Things to do on a Sunday in New York

If you’ve ever wished New York would hit the mute button on traffic for a few hours, you're in luck. Summer Streets is back, turning more than 20 miles of roads across all five boroughs into giant, car-free playgrounds where walkers, runners, cyclists and roller skaters can take over. This year’s edition has been unfolding over five Saturdays between July 25 and August 22, with free activities, live performances, fitness classes, art installations and plenty of room to simply wander down the middle of the avenue.

On August 8 and 15, participants can travel through the heart of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge all the way north to Dyckman Street, following Lafayette Street, Park Avenue, East 110th Street, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Broadway. Streets will be open from 7am to 3pm, giving early risers eight uninterrupted hours to explore. The series wraps up on August 22, when Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway (from Grand Army Plaza to Buffalo Avenue) and the Bronx’s Grand Concourse (from East Tremont Avenue to Mosholu Parkway) become pedestrian-first corridors from 9am to 5pm.

Blues, barbecue and booze? We may have found the best way to send off the summer. 

On Saturday, August 15, Blues BBQ Festival is coming back for its 26th year. Held on Pier 76 at Hudson River Park, the longest-running free blues festival in the New York region will bring together soulful musicians, amazing BBQ chefs and family-friendly fun, all in one place. 

Gathering some of the best barbecue restaurants around town, this year's lineup includes Bark Barbecue, Dickson’s, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Kimchi Smoke, Jase’s BBQ and Tikkun BBQ. Those 21 and up can keep the good times rolling with drinks courtesy of Lagunitas or Tito’s Vodka. With two stages to jam to, main stage sets include music from Bobby Rush, Sugaray Rayford, Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and The Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band, Bywater Call and Howlin’ Hurd. Curated by the Jazz Foundation of America, the second stage will feature music from Radam Schwartz, Melvin Davis, Kathryn Farmer and Gregory Lewis’ Organ Monk Sings.

Blues BBQ Festival is free to attend and runs from 1-9pm. For a full list of vendors, performers and events, check out the website here. 

New York Liberty fans, your game day center is here.  

Time Out Market New York, Union Square, is screening all of the women's basketball games—and you know who we'll be rooting for. Catch the games on all eight of our TVs across our Market, including the massive dropdown screen. Cheer on your favorite team while enjoying killer cocktails and pitchers of beers alongside incredible game-day bites from each of our kitchens. 

Here's the current list of matchups:

August 8: New York Liberty vs. Las Vegas Aces | 12:30 PM

August 13: New York Liberty vs. Los Angeles Sparks | 8:00 PM

August 15: New York Liberty vs. Connecticut Sun | 1:00 PM

August 22: New York Liberty vs. Indiana Fever | 7:00 PM

August 28: New York Liberty vs. Golden State Valkyries | 8:00 PM

If you’ve ever wanted to dive headfirst into a giant pile of pastel beads without having to clean it up, your time has come. Salon 94 Design (3 E. 89th St.) and artist CJ Hendry team up for Pastel, a technicolor playground running from August 6 through August 16, where visitors can plunge into a massive bead pit and build their own bracelet, necklace or charm. Hendry’s signature characters, flowers and smiley faces join drawings, editions and plenty of branded swag, making this the rare exhibition where you’re actively encouraged to take a piece of the experience home.

Puppets, rejoice: New York’s International Puppet Fringe Festival is back after a three-year hiatus, returning August 12–16 for five days of gloriously weird, wonderfully inventive puppetry from around the world. It's a welcome reminder that puppets are much more than The Muppets. The fourth edition brings more than 100 performances, 10 countries, workshops, exhibitions, screenings and enough creatures to make you question why creators ever bothered with live actors. Centered at The Clemente on the Lower East Side, it’s a full-on global celebration of an art form that remains delightfully impossible to explain to your parents.

New York City Restaurant Week is among the five boroughs’ best food holidays. Traditionally, New Yorkers (and a few lucky tourists) clear their dining schedules and make reservations at the city’s best special occasion spots, high-profile newcomers and all-time favorite restaurants for deals unseen the rest of the year. Hundreds of destinations participate citywide, with menu prices below their typical tabs. 

Diners can find prix fixe selections for brunch, lunch, dinner and sometimes all three. Saturdays are formally excluded and Sundays are discretionary, so expect regular menu prices at those times unless otherwise stated. 

The summer 2026 campaign runs from July 20 to August 16.

Broadway may be built on revivals these days, but the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival is betting on something riskier (and dare we say more interesting?): new ideas. From July 23 through August 16, AMT Theater (354 W. 45th St.) hosts 12 world premieres—10 plays and two musicals—giving emerging and established playwrights a chance to test-drive tomorrow's theater. Tickets start at $30, with post-show talkbacks offering the opportunity to hear artists discuss a work before anyone starts arguing about whether it belongs at the Tonys.

The songs of Québécois nightingale Celine Dion are the stately vessel—or are they the iceberg?—in this campy spoof of James Cameron's 1997 romantic disaster film, written by Marla Mindelle (Sister Act) and Constantine Rousouli (Cruel Intentions) with director Tye Blue. After more than 1,000 performances Off Broadway, the ship sails onto the Main Stem this spring; original stars Mindelle, Rousouli and Frankie Grande are newly flanked by Jim Parsons (!) as meddling mother Ruth Dewitt Bukater and Deborah Cox as the ever-unsinkable Molly Brown. Time Out readers can enjoy a discount of up to 50% on select tickets thru 8/31 by using this link with code TONY26

Time Out readers can enjoy a discount on select tickets through August 22 by using this link with code MOONTIME.

A summer beach read of a musical, A Walk on the Moon delivers Jewish nostalgia with a smattering of schmaltz. Based on the 1999 movie of the same name—written by Pamela Gray and loosely inspired by her vacation experiences in the Catskills as a teenager—the show centers on the blue-collar Kantrowitz family as the societal upheavals of the late '60s shake up their world. What begins as just another season at their insular bungalow community is unsettled by the cultural rumblings of second-wave feminism, Woodstock and the moon landing.

You can read our full review by Raven Snook here.

A small group show titled "Elsewhere" is on view at the VillageOneArt gallery in Chelsea, and it looks as brain-tickling as it sounds. Artists Hannah Levin, Gwynna Dille, Hanna Jennings, Natsumi Goldfish and Chandra Fang display their work, which comes together as a collective, introspective observation of the world around us.

For those who love a still life or imaginative scenework, check out Fang and Goldfish, respectively.

Vivienne Yang founded the women-led contemporary art gallery in 2018 to feature work by a wide array of artists who are based both locally and internationally. VillageOneArt is free to the public and open Wednesday to Saturday.