Things to do in NYC today

NYC gives a warm welcome during Fleet Week to nearly 2,300 service members of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard as they dock in the city for the weeklong celebration that overlaps with Memorial Day weekend. The 36th annual Fleet Week in NYC runs from May 21 to May 27, 2025. 

On Wednesday, May 21, the boats cruise into NYC, and it’s a sight to see. This year, expect to see two U.S. Navy ships, two U.S. Coast guard cutters, five U.S. Naval Academy Yard Patrol boats, and a Canadian ship as they parade into NYC in the morning.

Though exact times haven’t been announced, the parade typically runs from from 7:45am to 11am. You can see usually see the ships along the Hudson River from Battery Park to just south of the George Washington Bridge. The event is free to the public to view.

While most art exhibits in New York City keep you at a distance, the Museum of Modern Art invites you to get closer at its new Hilma af Klint exhibit, “What Stands Behind the Flowers.” 

Swedish artist Hilma af Klint is typically most known for “Paintings for the Temple,” her giant abstract artworks depicting geometric and organic shapes that she attributed to “divine messengers” or spirit guides. This body of work, however, takes its direction from af Klint herself and focuses on the natural world—highly detailed botanical drawing—in which she assigns a spiritual meaning to.

On view for the very first time, these self-studies ask us to attune to the natural world in a new way. See them through September 27.

If you’ve ever walked down a Harlem block or past Fulton Street and thought, “Damn, that’s a look,” you already understand the heart of “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s razor-sharp spring exhibition that puts the precision, politics and poetry of Black menswear on full, unapologetic display.

The exhibition is more than a fashion retrospective: it’s a sensory experience that feels like stepping into someone’s memory, someone’s vision, someone’s mirror.

"Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" is now on view at The Met Fifth Avenue through October 26.

Back in the 1970s, there was a common rallying cry at early LGBTQ+ marches: "Out of the closets! Into the streets!" An exhibit at The Hispanic Society Museum & Library borrows that refrain for its title as it brings together 18 photographs by Francisco Alvarado-Juárez that highlight the chaotic and colorful vitality of this first iteration of Pride.

The photographs of the 1975 and 1976 marches showcase the racial and ethnic diversity of the movement and reveal the nuanced bonds of kinship formed among marchers from disparate backgrounds. In these early days, Pride was a local effort in New York City known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March or the Gay Liberation Parade. Held as a direct response to the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, the events were a call for increased queer visibility at a time when New York still enforced so-called "sodomy" laws that facilitated the repression of the LGBTQ+ community.

See the exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in Washington Heights through August 31, 2025. It's free to visit.

Broadway shows are practically synonymous with New York City, and the word Broadway is often used as shorthand for theater itself. Visiting the Great White Way means attending one of 41 large theaters concentrated in the vicinity of Times Square, most of which seat more than 1,000 people. 

The most popular Broadway shows tend to be musicals, from long-running favorites like The Lion King and Hamilton to more recent hits like Hadestown and Moulin Rouge!—but new plays and revivals also represent an important part of the Broadway experience. There’s a wide variety of Broadway shows out there, as our complete A–Z listing attests.

Our list of NYC’s 50 best restaurants offers a catalogue of all the places we wish we were at right now. They don’t have to be the newest or the most famous (though some are), just places that we want to return to again and again, and that we think that you will, too. 

No matter the season, these quirky classes make back-to-school very cool. For our Back to Class series, we scoured the city for the most unusual—and most fun—classe around town. Turns out, you can master some truly unique skills in these off-the-beaten-path classes in NYC.

There’s no shortage of painting classes, dance classes and cooking classes in NYC, but we've all been there and done that. Instead, opt for something more unique, like a bonsai-making class with booze, a bike-riding training for grown-ups, a purse-making party, or a neon art workshop at a glassblowing facility. School is in sesson! 

New York City is packed with a vast array of museums and galleries, covering every field of culture and knowledge. Whether you're an art admirer, a history buff or a fashion fiend, there is a museum for you in NYC. 

Between them, they offer so many exhibitions of every variety and taste that it's hard to keep track of them. But if you’ve starting to suffer a sudden attack of FOMA (that's fear of missing art ;) ), don't worry! We've got you covered with our select list of the best museum exhibitions in NYC.

