The best things to do in NYC this weekend

Following the success of the initiative last year, city officials have just announced that, once again, Fifth Avenue will be closed to all car traffic for a few weekends in December of this year, the town's own way to celebrate the holidays.

The 2023 Open Streets program, which, last year, drove $3 million in spending to businesses in the area, will expand by about 25% next month, shutting down traffic on Fifth Avenue from 48th Street to 59th Street. 

Whether the iconic street will ever go car-free permanently is yet to be seen, but we'll get a preview of what that would feel like on December 3, 10 and 17 from noon through 6pm, when the avenue will only be accessible by pedestrians.

According to a press release, on the designated Sundays, the areas will also be filled with food and drink vendors while featuring various performances.

Jump rope has come a long way since you were a kid, as this annual contest demonstrates. Marvel at the prowess of international athletes as they compete in one of the biggest rope-skipping contests in the world. Routines are set to pop music, so brace yourself for a high-energy show.

The National Double Dutch League hosts the show at the Apollo Theater on Sunday, December 3. This family-friendly event features teams of all ages from the United States and across the globe. Cheer them on as they show off their skills. 

Jamaica, Queens' annual three-day celebration is back, running from December 1-3. Expect food vendors, an artisan holiday winter village, Christmas displays, a million-light parade, the largest Christmas tree lighting in Queens (on Friday night) as well as Santa and toy giveaways (on Saturday), live musical and dance performances and much more. The million-light Parade on Rockaway will take place on Sunday, from 130th-143re Street on Rockaway Blvd.

The event began nine years ago when the area needed a sign of hope after Hurricane Sandy. Since then, the event has continued every year to spread cheer. Activities are free to attend.

Shop 'til you drop at FAD Market, a curated fashion, art and design pop-up marketplace, which is back for 2023. Expect to see your favorite makers plus brand new creatives to help you live smarter, gift better and support local businesses. 

FAD—which stands for Fashion, Art and Design—takes over different venues with a horde of independent vendors and creators. Admission is free and dogs are welcome!

Here's the schedule for December:

— November 27-December 22 (Holiday Pop-up) at Empire Stores in Dumbo
— December 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, and 17 (Holiday Pop-ups) at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Boerum Hill

Looking for a unique holiday present for someone on your gift list? Stock up on traditional and contemporary beadwork, basketry, pottery, jewelry, sculpture, photography, carvings and more from 30 award-winning Indigenous artists at the annual Native Art Museum, hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

Held on Saturday, December 2 and Sunday, December 3 from 10am to 5pm, the market will allow art lovers to meet Indigenous artists and makers and learn about Native tradition and creativity. Along with the shopping opportunities, attendees can enjoy live music from Potawatomi acoustic guitarist Jesse Alan Horn and Laguna/Acoma Pueblo DJ Jonray. 

If Santa's sleigh gets stuck on a rooftop, don't worry: FDNY will be there to help. 

The fire department will show off their skills on Sunday, December 3 when they bring a ladder truck to bravely rescue Santa from the roof of the New York City Fire Museum. The rescue happens at 12pm sharp, so be sure you're on time.

Once safely inside the museum, Santa will pose for photos and hear gift requests from kids of all ages. 

The rescue is free to watch; it's $20/person to enter the museum and visit with Santa (get tickets here). Proceeds from the event support the museum's fire safety education to help children.

If you've never been to The New York City Fire Museum, it's worth checking out. The venue, the official museum of the FDNY, is located in a 1904 firehouse at 278 Spring Street. 

Elevate your movie experience—literally—this winter at the Empire State Building's brand-new fall film series. All the movies on the list feature the Empire State Building in their plot. Here's the line-up:

— Elf, Sundays, Dec. 3, 10, and 17: This 2003 Christmas comedy features Buddy the Elf, who adventures to find his father whose office is located inside the Empire State Building.

Tickets cost $130/person and include themed snacks and drinks, as well as access to the building's observation decks and museum.

Inside a venue dating back 100 years into the past, a new art show explores a question of the future: How can human creativity and artificial intelligence coexist?

ARTECHOUSE, located inside an old boiler room at Chelsea Market, is set to debut its latest digital art exhibition, “World of AI·magination,” on December 1; tickets are on sale here starting at $21/person. To create the exhibition, ARTECHOUSE Studio developed original visual elements with generative AI systems. Designers hope to inspire visitors to consider AI as a "creative associate rather than a mere tool for innovation." 

World of AI·magination centers around a 20-minute cinematic experience with six scenes. One scene, called the Library of Magical Portals, features colossal books brimming with dreams and algorithms. Another scene called Symphony of Illusions constantly morphs, while the Infinite Maze immerses visitors into multiple parallels.

On Sunday mornings at 11am in Manhattan, GatherNYC creates the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service, but the religion here is music. All are welcome at these hour-long performances of classical music by celebrated local artists. Coffee and pastries are available for free.

These upcoming events are held at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle. Shows are scheduled through May 2024. Here’s what’s on the calendar this month:

• December 3: Dalí Quartet
• December 17: Project Trio

GingerBread Lane—the world's largest gingerbread village—will return to Manhattan with NYC-inspired designs. Artist Jon Lovitch has been working on the detailed gingerbread display all year long. 

Year after year, Lovitch whips up thousands of pounds of icing and bakes hundreds of pounds of gingerbread to create massive gingerbread towns. Expect to see about 1,000 gingerbread houses, stores, breweries, dance studios, pizzerias, bakeries, ice cream parlors and more at the display. Look for pink nutcrackers drawn from the decor at Essex House, an ice rink as a nod to Rockefeller Center, a few homes that resemble those in Forest Hills, Queens, and lots of other NYC-inspired details. 

Find GingerBread Lane at Chelsea Market in Manhattan from November 26 to January 7 near the hallway with the twinkling lights. It'll be on view during market hours, 8am-9am daily.

Rockefeller Center, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Bronx Zoo, the Apollo Theater and more iconic New York City landmarks have been shrunken down and sugar-fied into gingerbread re-creations. Twenty-three gingerbread houses comprise this year's "Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off" at the Museum of the City of New York.

The display is now on view through January 15 at the museum on the Upper East Side. The exhibition is included with general admission, which costs $20/person. Local judges awarded honors to the top-placing entries, but everyone can vote on their favorite for the People's Choice award.

Every year, The Rink at Rockefeller Center ushers in the holiday season by opening up to the public to skate under a golden Prometheus. Once peak season hits, there’s going to be a bit of a wait to get on the slick stuff. 

The Rink at Rockefeller Center is now open; tickets are on sale now.

The Rink was originally designed as a temporary attraction in 1936 to draw visitors to Rockefeller Center's outdoor plaza. By 1939, The Rink became a permanent fixture. Since then, it has evolved into one of the city’s most legendary landmarks and one of the most visited sites in Manhattan, hosting more than a quarter of a million skaters annually.

The Winter Village at Bryant Park has returned in all its holiday glory. On the grounds, you can peruse more than 180 shopping and food kiosks—all at one of the best NYC parks. Expect loads of handmade, unique and New York City-specific gifts for your family and friends. Work up an appetite at the 17,000-square-foot ice-skating rink and then fill up at the rinkside pop-up restaurant called The Lodge for festive cocktails and hearty food.

