as Serena and Venus Williams' father-slash-coach Richard Williams. 

As usual, every screening will be free and open to the public, with entry on a first-come, first-served basis. And given the outdoor nature of the series, attendees are encouraged to bring their own blankets to sit on. You are also allowed to bring your own food, or order from the venue's on-site restaurants. There will also be a dedicated Heineken Zone, complete with reserved seating and a bucket of Heineken brews, available for $25; tickets will be on sale at The Seaport website. 

New York City Restaurant Week is among the five boroughs’ best food holidays. Traditionally, New Yorkers (and a few lucky tourists) clear their dining schedules and make reservations at the city’s best special occasion spots, high-profile newcomers and all-time favorite restaurants for deals unseen the rest of the year. Hundreds of destinations participate citywide, with menu prices below their typical tabs. 

For NYC Restaurant Week, restaurants curate their menus and produce prix fixe selections for brunch, lunch, dinner and sometimes all three. Saturdays are formally excluded and Sundays are discretionary, so expect regular menu prices at those times unless otherwise stated. 

The summer 2026 campaign will run from July 20 to August 16. That's nearly a month to choose from oodles of NYC classics and recent culinary additions. 

One of New York's hottest dance parties is making its much-awaited return this month, and with a seriously impressive lineup to boot. Kicking off on Friday, July 24, the MoMA PS1 Warm Up series turns the museum's courtyard into a dancefloor with DJ sets and live performances on six Friday evenings in July and August.

The 2026 lineup spotlights innovators in electronic music hailing from here in New York City and around the world: think post-rave hardcore techno, jungle-house DJs, Detroit machine funk outfits, experimental electro tunes and much more.

Long Island City residents with proof of residency in ZIP codes 11101, 11106 or 11109 get one complimentary ticket per event on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that a limited number of tickets are reserved for local residents at each Warm Up event. 

Perhaps the most exciting concert announcement of the summer has dropped: Lauryn Hill is set to take the stage at The Clubhouse Hamptons on Saturday, July 25, for a one-night-only acoustic concert. The performance marks Hill's first advertised acoustic set in more than two decades, harkening back to the intimate, stripped-down style of her 2002 "MTV Unplugged No. 2.0" era.

Tickets for the show are on sale starting at $200 right here, with Hill scheduled to take the stage at 7pm (doors will open at 5pm), although longtime fans know that her concerts have, at times, been subject to delayed start times, making the exact timing of her appearance anyone's guess. Given Hill's relatively infrequent performances and the unique acoustic format of this show, tickets are expected to move quickly. For fans considering making the trip out east, here's some advice: do it. This might just be one of the Hamptons' most memorable concerts of the summer.

Forget rooftop DJs. One of Brooklyn's best summer traditions returns when the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music's Midsummer Nights series transforms Lincoln Place into an open-air jazz club at 6:30pm on July 23 (Rasin Okan), July 30 (Trill Mega Jam: Flute Fest), August 6 (Charles Goold) and August 13 (Strings N’ Skins). Curated by the wildly inventive Melanie Charles, the free concerts spotlight artists gleefully ignoring genre boundaries. Seating is first-come, first-served outside 58 Seventh Avenue, with performances moving indoors if the weather decides to become the evening's least welcome improviser.

Broadway may be built on revivals these days, but the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival is betting on something riskier (and dare we say more interesting?): new ideas. From July 23 through August 16, AMT Theater (354 W. 45th St.) hosts 12 world premieres—10 plays and two musicals—giving emerging and established playwrights a chance to test-drive tomorrow's theater. Tickets start at $30, with post-show talkbacks offering the opportunity to hear artists discuss a work before anyone starts arguing about whether it belongs at the Tonys.

If you've ever wondered what it would feel like to wander through a BTS album, Arte Museum X BTS THE CITY ARIRANG has an answer. From July 24 through August 14, the immersive Chelsea Piers attraction layers the superstar pop group's music onto dazzling digital landscapes filled with light, sound and movement. Even if you can't tell your RM from your V, the multisensory spectacle is worth the trip—and ARMY will likely consider it essential. 

Subtlety has no place in Times Square, which may be why a 65-foot hot dog is returning there this month. Beginning July 21, "Hot Dog: The Second Serving" will once again stretch across Duffy Square as part of Times Square Arts. Brooklyn artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw's giant frankfurter installation runs through August 8, and yes, the weiner will point straight into the air and blast off confetti every day again, too.

The original sculpture debuted in 2024 as an oversized love letter—and side-eye—to New York, consumer culture and the American Dream. The new version keeps the familiar ingredients (bun, pink hot dog, mustard, and hydraulically powered showers of confetti) but leaves a darker aftertaste, interrogating "spectacle, patriotism, celebration, and power."

Rosie O'Donnell is coming home, and she has a lot to talk about. The comedian, actor and former daytime-TV powerhouse will bring her new solo show, Rosie O'Donnell: Common Knowledge, to Off Broadway's Daryl Roth Theatre for a limited 12-performance run beginning July 22. The engagement follows sold-out runs at Dublin's Olympia Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where the deeply personal show earned enthusiastic audiences and strong word-of-mouth.

For New Yorkers, the hour-long production marks O'Donnell's first new stage show in nearly a decade. It also arrives at a particularly eventful moment in the Emmy winner's life. Written after her move to Ireland, Common Knowledge finds O'Donnell reflecting on everything from her Long Island childhood and the death of her mother to parenthood, politics and the realities of starting over in a new country.