Need a vacation? Head to The Bronx for The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism at New York Botanical Garden. The sprawling floral exhibition, with its vibrant colors, flowing waterfalls and thousands of orchids, makes for a transportive tropical escape. 

This year's show, presented in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, was inspired by the art of the Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán. Throughout your floral adventure, you'll learn about the late artist's ethos as you stroll through meditative spaces, explore minimalist designs and notice contrasting details. The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism is now open through April 27. Don't miss Orchid Nights, 21+ events on select nights that feature cumbia music, dancing, and drinks. 

New York City is full of free outdoor art that you don't even have to go to a museum to see. Sculptures, murals and photographs can be found in its parks, sidewalks and on its buildings! Locations such as the High Line, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens and other NYC locales all have a wide variety of pieces awaiting you, from massive sculptures to eye-popping murals and graffiti.

We rounded up the best outdoor art you can go see right now.

Free and cheap tickets to NYC's best museums? It's possible! One of the benefits of living in or visiting New York City is all the incredible cultural institutions and museums are at your beck-and-call like The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, MoMA or the Guggenheim.

Luckily, most museums offer free hours or days and pay-what-you-wish admission. You just have to know where and when they are. We’ve got the info you need in our guide to all the free museum days and cheap admission in NYC you should know about.

A dining oasis inside the 50th Street 1 Station with a cozy cafe Tiny Dancer, craft cocktails at Nothing Really Matters, and See No Evil's excellent pizza. Whether you're going for a coffee, a freshly baked treat, a pizza, or a drink, these spots beneath the sidewalk make for a special experience.

As our Things to Do Editor puts it: "My underground sojourn turned out to be a delightful, only-in-New-York way to spend a day—an experience packed with comforting chai, excellent thin-crust pizza, creative cocktails, great company, and a sense of joy I saw over and over." 

The Brooklyn Museum is celebrating a big birthday. As the museum turns 200, it’s marking the occasion with a sprawling exhibition that celebrates the museum's history, showcases artists from the borough and highlights new gifts in the collection. The massive show highlights hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and photographs pulled from the impressive museum’s full collection of 140,000 items. 

“Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200” is now open through February 22, 2026.

The nuclear industry can be a complicated topic to understand, but a new exhibit at Poster House in the Flatiron District will help. "Fallout: Atoms for War & Peace" explores the global development of the nuclear industry through poster art that promoted and protested its use through the second half of the twentieth century. 

In a series of 60 posters, the exhibit digs into how scientists around the world developed the nuclear bomb and nuclear power stations following World War II. It also looks at how the development of nuclear energy led to the threat of nuclear war and—later—the development of harnessing nuclear energy for peace as an inexpensive electricity source.

It's on view through September 7, 2025.  

Blast off to another planet at INTER's new insterstellar experience. Inside this Soho space, expect to see more than 10 immersive exhibits using light, sound and digital projection to transport you to another galaxy.

Walk through a mirrored hallway with moving light, then find yourself on an alien terrain. Stroll through a tunnel of bioluminescent flowers, bounce around in a netted space called “The Vortex,” and get swallowed by a black hole in an infinity mirrored room. All of it is certainly fodder for your Instagram feed.

But it’s not just about looking around. INTER asks you to … interact. There are multiple generative art installations that react in real-time, like donning a space suit in the interstellar research lab and forming new constellations via motion-tracking technology.

On any day at the Guggenheim Museum, it’s impossible not to look up at the incredible architectural design by Frank Lloyd Wright. But now when you gaze upward, your eyes will be treated to an extra surprise: a hanging jungle of palm trees, cacti, and other lush plants. Why exactly?

It’s part of a new exhibit by artist Rashid Johnson, titled “A Poem for Deep Thinkers.” True to its name, this vast exhibition taking over the entire museum will indeed make you think about themes of social alienation, escapism, masculinity, parenthood and care for self and others. See it at the Guggenheim through January 18, 2026.  

New Yorkers love to talk about transit—to complain about it, to joke about it, to express their love for it. So it’s only fitting that The New Yorker magazine would cover transit in exactly the same way. Since the magazine began a century ago, it has featured cartoons that both rib and extol public transportation. 