Don't miss the Small Business Spotlight booth, which features local minority-owned business. 

The Winter Village will be open through March 3, 2024.

You’ll get a kick out of this holiday stalwart, which still features Santa, wooden soldiers and the dazzling Rockettes. In recent years, new music, more eye-catching costumes and advanced technology have been introduced to bring audience members closer to the performance.

In the signature kick line that finds its way into most of the big dance numbers, the Rockettes’ 36 pairs of legs rise and fall like the batting of an eyelash, their perfect unison a testament to the disciplined human form. This is precision dancing on a massive scale—a Busby Berkeley number come to glorious life—and it takes your breath away.

Miracle on 9th Street and Sippin' Santa's decked-out editions will be popping up again this month.

In NYC, Miracle on 9th Street is now open at The Cabinet Mezcal Bar in the East Village. Meanwhine, Sippin’ Santa will take place this winter at Lower East Side neighborhood bar Thief as of November 22.

And as usual, the Miracle and Sippin' Santa holiday mug collections will also be making their return, with limited-edition glassware available for purchase exclusively at the pop-ups.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is bringing back its gorgeous, after-dark illuminated spectacular to its grounds from November 17, 2023–January 1, 2024.

Lightscape, an illuminated trail of art from local and international artists, features the iconic Winter Cathedral and a larger Fire Garden—all set to over a million lights, color and music. This year, it has been reimagined with a longer trail and new immersive experiences along the way, including “Supernova,” a 24-foot-high illuminated Moravian star, a sparkling new Chandelier Walk and a giant red poppy blossoms of Floraison that hover above the trail.   

Of course, there will be food concessions along the trail that will still offer seasonal treats like hot cocoa, hot cider, and mulled wine as well as light bites, cookies and sweets.

Tickets are now on sale for the event. This year’s show offers off-peak and peak pricing, ranging from $34-$39 for adults and $17 to $17 for kids.

The beloved New York holiday train tradition at the New York Botanical Garden, going on for over 30 years, is back as of November 17 and bigger than ever.

Watch model trains zip past nearly 200 famous New York landmarks, like the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Rockefeller Center—all made of natural materials such as leaves, cinnamon sticks, twigs, bark and berries. The garden meticulously maintains its collection of 25 G-scale model trains that’ll chug along a nearly half-mile track (which is also overhead) in the warmth of the Conservatory. 

Or head outside to the all-new, outdoor train display. Be sure to snap a holiday photos at the garden's brand new mountainscape.

The train show is on view through January 15, 2024.

Let it GLOW at the New York Botanical Garden this year at its fourth annual illuminated event. The outdoor light experience in the Bronx will brighten up the grounds with thousands of energy-efficient LED lights and festive installations. After dark, you can walk through this 1.5-mile colorful pathway featuring whimsical, picture-perfect installations. The experience reflects the surrounding gardens and collections with the Haupt Conservatory and Mertz Library Building as glowing centerpieces. It's all an ideal backdrop for a family holiday photo opp.

Beverages and light fare will be available at NYBG’s outdoor bars or the Bronx Night Market Holiday Pop-Up.

GLOW is open on select evenings through January 13, 2024.

Tickets, which can be paired with Holiday Train Show tickets for a little bit more money, are on sale now. GLOW plus train show tickets cost $54/adult and $39/child ages 2-12.

The 640 colorful lanterns created by the LAB at Rockwell Group are back at Brookfield Place for the season, ready to dance in a symphony of colors.

Open daily now through January 6, 2024, between 10am and 8pm, visitors will be able to send a motion-activated wish into the glowing lanterns up above. There’s something simply magical about sending holiday wishes into a light-filled display of beauty. 

The destination will also host light shows every hour set to holiday songs including "Winter Wonderland" by Michael Bublé, "Silver Bells" by Tony Bennett, "Carol of the Bells" by The Bird and The Bee and "Let It Snow" by Pentatonix. Here's the schedule of performances.

Expect to be amazed by a beautiful show of light and music when you visit this Lower Manhattan mall during the holiday season. It's free to attend. 

Turns out, the North Pole knows how to throw quite a party. Join in on the fun at Santa's Secret, a seductive speakeasy and immersive wonderland hosted on the fifth floor of The Shops at Hudson Yards. 

Here's what's on tap: Eight different immersive installations, each one featuring spicy holiday-themed characters, like gingerbread girls and rugged lumberjacks. Plus, experience life-sized snow globes, incredible burlesque acts and holiday cocktails. Just don't let Santa party too hard—or how will he deliver all the presents with a hangover?!

The show runs Thursdays through November 17 until December 31. Tickets range in price from $55 to $75.

For the first time ever, Luna Park in Coney Island will be open during the winter for a new event called Frost Fest.

The attraction will host its inaugural tree lighting event kicking on Saturday, November 18. After that, the park will be open on select dates through January 7 with legendary rides on site, a skating rink, holiday lights, shopping and Santa.

Tickets for the experience—offered on select weekdays and holidays, plus Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays—are now available here.

Turns out, getting to the North Pole isn't so tough after all. "The Santa Clauses' Winter Wonderland," a portal to Santa Claus' hometown, has opened at The Rooftop at Pier 17 in the Seaport. 

Typically a concert venue, the rooftop has been transformed into an immersive holiday experience inspired by Disney's "The Santa Clauses." Expect hot cocoa, skating and plenty of fun photo opps.

Find all the fun at 89 South Street through January 7, 2024. Tickets start at $25/person. Most activities are hosted outdoors, so be sure to bundle up in your coziest winter attire. 

The Oculus is getting into the holiday spirit with a new activation called Christmas House NYC. Visitors can walk through more than a dozen themed rooms featuring snow, holiday movies, karaoke and more. 

This all-ages walk-through experience opens on November 24 with tickets available through January 2 priced at $40/adult and $35/child. 

Interactive activities include The Snowball Fight Room, where visitors can revel in snowfall and even toss snowballs. Inside the Snow Lodge Movie Theater, Elf plays on repeat on a 25-foot screen. The Blockbuster Video Room stirs nostalgia with its lifelike movie counter and VHS tapes. Other rooms include the Christmas Karaoke Party Room and The Holidays Inn Hotel, all decorated in Christmas splendor. 

The latest skating destination takes over a pretty iconic local landmark: the Oculus shopping mall inside the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan.

Starting November 24 through January 2024, folks with a penchant for skating will get to do so beneath the beautiful architecture that defines the legendary structure while also enjoying live musical performances. 

The Winter Whirl roller rink will also host a wide selection of local food and beverage vendors—Eataly! Gansevoort Liberty Market! Épicerie Boulud!—and retail options, making holiday shopping easier.

Tickets, which can be found right here, include a 45-minute skating session and a rental pair of roller skates.

The "Wreath Interpretations" exhibit flips the traditional Christmas garland on its head and puts your homemade attempts at holiday decorations to shame (but it’s really about the thought, right?). Now in its 41st year, NYC Parks’ annual holiday tradition is back at the Arsenal Gallery.

