free things to do in New York City
Free events for Saturday, 10/23/21
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Free Events, Free Things to Do in New York City!  Read More

Are you looking for free things to do in New York City (NYC) on October 23, 2021?

31 free events take place on Saturday, October 23 in New York City. Don't miss the opportunities that only New York provides! Exciting, high quality, unique and off the beaten path free events and free things to do take place in New York today, tonight, tomorrow and each day of the year, any time of the day: whether it's a weekday or a weekend, day or night, morning or evening or afternoon, December or July, April or November! These events will take your breath away!

New York City (NYC) never ceases to amaze you with quantity and quality of its free culture and free entertainment. Check out October 23 and see for yourself. Summer or Winter, Spring or Fall! Just click on any day of the calendar above and you'll find most inspiring and entertaining free events to go to and free things to do on each day of October . Don't miss the opportunities that only New York provides!

Some events take place all year long: same day of the week, same time there are there for you to take advantage of. One of the oldest free weekly events in Manhattan is Dixieland Jazz with the Gotham Jazzmen, which happen at noon every Tuesday. Another example of an event that you can attend all year round on weekdays is Federal Reserve Bank Tour, which takes place every week day at 1 pm (but advanced reservations are required). You can take at least 13 free tours every day of the year, except the New Year Day, July 4th, and the Christmas Day. If you are classical music afficionado, you can spend whole day in New York going from one free classical concert to another. If you love theater, then New York gives you an option to attend plays and musicals free of charge, or at deep discount. You just need to have information about it. And we are here to make that information available to you.
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The quality and quantity of
free events,
free things to do
that happen in New York City
every day of the year
is truly amazing.

So don't miss the opportunities
that only New York provides:
stop wondering what to do;
start taking advantage of
free events to go to,
free things to do in NYC
today!

31 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Saturday, October 23, 2021

All events are free unless otherwise noted.
        

Fair | Flea Market: Antiques, Vintage Goods, Food Vendors


Search for hidden gems as you browse through 50-60 vendors of antiques, vintage goods, architectural salvage and collectibles. There is also a selection of food vendors and a bar. The fair takes place rain or shine, each Sat and Sun 8 am - 5 pm.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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8:00 am
Free

Other | Madison Avenue Fall Gallery Walk


This fevent invites the public to visit participating galleries, view their fall exhibitions and attend expert talks led by artists and curators on Madison Avenue and side streets from East 57th to East 86th St. Due to limited capacity, registration is required to reserve your space at each participating gallery. Galleries are listed in alphabetical order. Each gallery visit booking must be done separately. See link for details.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:00 am
Free

Festival | 12th Annual Harvest Festival


Celebrate the changing of the seasons with a day full of family-friendly activities -- including a kick-off procession, arts and crafts, storytelling, lawn games, a pumpkin patch, and more. A lineup of community partners will help make this a very special (and safe) return.
   New York City, NY; NYC
11:00 am
Free

Museums | Historic 1885 Ship, Exhibition, Letterpress Printing Demo and More


Visit this historic iron-hulled sailing ship built in 1885, now the largest wrought iron sailing vessel afloat. Guests will visit the open-air portions of the ship. Access to the main deck and quarter deck. Learn how people worked and lived aboard a 19th century cargo sailing vessel, from the captain to the ship's officers, cooks, and crew. Then visit the cargo hold and stand atop the viewing platform and enjoy the view as you look out across New York Harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, enjoy an outdoor exhibition and letterpress printing demonstration.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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11:00 am
Free

Workshop | Memories Through Smell


Artists and poets Smita Sen, Anaïs Duplan, and D Rosen will lead participants through a series of simple exercises to explore the associations between memory, scent, celebration, and grieving. You will individually and collectively examine scent as a form of embodied memory by bringing our own scented materials or finding items in the park’s ecology.Together you will follow the poetics of the senses using movement, poetry, and journaling as tools to explore the ineffable experiences that scent conjures. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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11:00 am
Free

Performance | Short Plays by Local Writers


An afternoon of short plays by regional writers.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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11:00 am
Free

Concert | American Songbook Singers and Bands Outdoors


Tin Pan Alley was designated a New York City landmark in 2019 based on its preeminent role as the birthplace of American Popular Music as well as the multicultural significance of contributions of Eastern European Jewish immigrant and African American composers, performers and sheet music publishers who worked there, notably including Irving Berlin, Williams & Walker, George Gershwin, J. Rosamond Johnson, George. M. Cohan, and James Reese Europe among many others. With performances by stars of the American Songbook, including special appearances by Aaron Lee Battle, Klea Blackhurst, Ken Bloom, Jim Brochu, Richard Carlin, Eric Comstock, Danny Bacher, Natalie Douglas, Willy Falk, DeWitt Fleming Jr., Eric Yves Garcia, Anita Gillette, Vince Giordano, Luke Hawkins, Robert Lamont, Gabrielle Lee, Larry Marshall, Sandy McGraw, Jill O'Hara, Jeannine Otis, Steve Ross, Billy Stritch, TADA! Youth Theater Ensemble, Tony Waag & The American Tap Dance Foundation Ensemble And Terry Waldo & The Gotham City Band.
   New York City, NY; NYC
12:00 pm
Free

