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

MoMA is opening a grocery store where absolutely nothing is edible—and that’s the point. Launching on January 7, 2026, MoMA Mart is a limited-time pop-up from the MoMA Design Store that turns the mundane task of grocery shopping into a visual prank. Shelves are stocked not with snacks, but with objects that look like food at first glance and then reveal themselves as lamps, clocks, candles, stools and sculptural décor.

MoMA Mart will run from January 7 through March 29 at both MoMA Design Store locations—SoHo (81 Spring Street) and Midtown (44 West 53rd Street)—and will also be featured online, where people will be able to shop for the various items. Consider it grocery shopping for people who already have snacks—and could use a tomato lamp instead.

Don't expect Bryant Park to virtually shut down once the holidays are over—at least not this year. Post New Year's, the park is shifting into full-on winter Olympics mode as Bank of America Winter Village becomes a hub for Winter Olympics–inspired fun.

Bumper cars on ice return from January 9 through February 28, letting visitors bump, spin and slide across the rink in 10-minute sessions that feel more like a carnival ride than a traditional skate (plus you're already seated, so no embarrassing tumbles).

A big dose of digital magic is on its way to Tribeca. Onassis ONX—the Onassis Foundation’s lab serving artists working in XR, AI and immersive performance—is packing up its midtown digs and heading downtown, where it will double in size with a 6,000-square-foot studio at Broadway and Walker Street. The new space will open to the public in January, marking a big move for an organization that’s fast become a power player in the city’s experimental art scene.

The first show to christen the new studio will be TECHNE: Homecoming, set to run January 9–18, 2026. The exhibit will bring together six artists to explore identity and kinship, including Björk collaborator Andrew Thomas Huang and VR pioneer Tamiko Thiel. Visitors can expect video environments and “phygital” installations—a mash-up of real, tangible objects with interactive tech.

Under the Radar, consistently one of the most exciting theater and performance festivals in New York City since its launch in 2005, will take place in over 20 venues across the city from January 7-25, 2026.

In keeping with the festival’s eye toward the best of U.S. and international experimental performance, it will continue to explore dance, music, theater, film, opera, conversation and stagecraft through works by NY-based artists Narcissister (in her first-ever proscenium presentation), The HawtPlates, Kaneza Schaal, Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein, as well as European virtuosos Cherish Menzo and Mario Banushi.

A brand new double-decker carousel is set to spin holiday cheer throughout the season in Greeley Square at 33rd Street and Broadway on November 21, offering rides through January 6, 2026.

The two-story swirl of lights, music and storybook creatures will spin from 10am to 10pm daily, offering plenty of opportunity to catch a ride before, during or after your holiday shopping. Tickets cost $7/person.

Speaking of shopping: the carousel will be in the perfect location. It will sit just steps from Macy’s Herald Square, where the holidays are already in full swing.

Oedipus is not really about the fall of a great man; rather, it’s about a great man coming to realize that he has already fallen. It is election night, the TV screen blinks with news, and Oedipus (Mark Strong) is surrounded by his family: his studious daughter Antigone (the lovely and sympathetic Olivia Reis); his twin sons, the sweet Polyneices (James Wilbraham) and the rakish Eteocles (Jordan Scowen); his sturdy old mum, Merope (Anne Reid, tasty as a crust of bread), whom Oedipus keeps blowing off. And above all there is his wife, Jocasta, who—as played by the great Lesley Manville—is a creature of effortless fascination: confident, worldly, intelligent, practical, passionate, sexually frank and a touch narcissistic, with a hint of Sphinxlike inscrutability to shroud the trauma behind her drive. Oedipus seems untouchable. But as an onstage clock ticks down to his landslide win, the earth gives way beneath him.

During the typically bleak post–New Year’s Eve concert lull, Winter Jazzfest promises a bright spot on the city’s calendar. The annual event showcases new talent performing a broad spectrum of musical styles all under the banner of jazz. Year after year, the crowds grow attracting both avid jazz fans along with new listeners, plus industry professionals. 

This year's fest runs Thursday, January 8, 2026 to Tuesday, January 13, 2026, with immense "Marathon" events in Manhattan on Friday, January 9 and in Brooklyn on Saturday, January 10.

The week of rollicking fun takes over venues across the city, from Nublu to Roulette and much more. Plus, the signature "Marathon" nights are back offering buzzy, multi-stage shows that always add up to one of the best concert experiences in NYC. The Marathon shows aren't individually ticketed, so your pass grants you access to any of each night's gigs—as long as a given club doesn't hit capacity. It’s a model that encourages sampling and venue-hopping. The event also requires patience and an open mind: If your preferred show is full, just head to one of the nearby spots for something unexpected.

The fabulous holiday icon of NYC, The Rockefeller Christmas Tree is a must-see for both locals and visitors during the holiday season, whether you’re visiting before ice-skating on The Rink at Rockefeller Center or just passing through.

More than 50,000 multi-colored LED lights wrap around the branches. It’s topped with a three-dimensional Swarovski star that weighs 900 pounds and sparkles in 3 million crystals.

The tree is lit up daily through mid-January. On Christmas Eve, the tree is lit for 24 hours and on New Year’s Eve it is lit from 5am to 9pm. 

Escape the chilly weather with some Southern-style, yee-haw-worthy fun in midtown. The Professional Bull Riders organization will take over the World's Most Famous Arena (a.k.a. Madison Square Garden) for a three-day stint from January 9-11. 

Don a cowboy hat and cheer on ace studs from across the country as they attempt to stay atop bucking bovines—which can weigh as much as 2,000 pounds—for more than eight seconds. As a bonus, this stop on the Unleash the Beast Tour includes a PBR Monster Energy Team Challenge event on Friday night, featuring a must-watch showdown between the New York Mavericks and the Florida Freedom.

Theater, they say, is the fabulous invalid, regaling visitors with tales of past glory as it sinks into its deathbed; conversation, they say, is another dying art. But don’t tell that to Bess Wohl’s Liberation, which has just moved to Broadway, with its exceptional cast intact, after a much-discussed run at the Roundabout earlier this year. A searching and revealing drama about the achievements and limits of 1970s feminism, Liberation weaves different kinds of conversation into a multilayered narrative—and, in doing so, serendipitously restores the very word conversation to its roots. As an adjective or noun, converse denotes opposition or reversal. As a verb, however, it stems from the Latin term conversare, which means “turning together.” In other words: Conversation may involve disagreement—and in Liberation, it often does—but it is not at its core adversarial. It’s literally about sharing a revolution.