This year's exhibition features more than 30 whimsical wreaths conceived and created by Parks employees, artists, designers, and creative individuals of all ages. As has become custom, the traditional holiday decoration is given an unexpected makeover, with the artists using unusual and everyday items like thumbtacks, dryer lint, steel scouring pads, plastic eyes and candy wrappers. The wreaths are on view until January 4, 2024 at The Arsenal Gallery (Fifth Avenue and 64th Street inside Central Park). 

Santa Claus is coming to the Paley Museum! The annual holiday spectacular PaleyLand is back this year from Saturday, November 25 through Sunday, January 7, and it's bringing with it a host of yuletide fun, from film screenings to gaming tournaments to photo opps with My Little Pony characters, the Harlem Globetrotters and, yes, Kris Kringle himself. Photo sessions with Jolly Old Saint Nick are available through Christmas Eve, but other festive folks will be available for meet-and-greets through the end of December, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Blizz the Snowman.

Stock up on free hot cocoa and candy canes, settle in for a spirited movie screening of holiday favorites like A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Rugrats Chanukah, and take in the magic of the museum's holiday train display, the Paley Express. Entry is free for Paley members and included with museum admission for the general public.

The cold-weather months are always the perfect time to cozy up with a good book, especially a juicy detective story. And, fittingly, The Grolier Club is giving the genre the spotlight it deserves with a new exhibition, Whodunit? Key Books in Detective Fiction, on view from Thursday, November 30, 2023, through Saturday, February 10, 2024.

The literary exhibit will feature detective novels from the 19th and early 20th century from the likes of Francois Vidocq, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Anna Katherine Green, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Rare highlights on display will include the first collection of the Sherlock Holmes' stories and Christie's first novel, with the first appearance of Hercule Poirot. Free public programs will run in conjunction with the exhibit, including lunchtime tours, curator Q&As and more. 

This Godzilla is one scary bastard. With a Bully XL jawline, the scale and intricate design of a Gaudi cathedral and the rage of a grumpy old codger, the subsea icon emerges from the cracks of modern blockbuster-making to remind the world that there is a much better way to make a monster flick.

After US studio Legendary delivered a pair of murky and drab Godzilla flicks, not to mention Roland Emmerich’s 1998 monstrosity, it’s a joy to see the scaly icon back on home soil at Toho Studios and handled with such visual panache. Japanese VFX wizard Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First) unleashes his beast – a vast, terrifying creation capable of attacking a Ginza commuter train like a kid munching on a hotdog – via a series of superbly choreographed action sequences.

It's in theaters now.

Toast to the 90th anniversary of Repeal Day, which marks the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, at Great Jones Distilling Co. A hundred years after the last distillery in Manhattan shut its door, this spirits emporium is bringing the spirit of the Prohibition era to the Big Apple and inviting New Yorkers to join them in toasting to the 1933 lift on the ban of alcoholic consumption from Wednesday, November 29 through Thursday, December 5.

Among the festive offerings are a complimentary Great Jones whiskey flight (Four Grain, Peated Scotch Cask Bourbon, Pineau de Charentes Bourbon) or Repeal Day cocktail for diners, such as an Applewood-Smoked Old Fashioned or Old Pal.

You can also enjoy $10 off any Great Jones bottle purchased during your visit.

Head to a beloved West Village music shop for a banging musical comedy blowout every month. This variety show mixes music, comedy and characters with apperances by Stephen Sihelnik (NY Comedy Festival), Natan Badalov (Adult Swim), Alexander Payne (Netflix) and surprise guests.

Fun fact: The event's set in New York's oldest continually-run music and record store, Music Inn World Instruments. It's been in operation since 1958 and has been heavily featured in the first two seasons of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."

Show up early, save a seat and BYOB: You're in for a party. Upcoming events are on Fridays, December 1 and December 15.

There's something unusual "blooming" among Bella Abzug Park's natural fauna.

Part of a solo exhibition by Korean American artist Sui Park, this outdoor installation in Hudson Yards features the artist's biomorphic sculptures, which are shockingly made using plastic materials like zip ties and fishing line.

For Park, who trained as both an architect and in the ancient art of Korean basketry, "nature is a sacred space that allows her to slow down, consider her surroundings, acknowledge her thoughts, and find inspiration," reads a press release. "With this exhibition, she captures that sentiment using humble materials and reconstructs them into whimsical forms, awakening one’s senses and encouraging others to connect with their thoughts as well as their surroundings."

See the artwork now through fall 2024.

With its underground music, bohemian cafes, galleries and rare pockets of quiet, New York City has served as a demanding and mercurial muse to some of the most renowned artists in America. It continues this role today and likely will for decades to come. 

A new show at Opera Gallery called "Muses: The City & The Artist" underscores that point with a star-studded gallery show featuring work by Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Yayoi Kusama, Niki de Saint Phalle, Shepard Fairey, Keith Haring, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Michalene Thomas, Andy Warhol, Kehinde Wiley and many more. The show's on view now through December 7 at Opera Gallery (Madison Avenue and 67th Street) on the Upper East Side. 

Walk through a tunnel of lights to enter Hero, the newest immersive experience in NYC. Beneath Rockefeller Center in what used to be a post office, this quiet place will transport you far away from midtown Manhattan.

Also on deck: a sonic sculpture by Aaron Taylor Kuftner called "Gamelatron Bidadari" that will force you to stare it at for long periods of time while trying to figure out how, exactly, a drum can play itself.

The premiere exhibition, called "The Liminal" is scheduled to remain on view through December 31. It offers an immersive show of sounds and lights comprised of a number of different installations, each one visually striking yet entirely soothing in its own way.

Oppenheimer took over movie screens this summer, and now you can learn about the physicist's New York City connections on these new walking tours. 

This nearly three-hour stroll through the Upper West Side explores how New York City raised the "father of the atomic bomb" and the "destroyer of worlds." Learn about J. Robert Oppenheimer’s early years on the west side of Manhattan and how his education shaped his adulthood. The tour also showcases the sites of the Manhattan Project and explores the legacy left by the atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer tours run on multiple weekends throughout the rest of the year; here's the full schedule.

The tour's hosted by K. Krombie's Purefinder tours, which also run tours called "Death in New York," "The Psychiatric History of New York" and "Hell Gate." Each one explore the city's darker side through meticulously researched and theatrically presented historical narratives. 

When Komal Shah starting collecting art more than a decade ago, she noticed something startling: "The art world does not treat women artists equally" compared to male artists. 

She decided to do something about that by founding the Shah Garg Foundation with her husband, Gaurav Garg. The organization champions artwork by women and seeks to remedy the imbalances facing marginalized artists. Nearly 100 pieces of art from their collection are now on view in a powerful and diverse show called "Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection" in Chelsea (548 West 22nd Street). It's free to visit through January 27, 2024; hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-6pm.

The expansive exhibition fills two stories with stunning works by artists including Firelei Báez, Cecily Brown, Judy Chicago, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Mary Weatherford, Anicka Yi, and many others. The show features paintings, drawings, textile works, sculptures and mixed media pieces by significant artists from the last eight decades. 

The vibrant, ornate stained glass windows inside Manhattan's historic churches always create a dazzling spectacle. But now, a new long-term art display inspired by those rich colors has unfurled inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights—the world's largest Gothic cathedral. 

Titled "Divine Pathways," the monumental art installation is made up of more than 1,100 lengths of blue, red and gold fabric. Each ribbon measures 75 feet in length (approximately seven stories high). Combined, they are almost 16 miles long—that's longer than the island of Manhattan!  

