The best things to do in NYC this weekend

The Metropolitan Museum is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, and in light of all of those years passing by, the Costume Institute is mounting this exhibition about fashion’s relationship with time. The show explores how fashion’s history is both linear and cyclical: On the one hand, there’s no more reliable marker for a particular period than the clothes being worn at the time; yet on the other hand, fashion itself often looks to the past for inspiration. The Met reaches into its vast collection to explore how fashion often moves forwards by moving back.

Each "minute" in the clock room represents a pair of garments—one from our present and one from that past that served as inspiration for the piece.

As visitors pass through time and space, they'll see time-inspired designs by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Gabrielle Chanel, Christian Dior, Tom Ford, Hubert de Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Norma Kamali, Donna Karan, Helmut Lang, Karl Lagerfeld (for Chanel), Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, Viktor & Rolf, Gianni Versace, Vivienne Westwood, and many more.

On Sunday, Hester Street Fair is all about Halloween this weekend with a costume contest (where you can win a gift basket with prizes from vendors) and DJ sets by ProbablyYourDaddy + friends. When you're not showing off your getup, grab food from Beba’s Kitchen, Mama’s Arepas, Danny's Nut Butter, Wah Gwaan NYC, or Elemental Bakery, and shop at Arrrngmnt, Copper Cactus Vintage, David Bermudez, Daye Knight, Diamante Vintage, EAG Vintage, FastMinds, Glitch Bitch x Nick's Creative Shop, Hindsight Tees, Intramural Shop, Muske, Now Begins, Potion CBD, Preppy Trendy, Prince Peacock, Rogue Garms, Silk Slut, Tatsuya Matsukura, Tissi NYC, Vintage Nubian and others.

This haunted house art show is a Halloween edition from Rubulad, the underground, semisecret party collective that has spent the past decade hosting hush-hush throwdowns at venues all over New York—from Sugar Hill Supper Club to an old glass factory in Williamsburg. Their spontaneity has stayed alive over the years as one of Brooklyn's longest-running DIY community art events, and now they’re back with a “fun house from hell”.

The outdoor, socially distanced art show will turn a Bushwick green spaces into stages for festivities for eight kooky nights. Each night will bring a combination of art and performance art from over 20 artists including Ricardo Rivera, Veronica Dougherty, Heather Schimpf, Miles Angers-on and many others. Go all out with a costume if you feel like it and, y’know, become an art installation yourself. Tickets are for time slots only, between 6-10pm. All guests are required to wear a mask.

Bring your own beer to this night of comedy hosted by the New York Comedy Club at Hudson Mercantile Rooftop. You'll hear from comics like H Foley, Ardie Fuqua, Tom Cassidy, Lean Bonnema, Liz Miele, Rojo Perez, Nick Griffen, Jon Fisch, Caitlin Peluffo and more. Tickets are capped at 50, so make sure you get yours asap.

In lieu of an in-person Halloween party, House of Yes is teaming up with Artery and Bramble for a "psychedelically seductive," virtual spectacle within a spooky "haunted" cyber realm teeming with immersive live performances, dancing, a fancy dress costume contest, prizes, and intimate experiences including tarot, astrology and sound healing. Attendees will have their own customized avatars they can use to wander through multiple rooms with friends and try for secret prizes and surprises. As always, costumes (on your avatar this time) are always encouraged. Inspiration is listed as: "psychedelic seduction, club kid candy flipped clown, magical monster or best bad trip." Tickets are offered as part of a fundraiser for House of Yes by Patreon supporters, which can be for as little as $5 per month.

Grab a ferry ticket and head to Governors Island for Halloween this month — the island's annual pumpkin patch, Pumpkin Point, is back with thousands of gourds and fall decorations across Nolan Park. The best part? Each visitor is allowed to take a pumpkin home with them for free. The event runs between Saturday, October 24 through Sunday, November 1. Any pumpkins left over will be composted at Earth Matter NY’s Compost Learning Center on the Island or donated to local food pantries.