Open Studios | Open Studios


Come see the work of artist self-taught artist Abi Salami. Her paintings explore the uncanny in the everyday.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Festival | Outdoor Block Party


A fun lineup of outdoor programming celebrating the vibrancy of New York City and featuring live music, performances, art-making activities, and more.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Discussion | Self/Fashion: Clothing and Perception (online)


How does clothing inform our perception of our private selves and our public presentations? How is meaning conveyed through fashion? Hosts danilo machado and Rikki Byrd and special guest Antoine Gregory, founder of Black Fashion Fair, consider different modes of (self)-fashion(ing) as it intersects with race and community. Entry points of this salon will include family photographs, the hoodie, and Harlem as a center of Black fashion.   
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Performance | Musical Storytime! (in-person and online)


Join Bravo the dog and his theatre friends as they bring picture books to life with live original music. Listen to 3 stories, play a few games, sing a song. Bravo will greet you and happily receive belly rubs! Duration: approximately 20 minutes. Takes place every Sat at 1 pm (not on Nov 13 & 27 and Dec 25th). New stories and games each month. All patrons over the age of 12 - must show proof of vaccination. All patrons over the age of 2 must wear a mask. Appropriate for all ages, recommended for 4+.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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1:00 pm
Free

Birdwatching | Island Bird Walk


Meet the birds of Governors Island with one of their expert guides. Over 220 bird species have been spotted on the island, which provides excellent habitat all year round. Whether you’re an expert birder or a beginner, these tours will help you discover all of the bird life the island has to offer. Binoculars are available to borrow. Limited to 10. Saturdays, July 3-October 30, 2021 (except July 17)
   New York City, NY; NYC
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2:00 pm
Free

City Walk | Walking Tour: Typography and Job Printing in the 19th-Century Seaport


A walking tour of the South Street Seaport Historic District to discover where passenger and shipping services printed their tickets and advertisements. Get a detailed look at the neighborhood's buildings while learning about the history of Lower Manhattan's printing industry, then see some of that history spring to life with a 19th century printing demonstration.
   New York City, NY; NYC
2:00 pm
Free

City Walk | Historic Greenwich Village Tour: Beats, Bohemians, and Icons of the '60s


Enjoy a relaxed, informative walking tour of New York City's Historic Greenwich Village! Bob Dylan, Richard Pryor, Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Jacobs, James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, Dave Attell, Patti Smith, Joan Baez, and Truman Capote are just a few of the thousands of accomplished artists, writers, radicals, and performers who made their way through Greenwich Village. This tour, primarily focusing on the 1950s onward, visits the hangouts that have defined legendary people and the spirit of this iconic neighborhood. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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2:30 pm
Free

Performance | A Midsummer Hour: Shakespeare in 60 Minutes


This is William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream distilled into an hour of fast-paced frivolity! See one of the Bard’s most delightful comedies as you’ve never seen it before. Blankets on the field, chairs on the concrete apron.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Festival | Diwali Celebration


This second annual event features interactive experiences ranging from a kids zone to a showcase of local businesses. The cultural segment includes live entertainment with singing, dancing, and the beating of Tassa drums. Attendees are asked to dress as Hindu gods and goddesses.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Concert | Memories and Portraits: Philip Glass, Arvo Part, and More (in-person and online)


Program: Caroline Shaw The Orangery from Plan & Elevation Sigur Rós Hoppípolla Arvo Pärt Summa  Three by Sumner arr. Moston/Kresek Philip Glass arr. Ethel - Scenes from The Hours          William Grant Still Lyric Suite: A Musical Portrait of Three Friends With a classically trained ensemble dedicated to singer-songwriter collaboration.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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4:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Clover & 4th: Large-Scale Paintings


Serena Stevens’s new large scale paintings could easily be geo-tagged. Both interiors and exteriors depict the locations around her home on the outskirts of Iowa City. Un-rushed and unpopulated, they are at once deeply personal and neutral, empty and loaded, grounded and luminous. Stevens was born in 1988 in Fort Madison, Iowa. After spending six years living in Southern California, New Mexico and then New England, Stevens returned to Iowa to paint the distance between past and present and the discomfort of familiarity. Her project of self-reflection marks the changes in her own perspective after her departure from and return to her home. Her paintings index her efforts to see anew her personal and private spaces and surroundings. The tension, which arises from the nature of painting itself, resonates with Stevens’s own exploration of place, presence and belonging. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Performance | Notes towards becoming a spill: An Experimental Opera