St. John the Divine is open daily for self-guided sightseeing tours with a $15/adult admission fee; timed tickets are recommended. "Divine Pathways" will be on view through June 2024. 

The Queens Craft Brigade hosts an exceptional community of makers exclusively from the borough of Queens. The independent, queer-owned market at Katch Astoria brings together talented makers exclusively from around the borough and has created monthly curated events featuring artwork, jewelry, fashion, crafts, and more.

Here's the schedule for the rest of 2023:

— November 25: Small Business Saturday
— December 9: Holiday Market

Following successful runs in Madrid, Milan, Paris and Rome, the Balloon Museum has officially taken over Pier 36 in The Seaport this fall.

Set in and outside of the 80,000-square-foot space, the new cultural destination has unveiled new exhibit titled “Let’s Fly,” scheduled to run through January 14, 2024. 

Visitors are encouraged to interact with the installation, touching and feeling the various pieces exhibited. In terms of actual pieces, you can expect a 4,000-square-foot ball pit, inflatable lava lamps and the sorts of infinity rooms that you'll itch to post about on Instagram.

The CAMP flagship store at 110 5th Avenue by 16th Street will pay homage to new film Trolls Band Together. The installation will turn the 4,500 square feet of space into a rainbow-colored extravaganza complete with live music, dancing, glitter and more.

Trolls x CAMP will officially open on November 17; tickets are available for purchase right here.

Visitors will get to sing and dance to classic pop songs and new tracks—including *NSYNC's much-anticipated latest drop!—snap selfies with Branch and Poppy; spend some time at Mr. Dinkles' Sparkle Spa; play inside Bergen Town, the awesome Troll Tree and Vacay Island's pool noddle jungle gym and—wait for it!—slide through a Troll hair-filled tunnel that they are aptly referring to as a trunnel. 

Fall is here and so is Brooklyn Academy of Music's perennial festival of theater, dance, and opera. As any local culture vulture will tell you, when temperatures cool down, culture heats up in Brooklyn thanks to Next Wave. This is the 40th iteration of the fall arts festival brings cutting-edge sound, movement and drama to Kings County

Performances this fall will empower and elevate a diverse group of voices speaking to some of today's crucial issues, including immigration, assimilation, race, and food security.

Performances include Corps extrêmes from the jaw-dropping French aerialist and choreographer Rachid Ouramdane; Broken Chord—a stunning choral piece with dance from South Africa’s Gregory Maqoma and Thuthuka Sibisi; Trajal Harrell’s dazzling The Köln Concert, and many more. Events run thorugh December.

Beautiful, buoyant, beguiling bubbles are coming back to the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) in Queens as of Friday, November 17. The beloved bubbles exhibit, which has been closed for five years, will return bigger, better and bubblier than ever.

The Big Bubble Experiment encourages kids of all ages to experiment and discover through the joy of playing with bubbles. That includes blowing, stretching, popping and looking closely to see what happens at each move. 

The exhibit features 10 stations, each one with different tools and methods for exploring bubble solution.

As far as immersive experiences go, this one is bound to be delicious: Now through January 2, 2024, Rockefeller Center will be home to a Candy Cottage of Christmas Magic—which is exactly what it sounds like.

Ticketed guests will basically get to pluck candies off walls before setting off on a scavenger hunt through Rockefeller Center following instructions on an exclusive map handed out to all visitors. Upon completion of the game, folks will return to a transformed cottage to grab some more sweets. 

Tickets, which range from $25 to $45 depending on the day of the week and time you plan on attending, are available for purchase here.

Beneath the cobblestone streets of the Seaport, secrets hid underground for decades—until now, that is. A new walking tour led by the South Street Seaport Museum unearths the neighborhood's freaky and fascinating facts.

The museum's "Sinister Secrets of the Seaport" whisks visitors back in time for a 90-minute walking tour full of true crime tales about theft, organized crime, murder and even pirates. Tours are available on December 9, 10, 16, and 17 for $40/adult. Whether you're a true crime buff or you're just soaking up the Halloween spirit, these tours make for a memorable afternoon in a historic neighborhood.

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, two figures that all but defined the city's downtown art scene in the 1980s, are in the spotlight at this new gallery show. In 1984, the artists' collaboration officially kicked off, one that yielded close to 160 canvases. 

"Basquiat x Warhol," a traveling show from Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, France, focuses on the unique collaboration between the two. See it at Brant Foundation in the East Village (421 East 6th Street) November 1 through January 7, 2024. 

Tickets are now on sale right here.

The celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of the death of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso continue with a new exhibit at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library at 613 West 155th Street near Broadway in Washington Heights.

Focusing on the icon’s interpretation of and response to Spanish literature, the aptly named “Picasso and the Spanish Classics” will officially open in the institution’s Project Room on November 2 and stay on view through February 4, 2024.

The exhibition will specifically dissect Picasso’s relationship with two Spanish literary figures of the 17th century, Luis de Góngora y Argote and Miguel de Cervantes.

Many museum-goers simply breeze through this brown room, barely giving a second thought to the unusual-looking walls around them. But if you go, take a moment to pause, to look more closely—and to even smell. Because this room is tiled entirely in chocolate. 

Ed Ruscha, an artist known for his Pop and conceptual works, first created “Chocolate Room” in 1970 as part of the Venice Biennale. He found local chocolate paste and screen printed it onto hundreds of sheets of paper. Then he hung each one like tiles or shingles from floor to ceiling. Ruscha was doing “immersive art” before that was even a buzzword.

In addition to Chocolate Room, don't miss the rest of Ruscha's work presented as part of MoMA's retrospective titled "ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN." The exhibition is the most comprehensive retrospective of the artist's work ever shown. It's on view through January 13, 2024. 

Majestic, incredible elephants are getting the spotlight in a new exhibit at The American Museum of Natural History. "The Secret World of Elephants" showcases both modern and ancient elephants, offering visitors a chance to see a full-scale model of a woolly mammoth, learn about what elephants eat, touch an elephant's tooth, listen to elephant calls and more.

The exhibition is now open in the museum’s LeFrak Family Gallery. An additional ticket is required to visit the exhibit; museum members can visit for free.

Explore "The End of Fossil Fuel," the latest pop-up from the NYC Climate Museum. It's free to visit in Soho and offers a bevy of eye-opening activities for all ages.

Inside the gallery, a collection of maps will put climate change issues into perspective, alongside text panels about the history of the fossil fuel industry. The exhibits trace the origins of the climate and inequality crises and how we got to where we are today. Other activations include a sticker wall where visitors commit to specific climate actions and a kids' corner with books and drawing materials.

Find the pop-up at 105 Wooster Street in Soho through at least December. The museum is free to visit and open to all. It's open Wednesdays-Sundays from 1-6pm. 

When the 50,000 runners crossed the finish line at the annual New York City Marathon on November 5, they were joined in spirit by Joe Yancey Jr. and Ted Corbitt, two men who shaped the epic road race into what it is today. 

Remarkable Black athletes and coaches, Yancey and Corbitt helped break the color barrier and revolutionize long-distance running in the United States and across the globe. Just in time for the marathon, a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan will honor their legacies. 