As usual, everyone must keep their distance and wear a mask when that's not possible. Unfortunately, trick-or-treating will not go on this year.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine may not be holding its annual Halloween Extravaganza, but it's still getting spooky this year. The Cathedral and the West 111th Street Block Association are hosting an outdoor, physically-distanced family Halloween event at the Peace Fountain on 111th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The iconic Peace Fountain, created by sculptor Gregory Wyatt, will be transformed into a ghostly gathering place where kids and adults can trick-or-treat, take part in costume contests, enjoy live music, take photos, and more. 

Camp Yampire, the virtual adult summer camp, is back with painting, juggling, baking, video games, workouts and yoga to mask making, live music, happy hours and self-care sessions beginning on Saturday. This week's summer camp will be Halloween-themed and there will be a monster mash dance party, a midnight glow dance party, a Spanish wine, chocolate, & cheese tasting, a murder mystery scavenger hunt, live games, a harvest crafts happy hour, a back-to-back spooky cinema room, spooky readings of Edgar Allen Poe, and much. more. Check out the full schedule here and RSVP.

Camp Yampire is free!

Industry City just unveiled five new murals and launched a free walking tour that covers all 14 in its collection, including the acclaimed full-façade mural by Camile Walala. Visitors will be directed across three courtyards that'll highlight the newest pieces that were inspired by issues in 2020—quarantine, the pandemic, gender, and racial equality. With phone in hand, anyone can scan on-site QR codes to get curation notes and follow this tour map. The new murals at Industry City include pieces from three local Brooklyn-based artists, Scott Albrecht, Josh Cochran and Sophia Dawson.

Theater professionals will unveil the darker side of Broadway, including the ghosts that haunt the theaters to some of the weird superstitions within the theater community, this Halloween. There will be an adult tour at night and more family-friendly edition during the day.

Pantone's Color of the Year (Classic Blue) is at the center of ARTECHOUSE's latest multimedia exhibit—"Celestial." Visitors to the underground attraction will be taken on a "journey beyond the skies."  Classic Blue, according to Pantone, brings a sense of peace and tranquility to the human spirit, offering refuge. The new installation aim to do the same through sights, sounds and sensations.

“During these unprecedented times as a society we have found ourselves in a new state of existence. Before 2020 even began, Pantone selected Classic Blue as the color of the year because they saw it as the hue to sustain us during a time of change,” said Sandro Keserelidze, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of ARTECHOUSE. “2020 ended up bringing changes no one expected, making the hue of Classic Blue, and the qualities it represents, more relatable now than ever before. We couldn’t think of a more timeless and timely theme to end the year and launch a new chapter of experiences.”

The Drunk Texts is back just in time for Halloween with a drunken live performance of Robert Price’s Shakespearean adaptation "Thou Wilt Scream: A ScareBnB Production." Watch from your couch as tipsy actors do their best to deliver a horrific and hilarious performance all set in the woods of Upstate New York. Make yourself a drink because there will be drinking games, improvisation and audience participation. The audience always votes on who takes the next shot and even volunteer to hop up for a crucial walk-on role.

This is the first exhibition on the revolutionary aesthetics and social politics of the famous Manhattan nightclub and its influence on film, fashion and nightclub design. Through photography and media that brought Studio 54 to global fame, the exhibition contains more than 600 objects, from fashion design, drawings, paintings, film, and music to décor and extensive archives, to showcase the excitement that swirled around the nightclub.

You'll see blueprints and architecture models that illustrate the club’s innovative development and creation and documentation of extravagant themed parties for its thirty-three month run. The exhibition continues through the years after the nightclub’s closure, showing the long-reaching influence of Studio 54 aesthetics.