A new exhibit, “Commentary on The Commute: A Century of The New Yorker's Transportation Cartoons," explores how the magazine’s famed comical drawings have explored this subject over the past 100 years. The exhibit is free to visit through October 26, 2025; find it at the New York Transit Museum’s outpost inside Grand Central Terminal.

Next time you’re waiting for a train or passing through Grand Central, it’s worth taking the time to stop and explore this free exhibition. Find it in the shuttle passage next to the stationmaster’s office. It's open on weekdays from 10am-7:30pm and weekends from 10am-6pm.  

Even if you don't know how to play music, it’s practically impossible not to reach out and strum or pluck the strings when an instrument appears in front of you—or at the very least, expect that a musician will appear to play it. That’s what makes these new abstract artworks by Jennie C. Jones so mind-bending. 

Three massive instrument sculptures now sit on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s rooftop in Jones’ latest work titled “Ensemble.” But only one of the instruments makes sound when it’s activated by the wind. The other two don’t make sound at all, even though they’re capable of doing so. That's exactly the point. Instead, their potential for sound and the tension between dormancy and activation is where they hold power. Go see these cool sculptures on the Met’s gorgeous rooftop through October 19.

The Algonquin Round Table was a famous literary movement, but it was also an actual round table inside midtown’s Algonquin Hotel. Now, after a six-month restoration, the original round table is back at The Algonquin Hotel, Autograph Collection—and you can go visit it.

More than a century ago, the Algonquin played host to literary juggernauts such as Dorothy Parker, Franklin Adams, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Harold Ross, Robert Sherwood, Alexander Woollcott and more. The group, who called themselves "The Vicious Circle," met for lunch at the hotel's round table. Now once again, the newly refurbished table is playing host to the city's tastemakers. 

You can find the round table inside the hotel at The Round Table Restaurant. Look for the table (round, of course) with the tall blue booth that curves around it. You can practically envision the literary greats who packed into the seats around it.

Long before New Yorkers could aimlessly scroll on their phones while riding on the subway, they could always read The Subway Sun. This subway poster series, designed to look like a newspaper's front page, encouraged civility, safety, cleanliness, and pride in their city and its mass transit rail system.

A new exhibit at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, titled "Shining a light on The Subway Sun: The art of Fred G. Cooper and Amelia Opdyke Jones," brings the ad campaign's story to life. See a collection of original artwork and vintage posters from the 1930s and 1940s—many of which are still incredibly relevant today.

Some 4,500 years ago, ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza—the greatest pyramid the world had ever seen. Sure, you can read about this incredible civilization in history books, but you can now walk through their pyramid without ever leaving New York City. A new virtual reality experience called Horizon of Khufu offers a chance to travel miles away and back in time. 

You'll get a chance to wander around the pyramid, then look in awe at the intricate tombs of Pharaoh Khufu and the majestic Giza Necropolis. Eventually, you'll board a ship for a journey across the Nile, attend a mummification ceremony, and experience the somber occasion of King Khufu's final rites.

For several years, anybody who has walked, run, or biked along the Hudson River trail in Hell’s Kitchen has had to squeeze past barriers and a shrouded fence. At last, the barriers have come down and Pier 97 is open.

The park features a blue turf field, a shaded pergola area with benches, and loungers with skyline views. It's quickly become an oasis on the west side.

When Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker was first published 50 years ago, the book's release was met with great anticipation. Excerpts in The New Yorker gained lots of attention—including from the biography's subject, NYC government official Robert Moses, who described the deeply researched book as "venomous." Even so, it was impossible to predict whether a 700,000-word biography would resonate with readers. 

The book quickly earned acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize and finding a home on bookshelves across America, especially among New Yorkers. Now, five decades later, the monumental work still resonates for its look at NYC’s past and the lessons it holds for our future. The book and its tenacious author are the subject of a new exhibit at The New York Historical titled “Robert Caro’s The Power Broker at 50." See it at the Upper West Side museum through August 3, 2025. 

For more than 30 years, the Tenement Museum shared stories about the people who once lived in the building it now owns. But that meant that some groups—particularly Black New Yorkers—were excluded, as there's no record of a Black family living in the apartment building at 97 Orchard Street. 