The exhibit, titled "Running for Civil Rights: The New York Pioneer Club, 1936–1976,” runs through February 25, 2024. It explores how the New York City Marathon grew out of decades of activism for racial justice.

In a pioneering exhibition, the Brooklyn Museum will present the first-ever museum show dedicated to zines by artists in North America. "Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines" encompasses more than 800 objects examining how artists have used the medium of zines over the past half century.

This exhibition explores the largely unexamined, yet vibrant aesthetic practice of zines. Zines have been widely used to create and foster communities outside of dominant culture since the early 1970s, when more affordable reproduction technologies like the photocopy machine became widely accessible. The exhibition documents the zine’s relationship to a range of avant-garde practices and intersections with other mediums, including painting, drawing, collage, photography, performance, sculpture, video, and film. From conceptual art to punk and street culture to queer and feminist practices, this canon-expanding exhibition interrogates hierarchies between media and features artworks by nearly one hundred artists.

It'll be on view November 17, 2023–March 31, 2024.

When Jack Kliger, President & CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Battery Park City, and his team started working on a new kid-friendly exhibit about the Holocaust almost four years ago, they could not have imagined the chaotic world order that the show was eventually going to premiere in.

"Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark" tells the story of the Danish Rescue, when citizens of the European country came together to usher nearly 7,000 Jews to safety and away from concentration camps during World War II.

Painter Marc Chagall's lusciously vibrant works of art come to life in a new immersive experience at Hall des Lumières. Titled "Chagall, Paris-New York," the exhibition explores the prolific painter who defied labels. 

His works are projected in a larger-than-life scale, taking over walls, ceilings and even the floor of the ornate bank-turned-exhibition hall located at 49 Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan. “Chagall, Paris-New York” is now on view through 2024 with adult tickets starting at $30. In addition to the Chagall works, Hall des Lumières is also displaying works by Wassily Kandinsky. 

More than a century ago, a fire broke out on the upper floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a garment company in Greenwich Village, killing 146 workers, many of them immigrant women. The building remained standing and only a small plaque dedicated to those who perished indicated the importance of this historic site.

But now, a powerful new memorial at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place honors the lives of those who perished there and reminds all that they did not die in vain. Instead, their deaths inspired a fight that continues today for worker rights and workplace safety. 

In addition to the monument, an installation called "Collective Ribbon" is also on view. Led by Casa Italiana at NYU, sewed together pieces of fabric related to the Triangle Fire. Collective Ribbon is on view at 24 West 12th Street through March 29, 2024. 

There's a reason Chamber Magic has remained a staple in NYC's magic scene for more than two decades: It dazzles, show after show, with tricks that'll still leave you awestruck days later. 

The charming Steve Cohen, billed as the Millionaires’ Magician, conjures high-class parlor magic in the marble-columned Madison Room at the swank Lotte New York Palace. Dress to be impressed (cocktail attire is required); tickets start at $125, with an option to pay more for meet-and-greet time and extra tricks with Cohen after the show. If you've come to see a classic-style magic act, you get what you pay for.

Sporting a tuxedo and bright rust hair, the magician delivers routines that he has buffed to a patent-leather gleam: In addition to his signature act—"Think-a-Drink," involving a kettle that pours liquids by request—highlights include a lulu of levitation trick and a card-trick finale that leaves you feeling like, well, a million bucks.

Merrily We Roll Along is the femme fatale of Stephen Sondheim musicals, beautiful and troubled; people keep thinking they can fix it, rescue it, save it from itself and make it their own. In the decades since its disastrous 1981 premiere on Broadway, where it lasted just two weeks, the show has been revised and revived many times (including by the York in 1994, Encores! in 2012 and Fiasco in 2019).

The challenges of Merrily are built into its core in a way that no production can fully overcome. But director Maria Friedman’s revival does a superb job—the best we've ever seen—of overlooking them, the way one might forgive the foibles of an old friend.  

Here's why our theatre critic gave this performance four stars.

He's one of our most famous New Yorkers—and now legendary director Spike Lee (Do The Right Thing, Crooklyn, The 25th Hour) is getting his own immersive installation at the Brooklyn Museum this fall.

Running through February 4, 2024, "Spike Lee: Creative Sources" will delve into the world, works and influences of the acclaimed director who, though born in Atlanta, Georgia, was raised and revered as one of New York's own, particularly in the borough of Brooklyn. 

The exhibit will feature more than 300 works from Lee's personal collection, "items that have been touchpoints for Lee and the topics he explores on-screen," the museum said.

In New York City, it can be hard to find an apartment with a nice bathtub you'd actually want to soak in. Heck, it can be hard to find an apartment where the shower isn't in a closet in the living room (ahem, this $1.25 million StreetEasy listing).

But now cosmetics company LUSH is solving that very New York problem with a new book-a-bath service just launched this week. In addition to indulgent baths, LUSH Spa Lexington also offers massage treatments and facials, creating a calming oasis near hectic midtown. Find the newly opened spa on the Upper East Side at Lexington Avenue and East 61st Street.

Given the fact that LUSH invented the bath bomb, they’re pros when it comes to bathing. For the book-a-bath experience, head through the store and climb the stairs to the spa. Inside a petite pink-and-white bathroom, a clawfoot tub beckons. Before your bath, a staff member will prepare the water with a Snow Fairy bath bomb, which creates glittery pastel pink water. Plus, they’ll offer a fresh face mask tailored for your skin, a curated playlist and a cup of vegan hot chocolate. 

When genius meets genius, there’s often an explosion of creativity and inspiration but sometimes it leaves relationships in shambles. Enter Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas—two of modern art’s biggest players—who were actual "frenemies" to the very end.

In fact, the relationship was so fraught that Manet once ripped a beautiful Degas painting in half!

Drama among artists is what we live for, so this fall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibition, "Manet/Degas" will be the one to see. On view now, it is the first art show to put the French impressionists’ relationship on blast and expose the sort of dialogue they had together through their art. 

Across 160 paintings and works on paper, "Manet/Degas" unfolds a tale of two wealthy French artists who were undeniably inspired by each other but just couldn’t keep it together.

If scrolling through social media to see pictures of cute dogs and hilarious cats is a favorite pastime of yours, then this new exhibit at Fotografiska is a must-see. Titled "Best in Show," the exhibition explores the role of furry and feathered friends in our culture through more than 100 incredible photographs. 

Photos show dogs in a variety of situations, like getting baths, posing, partying, shaking their heads and even dressing up in fancy “cones of shame.” Cats, rats, bunnies, birds, reptiles, turtles and fish get their moment in the spotlight, too, at this exhibition on view in the Flatiron District through January 2024. 

The show showcases works by 25 renowned photographers. That includes William Wegman's famed Weimaraner portraits, pictures by Sophie Gamand of dogs taking baths and images by the world's first professional cat photographer Walter Chandoha. From candid photos of pets at home to posh portraits of pups at the Westminster Dog Show, each image explores the unbreakable bond between humans and their pets.

For three months in the summer of 1921, Pablo Picasso worked out of a makeshift garage studio in Fontainebleau, France, where he created both cubist and classical masterpieces. Now, for the first time since then, the works are reunited in a sprawling new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. 