New York is now home (once again) to some of the world's largest pumpkins. This week, the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth brought massive cucurbits to the New York Botanical Garden as per tradition—just in time for a peak autumn weekend in October. Pictures cannot convey how absolutely massive these pumpkins are. The gourds picked out especially for Giant Pumpkin Weekend at the New York Botanical Garden, clock in over 2,000 pounds each. You can see the pumpkins with your own two eyes during Giant Pumpkin Weekend which begins this Saturday, October 24 from 10am to 6pm. They will be on display through November 1.

The Queens-Drive-In is screening a series of scary movies, including some double features, this Halloween.

Oct. 24: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho & The Birds
Oct. 25: Nosferatu (with live music) & Young Frankenstein
Oct. 28: Get Out & The Babadook
Oct. 30: Halloween & The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Oct. 31: Little Shop of Horrors & Beetlejuice

There will also do a preview screening of the horror-comedy Bad Hair, from Dear White People director Justin Simien, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, and a free Day of the Dead screening of the Oscar-winning Pixar film Coco on Sunday, Nov. 1.

Tickets will be priced starting at $35 per car (up to 4 passengers per car). Doors will open each night around 7:30pm, shows will begin at 8:30pm and end by 11pm. For double features, doors open at 6:30pm, shows will begin at 7:30pm.

Bette Midler is reuniting with her witchy sisters, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, for the one-night-only documentary-style show, "In Search of The Sanderson Sisters, A Hocus Pocus Hulaween Takeover," which will be hosted by "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark," who will welcome co-stars Thora Birch, Omri Katz and Doug Jones and special guests, Glenn Close, Billy Crystal, Samantha Diaz, Billy Eichner, Todrick Hall, Jennifer Hudson, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Adam Lambert, Alex Moffat, Martin Short, Sarah Silverman, John Stamos, Meryl Streep, Sophie von Haselberg, and other surprise guests.

Make sure to reserve your spot for the one-hour event (your link will be emailed to you in advance). Participants are encouraged to purchase spooky Hocus Pocus-inspired artisan-made "bobbles, gewgaws and devilishly delicious treats" which will be delivered in time for the event. All proceeds benefit the New York Restoration Project.

There are TikTok and Instagram challenges that invite you to flaunt your best Halloween look from home in a short 30-second video (due by October 25th) for the chance to be featured in the show. Just tag it #NYRPSpiritHalloween and follow @NYRP and @SpiritHalloween on Instagram. (Email your video submission to hulaween@nyrp.org with your account type and handle as the subject line, “Instagram - @NYRP”.) Find out more here.

Twenty neighborhood restaurants from New York's Crossroads of the World are offering visitors and natives alike international grub from eateries like Dos Caminos, Gallagher's Steakhouse, Joe Allen, Seamore's Takeover @ Urbanspace, Tito Murphy's, Tony's Di Napoli and Le Rivage. For $35, diners will get a three-course pre-fixe at these restaurants between October 23 and November 1. Hell’s Kitchen Happiness Krew will be popping up at restaurants to provide free entertainment.

El Dia de Los Muertos will be celebrated in a big way with a large-scale community altar by artist Scherezade Garcia in Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel. Visitors are encouraged to bring personal offerings to a community altar, including flowers, photographs, and notes, among other objects. Garcia’s altar will combine her own unique style with this centuries-old celebration of the departed. Social distancing and masks will be required to take part.

It's never too early for a Christmas miracle. Luckily, here's one we can all look forward to: Popular Christmas pop-up bars, Miracle and Sippin' Santa, are set to return this holiday season, despite the pandemic.

From November 1 to the end of December, Miracle will be back in business at Mace and The Cabinet and Sippin' Santa will pop up at Boilermaker in the East Village. As always, the festive bars will be serving up fun seasonal drinks like the "Snowball Old-Fashioned," the "Christmapolitan" and the "Yippie Ki Yay Mother F****r!"