Now, with an aim to explore the full breadth of immigrant and migrant experiences, the Lower East Side museum is highlighting the stories of a Black family for the first time with a new tour titled "A Union of Hope: 1869." The exhibition tells the story of the Moore family who lived in Soho during and after the Civil War. Reserve tickets here for $30/person.

From amazing costumes to Broadway history to fun photo opps, this long-awaited new museum is a must-see for theater buffs.  

You can expect the new museum to highlight over 500 individual productions from the 1700s all the way to the present. 

Among the standout offerings will also be a special exhibit dubbed "The Making of a Broadway Show," which honors the on- and off-stage community that helps bring plays and musicals to life multiple times a week. 

Sure, New York attractions are known across the globe, but what about the lesser-known, secret NYC spots? Thanks to us, you don’t have to do much digging. This is a classified list of buzzy speakeasies in NYC. Cheers!

Portraits of American First Ladies typically don't tell us much about the personality of the person. Maybe we can see a steely determination in her eyes or get a sense of her style, but we don’t learn much about who she is. Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama changed all of that by focusing on the essence of the subject.

You can now see this iconic portrait and many other renowned works by Sherald in a new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art located in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. The exhibition, titled “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” is open now through August 10, 2025. With nearly 50 paintings, it’s the most comprehensive exhibition of the American artist’s work, which includes a portrait of Breonna Taylor, as well as paintings that center everyday Black Americans. 

Want to feel like you can practically defy gravity? You can do just that at Lush Spa with their Wicked-themed book-a-bath experience. 

In partnership with Universal Studios, the Upper East Side spa is completely decked out with Wicked vibes. There's vivid green and glimmering gold decor, including taper candles and even wallpaper that says Oz. During the bath, you’ll get to enjoy a pink-and-green bath bomb, a soap shaped like the Emerald City, and a cleanser picked for your skin type. Instrumental versions of the Wicked soundtrack will play while you relax in the tub. 

It's bookable now for $75 with appointments through late 2025.

The New York Philharmonic's home has been transformed into a state-of-the-art hub for classical music and a more welcoming space for New Yorkers. Go see at show at the newly redesigned David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. 

Here's the full schedule of performances, and here's a peek inside the new theater. 

After nearly a decade of planning, designing and building, the massive new wing at the American Museum of Natural History is now open. The architecturally stunning, 230,000-square-foot Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation is a sight to behold.

Scientific wonders—including a butterfly vivarium, an insectarium and a 360-degree immersive experience—fill every inch of the space.

Part visual splendor, part olfactory wonder and part ooey-gooey sensory fun, Sloomoo Institute’s slime museum is now open again after a renovation. This captivating playground welcomes all ages to its home in SoHo—or “SooHoo,” in Sloomoo parlance (see what they did there?).

Here are five things not to miss at Sloomoo, including a chance to get slimed and a DIY slime making activity.

Experience the tastes of Japan without ever leaving Brooklyn. The new 50 Norman in Greenpoint has brought a Japanese multi-retail and dining mini-complex to the neighborhood. Here's what's inside.

Journey back in time to April 15, 1874 in Paris, when Impressionist painters began creating their groundbreaking work. Through the art and science of virtual reality, you can now join them as they break away from traditional academic painting, focusing instead on capturing light, color and atmosphere in new ways.

Titled "Tonight with the Impressionists: Paris 1874," this VR exhibition will take you back to the streets of 19th-century Paris to meet the artists behind the paintings and experience key moments in the Impressionist movement. Meet Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Degas, and others as they depict everyday life and outdoor scenes with spontaneous brushstrokes and vibrant colors. Expect to spend about 45 minutes fully immersed in their world thanks to your VR headset.

The exhibition was created by Excurio in collaboration with the renowned Musée d’Orsay in Paris. See it at Eclipso, located at 555 West 57th Street. Tickets range in price from $30-$44 depending on the date. 

The luxurious Italian wellness spa QC NY (by QC Terme Spas and Resorts) brings the elegance and rejuvenation of a European spa to Governors Island, but with New York City flavor.