MoMA's "Picasso in Fontainebleau," on view through February 17, is the latest show in NYC presented as part of the international Picasso celebration marking 50 years since his death.

A garage space measuring in at 20 by 10 feet served as Picasso's studio that summer. Using the exact dimensions, MoMA created a room with the garage's footprint, so museum-goers can step inside and imagine creating such large paintings in a small space. 

In that garage, Picasso created the cubist "Three Musicians" with colorful geometric shapes as well as the classical "Three Women at the Spring" with references to Greco-Roman antiquity. For the first time in more than a century, MoMA has reunited these works.

Long before Pablo Picasso's works made it to major American museums, an art collector in Brooklyn identified the artist's talents and believed his works should be displayed. In fact, he wanted to hang Picasso's works on his very own walls. 

In 1910, Hamilton Easter Field commissioned Picasso to adorn a room in his Brooklyn Heights home with murals, but Picasso didn't finish the works before Field died. Now, for the first time, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is bringing together six paintings linked to the commission. "Picasso: A Cubist Commission in Brooklyn" is now on view through January 14, 2024.

"It's an important aspect of Picasso's work that has been not researched on that level, has been not known before we embarked on this project," The Met's director Max Hollein said. "I hope the exhibition will be as revelatory to our audience as it has been to us."

Head to a beloved West Village music shop for a banging musical comedy blowout every month. This variety show mixes music, comedy and characters with apperances by Stephen Sihelnik (NY Comedy Festival), Natan Badalov (Adult Swim), Alexander Payne (Netflix) and surprise guests.

Fun fact: The event's set in New York's oldest continually-run music and record store, Music Inn World Instruments. It's been in operation since 1958 and has been heavily featured in the first two seasons of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."

Show up early, save a seat and BYOB: You're in for a party. Upcoming events are on Fridays Fridays November 3, November 17, December 1 and December 15.

For the first time, a New York museum will present a comprehensive survey of work by feminist artist Judy Chicago. "Judy Chicago: Herstory" will span the artist's 60-year career across painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, textiles, photography, stained glass, needlepoint, and printmaking.

"Herstory" will trace the entirety of Chicago’s practice from her 1960s experiments in Minimalism and her revolutionary feminist art of the 1970s to her narrative series of the 1980s and 1990s in which she expanded her focus to confront environmental disaster, birth and creation, masculinity, and mortality. Contextualizing her feminist methodology within the many art movements in which she participated—and from whose histories she has frequently been erased—"Herstory" will showcase Chicago’s tremendous impact on American art and highlight her critical role as a cultural historian claiming space for women artists previously omitted from the canon.

See the show through January 14, 2024.

Explore the power of books at this new Grolier Club exhibition, "The Best-Read Army in the World." The show tells the story of how the U.S. military fought against propaganda and promoted free thought by disseminating more than one billion books, magazines, and newspapers to 16 million American troops worldwide, partnering with the U.S. publishing industry to create pocket-sized paperback books called "Armed Services Editions," as well as petite issues of newspapers and popular magazines.

See 225 pieces, including miniature books and periodicals, photographs, posters, artwork, propaganda leaflets, and letters. Highlights include rare prototypes for troop-friendly publications, a bundle of Armed Services Editions in its original packaging, a U.S. army librarian uniform, and a display on World War II-era book bans.

"The Best-Read Army in the World" is on view at the Upper East Side club through December 30, 2023; it's free to visit.

A new exhibition that celebrates Jewish comics is coming to the Center for Jewish History this fall. JewCE! The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience will showcase the work of renowned Jewish comics writers and artists, including original artwork, historical artifacts, interactive installations that explore Jewish themes and narratives in comics and more. 

Guests will also be able to try their hand at character creation, storyboarding and iconography as part of the Laboratory portion of the exhibit.

The exhibition is open through December 2023. Free tickets to the exhibition are available here.

The Frick will showcase an unprecedented display of Barkley L. Hendricks paintings drawn from private and public collections. Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) revolutionized contemporary portraiture with his vivid depictions of Black subjects that emphasize the dignity and individuality of his sitters. Beginning in the late 1960s, his work drew from and challenged the traditions of European art. The exhibition is quite full circle as The Frick Collection—with its iconic portraits by Rembrandt, Bronzino, Van Dyck, and others—was one of his favorite museums.

This exhibition celebrates and explores the remarkable work of this pioneering American painter. “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick” is on view through January 7, 2024.

Known for her rhythmic looped-wire sculptures, groundbreaking artist Rush Asawa will get the spotlight at The Whitney this fall in a fresh new way. Asawa dedicated herself to daily drawing exercises, which served as the connective tissue―or through line―of her creative process and fueled her commitment to art.

But until now, her drawing hasn't gotten much attention. In fact, "Ruth Asawa Through Line" is the first exhibition to examine the sculptor's oeuvre through the lens of her lifelong drawing practice. Through drawing, Asawa explored her surroundings and turned everyday encounters into moments of profound beauty, endowing ordinary objects with new aesthetic possibilities.

"Ruth Asawa Through Line" will run through January 15, 2024.

Can cow manure be turned into casings for loudspeakers and lamps? MoMA’s latest exhibition says “yes.”

“Life Cycles: The Materials of Contemporary Design” is now open on the museum’s street-level gallery. The exhibit explores the ways designers can repurpose the materials around us to extend their life cycle and promote environmental preservation. Approximately 80 pieces will be on display, including bricks made from crop waste and fungi mycelium and panels made from corn husks. 

The exhibition, curated by Paola Antonelli, will be on display until July 7, 2024.

In a year where NYC has seen no snow, sweltering days and wildfire smoke, the Poster House's fall exhibition feels staggeringly relevant. The exhibit "We Tried to Warn You! Environmental Crisis Posters, 1970–2020" features 33 works that have shaped the worldwide public debate on environmental issues including clean energy, endangered species, and air and water quality. 

Ranging in style from whimsical to apocalyptic, the works examine international awareness campaigns and federal advertisements that aimed to address environmental crises as they evolved from regional problems to a global disaster. Exhibited works mark important events and movements, including the first Earth Day in 1970, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States a few years later, and the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. 

Artists whose posters are exhibited include: Amos Kennedy, Robert Rauschenberg, Per Arnoldi, Tom Eckersley, Freidensreich Hundertwasser, Hans Erni and Milton Glaser, among others. This exhibition is supported by the Simons Foundation. The show runs until February 25, 2024.

Wild Captives, the nation’s first female- and LGBTQ-owned archery studio, is now open. It's a place where everyone can "be their own superhero." The studio in Brooklyn’s Industry City offers empowering and fun hour-long introduction to archery classes every weekend for $45/person. 

Each intro class includes a chance to learn about different parts of the bow and safety requirements. After the lesson, each participant gets a chance to shoot the bow trying to pop a balloon pinned onto the bullseye. Intro-to-archery classes are available each Friday, Saturday and Sunday, bookable online for anyone over age 12.

At this new experience in Lower Manhattan, shattering plates, throwing glasses at the wall and smashing laptops isn't just OK—it's encouraged. 

Live Axe's Rage Room, allows visitors to take a crowbar to a printer,  pulverize glassware, shout, stomp and truly let it all out.