Concord Hill in Williamsburg is gifting early voters (between Saturday, October 24, and Monday, November 3) with a free house infused shot during Happy Hour (4-6pm, Tuesday through Sunday).

While you're there, check out the bar's fall drinks, including the warm "More Boo’s Please" with pumpkin infused gin, chamomile, Boomsma bitters and lemon, and "Smoke Break" is a blend of fig-infused bourbon, Cardamaro amaro, Braulio, maple, walnut bitters smoked with cherry and apple wood chips. 

At a time when in-person events are limited, live music is returning to Lincoln Center with a new music series called "New Stages." This month, the institution will host in-person concerts at Hearst Plaza located on Lincoln Center’s iconic campus: on top of the signature sloped Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Lawn and under the peaceful shade of the trees in Barclays Capital Grove. Audience members will need to social distance, so pods for up to two people will be on sale for $25 each ahead of each concert. (Pods in Barclays Capital Grove have chairs, while pods on the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Lawn are on the ground—guests are encouraged to bring their own blankets to sit on.) Music on the setlist will range from chamber music and jazz to Caribbean and Bollywood-inspired melodies, performed by artists from across the campus and New York City.

Harvest Weekends showcase fall on the farm with pumpkins for the picking at the farm’s Pumpkin Patch, hayrides, a seasonal farmstand with a variety of Hudson Valley apples, donuts, fresh cider and apple pies, as well as seasonal mums, locally-made jams and honey. All proceeds support the care and operations of the historic farm.  Stick around to make your way through its Amazing Maize Maze sponsored by Con Edison. The corn maze has been made to look like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

Prince's classic semi-autobiographical 1984 film, Purple Rain, which features one of the best soundtracks in pop history, will be shown on the big screen. Talented live performers will step in at key moments, accompanied by a live eight-piece band, to supply live musical performances of numbers including "Let's Go Crazy," "Darling Nikki" and "I Would Die 4 U." The in-person cast includes American Idol semifinalist Aaron Marcellus as Prince's alter ego, the Kid, Broadway ensembler Nick Rashad Burroughs as his rival Morris, and Lenesha “Sister” Randolph (a Grammy nominee for her work with Robert Randolph and the Family Band) as Mother.

The Brooklyn Public Library system’s just opened a new eco-friendly library, Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center. Visitors to the new building will find 15,000 square feet of both indoor and outdoor spaces for library services. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the location is currently limited to grab-and-go service, but there are still tons of cool things to note about the new space. The “sustainable” portion of the new library’s mission is embedded into the very structure of the building itself. Dedicated to environmental education, activism and awareness, the structure has a bunch of tiny details that tie into its larger eco-friendly theme. It has some sustainable quirks too, like its second-floor cistern will be able to capture and store up to 1,500 gallons of rainwater which the library will use for lab experiments and to water its plants.

There's now a pizza speakeasy to visit inside one of NYC's best bagel shops, yup, that's two New York masterpieces in one. The Flatiron location of Zucker’s Bagels, which has five shops in New York, is where bagels are made fresh during the daytime. Then a team of pizzaiolos take over as they make the dough from scratch, prepare sauces and bake pies—in the same ovens used for the bagels—that are delivered between 4-10 p.m. between 14th and 42nd Streets within Manhattan. There are seven pies on the menu (along with salads and desserts), but the signature pizza is The Bungalow, which includes toppings of pepperoni, tomato sauce and mozzarella and a crust that’s sprinkled with Zucker’s spicy Chipotle Toasted Everything Seeds. It’s like biting into a New York slice but with the finishing taste of your favorite weekend bagel.

The first to announce its annual winter wonderland pop-ups as chilly weather approaches is 230 Fifth, back with its wildly popular wintertime bubble tents for the season. You can take in panoramic skyline vistas while sipping on spiked hot chocolate in the privacy of your own heated igloo. The bar already has 6 igloos available to reserve now, and the full-on Rooftop Igloo Bar is officially back Sunday, November 1, where a total of 17 igloos will glow with string lights. Each igloo can privately accommodate up to 10 guests of the same party for 2.5 hour sessions, where in the past, they placed separate parties into the same igloo.