When you check in, you're given everything you'll need—a bag containing flip flops, a towel, a robe and a key for your locker—and a chance to sign up for a 25-, 50-, or 75-minute massage ($100-$250). Then, you are set free to roam the spa, which is full of relaxation rooms (each with its own meticulously curated personality, scent, and music), themed saunas, Vichy showers, infrared beds, foot baths, hydro jets, steam baths and other amazingly lush experiences.  

It's a treat no matter the season.

The Brooklyn Paramount is open once again following millions of dollars and years of renovations led by Live Nation. Before restoration began a couple of years ago, the iconic venue—which first opened in the 1920s as a movie theater before it became a concert hall for acts like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington—was a basketball arena and classrooms for Long Island University. 

Now, for the first time in 60 years, the theater is hosting concerts again in one of the most stunning live event settings anywhere in the city. Check out the list of upcoming shows here.

Visit Budgie Landing, an immersive experience that lets you commune with 1,000 boisterous birds known as budgerigars or “budgies” at the Bronx Zoo. The experience, which is part of zoo admission, surrounds you by these small, talkative parrots that get to fly freely through the exhibit. Inside, you can feed seeds to the birds from a handheld stick. The budgies that accept your offering will no doubt be an unforgettable up-close interaction, the zoo says.

Every day, thousands of people walk through Times Square, rushing to catch the subway, heading to work, meandering through shops—many of them unaware that they're stepping over a revolutionary art project that's been a part of the city for decades. 

Purposely unmarked, it's easy to miss this piece of auditory art because truly experiencing it requires tuning into a specific frequency in the most cacophonous place in America. The late artist Max Neuhaus's installation called "Times Square" sounds like the echo of a bell ringing. It's hard to place this droning tone among all the other noises there, especially because the sound emanates from a typical grate right beneath your feet. 

Here's the backstory — and the intel on how to find it.

Imagine waking up to the sound of gently swaying trees and chirping birds, sun peeking into your window which looks out across a canopy of golden leaves. It's an experience that is totally attainable, thanks to Airbnb.

There are plenty of gorgeous treehouse rentals near NYC just waiting for you to visit, and they range from low-fi elevated cabins to more luxurious options with hot tubs and extensive vinyl selections to play at your leisure.

The New York Public Library dug through its expansive and centuries-spanning archive to stage an impressive free exhibition filled with cultural artifacts. "The Polonsky Exhibition of New York Public Library’s Treasures" spans 4,000 years of history and includes a wide range of history-making pieces, including the only surviving letter from Christoper Columbus announcing his “discovery” of the Americas to King Ferdinand’s court and the first Gutenberg Bible brought over to the Americas.

New treasures rotate into the exhibit regulary, so it's worth visiting more than once.

Believe it or not mahjong—yes, the tile game that was developed in 19th century China—is making a comeback in New York. No one is more tapped into this trend than the Chop Suey Club, a Chinese-owned store in Downtown Manhattan that just opened its own mahjong room in the store’s lower level on Hester Street.

The vibey room, which includes two tables and an option to play with an instructor, seats two parties at a time, and every booking will include a copy of a mahjong for beginners pamphlet written and designed by the creative mind behind the Chop Suey Club, Ruoyi Jiang.

Whether you want to play with friends or simply want to learn how to play, there’s something for you. From room reservations to classes, you book your table here.

New York's Roaring '20s 2.0 are back on with the first whiskey distillery to open (legally) in Manhattan since Prohibition. Designed with the decadence of the era in mind, Great Jones Distilling Co. is Manhattan's first and only legal whiskey distillery in over 100 years. 

The 28,000 square foot venue features a fully functioning distillery, a tasting room, fascinating tours and several drinking and dining venues, including an underground speakeasy and full restaurant.

Since its opening in Times Square back in 2000, Madame Tussauds has become part and parcel of the character of the city. Sure, the famous wax museum is a tourist magnet, but New Yorkers have also come to appreciate the art form, welcoming new celebrity clay figures joining the roster of 200-or-so sculptures always on display at the museum. 

A mere walk through the giant space at 234 West 42nd Street by Seventh Avenue is sure to catch you off guard: the wax figures are, to put it simply, life-like, almost identical to their human counterparts.

For the first time ever, Madame Tussauds is offering museum-goers the chance to take a peek at the process: the museum is now leading behind-the-scenes tours twice a day on Mondays through Fridays.