The Rage Room is located beneath Live Axe, a popular axe-throwing spot that’s been open since 2020. Before you get to go wild, you’ll meet your “rage captain” who will interview you about what makes you tick, from relationship issues to work problems to political drama. Then, you’ll suit up into head-to-toe gear, including a helmet, eye protection and gloves to make sure you’re safe. (Be sure to wear close-toed shoes and long pants for the experience.)

Here's our first look at the experience.

From The Marcy Houses to the biggest stages in the world, Jay-Z has always represented Brooklyn. Now Brooklyn is radiating that love back to him with a major, free exhibition called The Book of HOV on view at Brooklyn Public Library.

The exhibit chronicles the journey and impact of Shawn Carter through thousands of archived objects, including original recording masters, never-before-seen photos, iconic stage wear, prestigious awards and videos. Roc Nation created the exhibit as a surprise to the renowned hip-hop star as the city celebrates 50 years of the genre that started right here in New York City. See it at Brooklyn's Central Library along Grand Army Plaza during regular library hours through December 4, Jay-Z's birthday. 

America’s first Black popular music icon is getting his due with a massive new center that houses a 60,000-piece collection and a venue for live music, lectures and screenings.

NYC’s Louis Armstrong House Museum has now opened its new facility, the Louis Armstrong Center—and it’s a big deal!

The space acts as a permanent home for the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archive (the world’s largest for a jazz musician containing photos, recordings, manuscripts, letters & mementos) and a 75-seat venue for performances, lectures, films, and educational experiences.

The Center and the historic house are now open to the public Thursdays through Saturdays. Tickets can be purchased at louisarmstronghouse.org. Tours have limited capacity, so book in advance.

The phrase “women’s work” is often used derisively to indicate labor that’s seen as “less than,” but a new exhibit at New-York Historical Society reclaims that phrase. Aptly titled "Women's Work," the show chronicles the history of women's contributions to labor and how those efforts are both inherently political and essential to American society. 

The exhibit features dozens of objects in the museum's collection from indenture documents to medical kits to military uniforms. With items ranging from the 1740s to today, the show celebrates the strides society has made in equality while not shying away from highlighting the gender-based inequalities that persist today.

It's on view thorugh August 18, 2024. 

For more than 50 years, El Museo del Barrio has been curating a complex and culturally diverse collection. Now, for the first time in more than two decades, the museum will present its most ambitious presentation of that permanent collection with 500 artworks, including more than 100 new acquisitions. 

The exhibition called "Something Beautiful: Reframing La Colección" is now open and will remain on view through March 10, 2024 with different pieces rotating in and out. El Museo del Barrio, located in the city's East Harlem neighborhood known as "El Barrio," is the nation's leading Latinx and Latin American cultural institution. 

See it at at El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood. Adult admission is $9.

If you're not a paint-and-sip kind of person, try Act & Sip, a beer-fueled acting workshop in an Off-Broadway Theater with expert instructors. They pair students off with partners and hand over the pages to a scene from a well-known iconic NYC sitcom or movie, offering tips along the way to help performers conquer stage fright and discover their inner actor.

This event is perfect for bachelorette parties, after-work outings, or just a fun night with friends to get on stage with a little help from liquid courage. You don't need any experience, but you must be 21 or older and BYOB.

Muggles, take note: You won’t need to travel through Platform 9¾ to get to Hogwarts. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is right here in New York City for a limited time.

The touring show, “Harry Potter: The Exhibition,” is now open in Herald Square, and it’s going transport you. Through the use of dramatic lighting, set design, interactive technology and even scent, the exhibit will make you feel like you are actually there—in Hagrid’s hut, in potions class, dining in the Great Hall, learning how to fight the dark arts, fighting the Battle of Hogwarts and more.

Tickets are on sale now, starting at $29 for adults.

On a typical visit to the Museum of Modern Art, crowds surround the most precious paintings, and it can be tough to squeeze your way in for a photo, let alone to admire the artwork’s brushstrokes. But now, thanks to these new exclusive tours by GetYourGuide, you can get in before the museum opens for a guided tour of amazing artwork. 

The new MoMA Before Hours Tour with Art Expert is available now; tickets are on sale here for $99/person. Few New York City experiences compare to the absolute thrill of gazing at famed works of art uninterrupted for as long as you like.  

With a full restaurant, craft cocktails, comfy reclining seats and even more bells and whistles, this new movie theater in Hell's Kitchen elevates the movie-going experience. LOOK Dine-in Cinemas is now open in VIA 57 West, the pyramid-shaped building located at West 57th Street and 11th Avenue. 

With a 15-year lease, LOOK's operating in a 25,000-square-foot venue that used to house Landmark cinema until it closed in 2020. This is the company's first New York City location. At this fancy theater, you can relax in a heated seat while ordering dinner directly to your seat in the theater. 

Many museums start with some kind of orientation, like a map or remarks from a docent. But not The House of Cannabis (a.k.a. THC NYC), the new weed museum now open in Soho. Instead, this museum starts, quite fittingly, with a trippy “Disorientation Room.”

While the museum boasts plenty of mind-bending multi-sensory bells and whistles, it also showcases art, highlights science and confronts the social justice issues baked into cannabis prosecution. The museum, the first of its kind at this scale, packs every inch of its four-story, 25,000-square-foot space at 427 Broadway with fascinating facts and delightful immersive experiences fit to entertain both tokers and non-smokers alike. Tickets ($35/adult) are on sale here.

Find your latest read at The Free Black Women’s Library, a new free library in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood, which also serves as a social art project, a reading room, a co-working space and a community gathering center. The library "celebrates the brilliance, diversity and imagination of Black women and Black non-binary authors." All 5,000 books in the library's collection are written by Black women and non-binary authors.

Here's how it works: Anybody can visit the space to read, work or hang out. If you want to take a book home, simply bring a book written by a Black woman or Black non-binary author, and you can trade. Whether you decide to bring the book back after you're done reading or keep it for your collection is up to you.

The library is currently open four days per week (Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday) at 226 Marcus Garvey Boulevard. In addition to offering a space to read or work, the library has also hosts a book club, art shows and workshops on topics like writing, drawing, poetry, painting and sewing. All are welcome. 

A new exhibit at The Rubin Museum of Art opening this spring will explore the concept of death and the afterlife through the art of Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity. See 58 object spanning 12 centuries in this new show. 

"Death Is Not the End" features prints, oil paintings, bone ornaments, thangka paintings, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, and ritual objects, inviting "contemplation on the universal human condition of impermanence and the desire to continue to exist," as the museum described.

The exhibition focuses on three major themes: The Human Condition, or the shared understanding of our mortality in this world; States In-Between, or the concepts of limbo, purgatory, and bardo; and (After)life, focusing on resurrection, ideas of transformation, and heaven.

"Death Is Not the End" is on view through January 14, 2024.

Peek inside this new, teeny-tiny shop in Harlem to find some fun gifts for someone on your list or for yourself.

MoonLab 42 measures in at just under 5 feet wide, but the store manages to house zines, books, records, incense, prints, candles, decorative objects, ceramics, jewelry, accessories, clothing and more. “It feels like a Mary Poppins bag,” Ruso Margishvili, the concept store’s co-owner tells us.

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.

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. 