The list of once-common activities we can no longer do right now is very long: Dance in a crowded club. Kiss on a first date. Scroll through our Twitter feeds without an overwhelming feeling of doom... But here’s one activity that you can add back on to your 2020 list of potential activities: Heading out for a game of pool.

Rather than hit the billiards in a crowded dive bar, a new service called Sharks Pool Club lets you book a private room and table online. You can then show up to one of the mansion-style rooms with a key code that will let you in, no human contact required. Once there, you can play your own music, BYOB and have a fun night out with your significant other, a potential match or a group of friends that you’ve formed a pod with.

Live Axe, which just opened in Soho, is Manhattan’s first axe-throwing bar with a modern Viking theme where you can sip innovative cocktails before taking your turn attempting to hit the bull’s eye. The first floor has seven enclosed cages with axe-throwing lanes and three more cages are located in a more private space downstairs, where there's also a private bar. You’ll be surrounded by graffiti murals, a DJ booth on the mezzanine and black leather sofas. 

Talk Story, the new rooftop bar at The McCarren Hotel is one to remember this fall when you’re yearning to travel or duck out from cooler New York nights. Its name, which is a Hawaiian expression meaning "shoot the breeze," and the cozy decor—scattered rugs, overflowing plants, colorful art—sets the scene for the new island hang. The cocktail list is filled with cheeky-named drinks such as Shisho & Sunbeams (vodka, fino sherry, shiso, honeydew, dry vermouth), and Skinny Dip (el governor Pisco, yuzu, watermelon, lime leaf, and egg white).

The first new pier in Hudson River Park in more than a decade is now open to the public and it's bringing Manhattan's wetlands back.

Visitors to Pier 26, which is situated between Hubert and Nore Moore streets in Tribeca, can sunbathe on its lounge chairs, take tours of its "tide deck" planted with native shrubs, trees and grasses, and stroll its elevated, cantilevered walkway above the deck to get spectacular city and river views.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum officially reopens its doors on Saturday after six long months of closure with three major shows, including a Jackson Pollock exhibit that features a mural that hasn't been shown in NYC in more than 20 years.

There aren’t many bars in New York where you receive an axe upon walking in—and it’s entirely legal. Hatchet and Hops, a Buffalo-based company, has opened a new location in a 3,000 square foot building in Williamsburg. Each thrower gets their own dedicated axe during their session and an instructor will standby your station to offer safety instructions and slick tips on how to nail the bulls eye. Shockingly, you can also sip on booze, wine and cider while you play too.

Consisting of three oversized doors that stand ajar, the work, titled Doors for Doris, is meant to be passed through by those entering and exiting the park. Each door is made of marble remnants that artist Sam Moyer collected from around the city and inlaid into poured concrete. To see the doors, head to the southeast entrance to Central Park at the corner of 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. It's free to explore.

New York City's five boroughs will be home to more than 60 incredible photography exhibits this fall as part of the annual Photoville Festival.

Usually taking place just in Brooklyn Bridge Park for two weeks each year (around the corner from Time Out Market New York!), Photoville will now also be taking over Astoria Park, Chelsea Park, Jackie Robinson Park, St. Nicholas Park, Soundview Park, Travers Park, Van Cortlandt Park, and the South Beach Promenade among other public spaces across two months.

Each exhibit will be completely free to view and spaced out so that taking in a bit of culture in your neighborhood can be safely done. 

Starting on Thursday, October 1, Ellen's will serve its usual retro fare of hamburgers, milkshakes and the like from 11:30am through 9:30pm on Tuesdays through Sundays. But the main attractions, as always, are the talented singers, known as the Stardusters, who serve as live entertainment throughout the dining experience.