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Courtesy NYBG

Best things to do in spring in NYC

The sun will come out—eventually! Our guide to spring in NYC details flower shows, outdoor fests and cultural musts.

Rossilynne Skena Culgan
Written by
Rossilynne Skena Culgan
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Spring in New York is full of excitement. When the sun comes out, the flowers start blooming and the weather warms up, New Yorkers can shed their winter blues and head out to NYC parksNYC street fairs and food festivals in NYC. Plus, get revved for spring's biggest events below.

RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the NYC event calendar for 2023

Top things to do in spring in NYC

  • Things to do
Cherry blossoms in NYC offer New Yorkers a brief but gorgeous pop of beauty, which is why we flock in droves to see them when they bloom each spring. From the Brooklyn Botanical Garden to Central Park and even some hidden spots around town, we've rounded up the best places where you can gaze at the delicate pink flowers.

Cherry blossoms bloom in NYC based on each year's weather, but they usually begin in earnest by late March. With the warm winter in 2023, we're already seeing some cherry blossoms start to arrive in early March.

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  • Things to do
  • City Life

Starting April 15 through May, the New York Restoration Project—a local non-profit that plants trees, renovates gardens and takes care of green spaces around town—is giving out 3,500 free trees to New Yorkers across all five boroughs.

To get your hands on one of the free trees, register in advance on this website, where you'll also get to browse through the current list of distribution dates, times and locations.

  • Things to do
  • Festivals

St. Patrick's Day in NYC is shaping up to be quite a celebration this year! Epic parties and events promising live music and Irish fare will be back, bringing Irish pride to the streets of New York. 

One of the biggest is the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which marches along Fifth Avenue and passes by venerable New York attractions, including St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Central Park. From pipe and drum bands to dancers and performers in regalia, midtown Manhattan transforms into a big party with a sea of green revelers every year on March 17.

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  • Art
  • Art

The Orchid Show at The New York Botanical Garden this year explores the healing power of the natural world through dynamic designs by landscape artist Lily Kwong.

Your ticket will get you daytime access to The Orchid Show, plus all the rest of NYBG's outdoor gardens and collections. If you want to visit after dark, check out Orchid Nights where you can admire the flowers under the twinkling lights of the conservatory with music in the background and a cocktail in hand.

NYBG’s Orchid show runs through April 23, 2023.

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  • Restaurants
  • Eating

It’s hard to get good food on the cheap, but for seven years, Queens Night Market has prided itself on offering the city’s best eats for just $5-6.

The foodie festival will return on April 15 and runs on Saturday nights through the summer at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

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  • Theater
  • Musicals
  • Midtown WestOpen run

The steady stream of Stephen Sondheim revivals continues as the estimable Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford headline the latest Broadway incarnation of Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 1979 killer-cannibal musical. Directed by Hamilton's Thomas Kail, the production uses Jonathan Tunick's original 26-piece orchestrations to do justice to the show's razor-sharp score; the large cast includes Ruthie Ann Miles, Jordan Fisher, Maria Bilbao, Jamie Jackson and Stranger Things kiddo Gaten Matarazzo.

  • Theater
  • Musicals
  • Midtown WestOpen run

Can musical comedy help heal America's cultural divide? We're all ears. Tony-winning book writer Robert Horn (Tootsie) and Grammy-winning Nashville songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally collaborate on this modern American fable about an insular farming community that turns to a city slicker for help in a time of crisis. Veteran stager Jack O'Brien (Hairspray) directs; the cast includes John Behlmann, Alex Newell, Kevin Cahoon, Caroline Innerbichler, Andrew Durand, Grey Henson and Ashley D. Kelley.

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  • Music
  • Music

Lizzo, ODESZA and Kendrick Lamar will headline the 2023 Governors Ball Music Festival, which will be held in a new location this year at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.  

After two years at Citi Field, the show is heading to Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The new location will offer multiple transit options, including the 7 train and the LIRR. Music lovers can hang out under shady trees and dance in grassy fields for this weekend of music. 

The beloved Queens Night Market will bring a host of Night Market favorites to the 2023 festival as vendors, offering a true taste of Queens. Young local musicians will perform at the festival to put future stars in the spotlight. Plus, local nonprofits will also be involved in the festival, with more details to be announced.

  • Theater
  • Interactive
  • Chelsea

To untimely rip and paraphrase a line from Macbeth: Our eyes are made the fools of the other senses, or else worth all the rest. A multitude of searing sights crowd the spectator's gaze at the bedazzling and uncanny theater installation Sleep No More.

Your sense of space and depth—already compromised by the half mask that audience members must don—is further blurred as you wend through more than 90 discrete spaces, ranging from a cloistral chapel to a vast ballroom floor. The show is a true astonishment, turning six warehouse floors and approximately 100,000 square feet into a purgatorial maze that blends images from the Scottish play with ones derived from Hitchcock movies—all liberally doused in a distinctly Stanley Kubrick eau de dislocated menace.

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  • Art
  • Photography

Photographer Berenice Abbott captured New York in small, black-and-white images, 266 of which will be showcased in a fascinating exhibit at The Met this spring. The museum describes it as a "kind of photographic sketchbook" of her adventures throughout the city documenting skyscrapers, bridges, elevated trains and neighborhood life.

"It's one of the unique treasures of The Met. It has never been fully exhibited, not been fully conserved, or published in its entirety—until now," Met Director Max Hollein said. 

The photographer had intended on making just a short trip to New York City, but when she arrived, she was entranced. Abbott is quoted as saying, "When I saw New York again, and stood in the dirty slush, I felt that here was the thing I had been wanting to do all my life."

"Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929" will be on view from March 2-September 4, 2023.

  • Things to do
  • Weird & Wonderful

On a typical tour of Manhattan, the big tourist attractions—Times Square, the Empire State Building, Central Park—get all the attention. But on these new walking tours by a local author, you'll see fascinating historical sites that you won't find in a typical guidebook. 

K. Krombie's Purefinder tours, "Death in New York," "The Psychiatric History of New York" and "Hell Gate," explore the city's darker side through meticulously researched and theatrically presented historical narratives.

Each tour covers about 2.5 miles in about two-and-a-half hours. “Death in New York” and “The Psychiatric History of New York” are offered weekly, while “Hell Gate” is offered twice per month. Tours cost $32-$34 per person; you can book one here.

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  • Things to do
  • City Life

The Rockaway Hotel in Queens just debuted a retro-looking, heavy-on-the-pink new Roller Rink inside its event space, complete with food and drink offerings, theme nights, live DJs and more. 

You can book your session right here, where you'll also be able to browse through the various highlighted themes (think country skate, disco skate and throwback skate, among others).

More things to do in spring

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Major spring events guide

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Events by month

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