This is the only stand-up comedy show in a Brooklyn Boathouse, boasting some of the best local talent for free on the shore of the Gowanus Canal. Cuba Libre BYOB but beer, seltzers and non-alcoholic beverages are available for donation. Go see it every Friday night; check the group's Instagram for the weekly lineup.

After two years of outdoor play, Carreau Club, the nation’s first pétanque bar has expanded with an indoor location with more space to get your game on while sipping a drink.

The new indoor venue is now open at Brooklyn's Industry City, just in time for chillier fall temperatures. For the uninitiated, pétanque (pronounced puh-TONK) is a bocce-ball style French boules sport gaining popularity in the U.S., starting here in NYC.

Carreau Club operates primarily as a walk-in pétanque club and reservations are not required. But you can book a court in advance for a single party or multiple courts for larger groups. Reservations cost $50/court/hour.

AirOtic Soiree is bringing the heat to Hell's Kitchen with a 21+ cabaret-style performane showcasing incredible aerial acrobatics in a titillating, sensual style. The show takes audiences through an intense story of love, passion, sexuality and eroticism through an immersive circus and cabaret experience including extravagant costumes, seductive choreography and circus artistry. 

During the show, dine on dinner and decadent dessert towers curated by celebrity chef Saul Montiel. Before and after the performance, cocktails will be available for purchase.

See it at HK Hall, a historic venue with striking decor in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, with performances through 2023. 

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 were just added to the exhibit this fall, including a signed, first edition copy of "Passing" by Nella Larsen, a selection of manuscript pages from "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot, and a miniature early 19th-century Qur’an, produced in Turkey.

Part visual splendor, part olfactory wonder and part ooey-gooey sensory fun, Sloomoo Institute’s slime museum re-opened this fall 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.

Have some fun this weekend and go check out Gamehaus, a giant new arcade and beer hall just opened in Long Island City. This 5,000-square-foot multifunctional space features a dozen large-screen TVs, classic video games and loads of beers.

Classice arcade games include Atari Pong, Ms. Pacman, Jurassic Park, Pop-a-Shot and Skee Ball. 

A new nightlife venue called Deluxx Fluxx has taken over the former Studio at Webster Hall location, a 4,200-square-foot space beneath the famed music venue in the East Village, inspired by early arcades, punk rock, hip-hop and graffiti culture.

The venue brings "an immersive visual and audial art space and arcade" that promises to reinvigorate the artist-centric venues that defined New York City nightlife in the early 2000s. Part interactive art project and part performance venue, expect live entertainment, DJs, pinball machines, "artfully weird" video games, custom video work, costumed performers, floor-to-ceiling blacklight art interiors and a day-glo design palette. Some of the arcade games offer their own New York City flair, like Crown Heights King where pigeons battle to be the king of the neighborhood.

Here's more about the nightlife venue.

Still working on that screenplay? Say goodbye to writer's block (hopefully) at Soho's newest coffee shop and creative space.

The Lost Draft, a newly opened film-inspired multipurpose space at 398 Broome Street (between Mulberry Street and Cleveland Place) promises to be a refuge for those eager to finally get those creative ideas on paper. Or on screen. 

Stop procrastinating and start writing, because The Lost Draft is open seven days a week from 7am-9pm, offering plenty of time to be creative. Here's our full story on the new cafe.

A bucolic 1920s English country golf club is on its way to NYC's concrete jungle! But with a twist. Swingers NoMad, a "crazy mini-golf course" and entertainment complex straight from London brought with it three nine-hole golf courses across 23,000 square feet under 20-foot-high ceilings.

"Crazy golf" is a British spin on mini-golf, but it's for a 21-and-over audience since craft cocktails are served by caddies on the course, and at Swingers NoMad, there will be six cocktail bars with signature classic cocktails from London and D.C., as well as 12 cocktails created specifically for Swingers NoMad, private rooms you can rent, an opulent clubhouse and four gourmet street food vendors—Sauce Pizzeria, Miznon, Fonda and Mah Ze Dahr Bakery.

Brooklyn vinyl lovers are in luck because the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library has just opened a Vinyl Lending Library to its cardholders, giving them access to 400 albums spanning genres (hip-hop, pop, classical, country, show tunes and more) that they can listen to on-site as well as borrow for up to three weeks. You just need your library card. Listening stations can be found on the first floor.

The latest entrant to the speakeasy-theme scene, this Times Square spot offers a sexy 1980s vibe. The Woo Woo aims to evoke that last decade before widespread internet, its surrounding neighborhood of Times Square in those same, pre-Disney days, sex shops and, the reason for the season, speakeasies.

These themes are executed with a combination of graffiti that reasonably approximates the style of the time, vintage nude mags and video tapes, rouge neon, throwback punk show posters and the whole password thing. Drinks include odes to the era like the Donkey Kong cocktail and a Prince-inspired tipple with a butterfly pea flower “purple rain” ice cube. They’re also doing a cotton candy-topped cosmo and snacks like sliders and spring rolls. The sex shop elements are ornamental at the moment, but may turn retail in the future. 

The Brooklyn Flea is undoubtedly one of the most popular flea markets to hit in NYC if you're looking for the best selection of throwback wares and records, which you certainly wouldn’t find in just any vintage clothing store or record store in the city.

The food selection is also top-notch since the creators also operate one of the city’s best food markets: Smorgasburg. 

The Brooklyn Flea DUMBO is now open for the season. Brooklyn Flea also operates in Chelsea year-round on Saturdays and Sundays, 8am-5pm, and the new Hester Flea on Saturdays, 11am-6pm.

It's not every day that a new nightclub opens in New York City, especially one that harkens back to an old sort of New York—when nightclubs were the city's premiere destinations for some after-hours fun. That's why Daphne, a new subterranean spot under Hotel 50 Bowery in Chinatown, is so special. 

Upon entering the massive 2,500-square-foot space, patrons are pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful silk pink flower installation by art studio Floratorium. Dazzling disco balls also permeate the premises, calling back to a time when the dance club you frequented was just as important as where your apartment was located. 

Kitsby, a dessert shop in Brooklyn, has a new menu item that will surely entice you to visit Williamsburg, where the shop is located. Dubbed The Kit, the signature offering is a tray of bites that represents "second generation baking." Consider it Kitsby's very own Asian American spin on afternoon tea. 

The tray, which costs $38 per person or $70 for two people, comes with ten sweet and savory pastries. These include a black sesame financier, a five-spice shortbread, an asiago lop cheong roule, a mocha mousse cake plus a slew of other bite-sized treats. You'll also get to choose one entrée to go with your order. 

Every Saturday night, two piano men battle it out to prove who is truly the master of all 88 keys, with a playlist decided entirely by the audience. Whether you’re in the mood for Billy Joel, Christina Aguilera or current chart toppers, these pianists are up for the challenge. But they expect you to do your part by singing along, but from home. Grab a ticket and request songs in advance.

Bring your dog to the AKC Museum of the Dog at these special after-hours events called Furry Fridays hosted on select Fridays. Tickets are $20 per person and $5 per dog.

The Museum of the Dog has more than 180 sculptures and paintings of four-legged furballs as well as a “Meet the Breeds” table, which provides info on all 193 AKC recognized dog breeds, and other interactive fun.