Philadelphia-born, Pittsburgh-based artist Shikeith will create an experimental opera that tangles history, myth, and biography into an epic story of metamorphoses, using the elemental nature of the beach--the ocean, the ebb and flow of the tide, and the never-ending sand--to explore transformation in all its forms. The aesthetic and staging of Shikeith's first major performance is inspired by his artistic contemplations on hauntology, a concept referring to the return or persistence of elements from the past along with African-American histories attached to the color blue. Working with choreographer Morgan Bobrow-Williams, musical artist Rashad McPherson, and costume designer Carlos Soto, as well as an array of performers from inside the New York queer community, the artist will re-contextualize dominant ideas of Black masculinity in a tale of a contemporary man whose identity is, in part, marked by the history of American colonialism.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Concert | Outdoor Performances Against the Backdrop of the City Skyline


Enjoy open-air performances by a variety of musical and comedy acts.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Performance | Prowling the Abyss: A Modern Medusa Hosts an Evening of Comedy


The creator and solo performer becomes Medusa – a modern incarnation of a mythical creature – who hosts an evening of comedy. Her show falls apart as the guests appear and bring with them traumas and dreams: Butter Sandwich strains to share poetic insights about love but needs subtitles because she can’t get off of the floor. Tremble Lip, a breathy, sweet femme, just wants to ride in cars and drink milkshakes with the butch of her dreams. In a performance combining text and physical theater, Light and her collaborators guide their audience through a variety of tropes dealing with outright and hidden forms of misogyny to reassemble the fragmented spirit of queer femininity.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Screening | Storynight Short Films


A premiere screening of six special Chinatown-related storytelling projects.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Screening | A Night of Unseen Nuyorican Pictures


An outdoor evening of music, and never-before-seen films that depict the underrepresented genre of Nuyorican cinema. Films include Break and Enter a.k.a. Squatters (42 min., 1971, English), and Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (54 min., 1980, English). With DJ sets by Giovanni Cortez (Standing On The Corner) and Christian Martir.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:30 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Wish You Were Here: Detailed Narratives and Decadent Color


An exhibition of new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Rachael Tarravechia. Creating a world into which the viewer feels the passage of time, Tarravechia illustrates her hyper-detailed narratives with decadent color and remarkable juxtaposition. The paintings each propose their own story, bound together by the illusion of occupancy and time. Upon first glance, each world Tarravechia has built is warm and inviting, sewn together by red, pink, and blue gradients. Subtle detailing of clouded borders, serine landscapes, and enchanting decor create visual metaphors for each measured moment.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Movie in a Park | The Addams Family (2019): Animated Creepiness


The eccentrically macabre family moves to a bland suburb where Wednesday Addams' friendship with the daughter of a hostile and conformist local reality show host exacerbates conflict between the families. Directors: Greg Tiernan Stars: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz 86 min.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:15 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Andrew Castrucci: 36 Years at Bullet Space


An exhibition that pays tribute to Bullet Space and Andrew Castrucci—framed around the artist’s 36-year tenure leading the unique community space, and two mammoth artists’ books he produced with a myriad of collaborators. Threaded throughout are other artifacts including his paintings on steel as well as silk screens from the two books; newspapers; and ephemera produced between 1985 to the present.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Performance | Lie Baby, Lie!: A One-Woman Show About Love, Death and NYC's Housing Lottery


Star and writer Rhonda Hansome, who portrayed Bermuda in the film Pretty Woman, has directed 35 productions. Her comedy has opened for Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, James Brown and Diana Ross in venues from NY's Radio City Music Hall to LA's Greek Theatre.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Performance | My Favorite Person: A Movement Theater Piece About Facing Oneself


A two-person theater movement piece exploring relationship dynamics between a man and woman using space, shape, and sound. This piece looks at cyclical, performative, perhaps even manipulative patterns that develop knowingly or instinctively during a partnership.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Screening | Surrealism Beyond Borders: Outdoor Film Screening


An outdoor screening series of films by artists and filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe and the Pacific, presented in conjunction with the exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders. Each weekend features a different film program that extends the exhibition's reconsideration of Surrealism as a true “movement” across boundaries of geography and chronology, recasting appreciation of this revolutionary, emancipatory, and globe-spanning idea. The films explore the collective concerns that animated Surrealism, as well as the historical and national distinctions that characterized regional cinema. Face coverings are strongly recommended.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Screening | Congo Oye (1971): Uncompleted Film on the Republic of Congo


A rare and absolutely unknown work was never completed and long believed lost until it was unearthed several years ago on video cassette from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The film follows an exploratory visit to Africa’s first People’s Republic declared by President Marien Ngouabi. Director: Bill Stephens 45 min.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free

Concert | Music on the Beach


Featuring Live Music Sets by YODA X PNK VLVT WTCH RATCHET BY NATURE ELF OF NYC MEADOW LE ELLE BESOMETHINGSOFT See link for COVID protocols.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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9:00 pm
Free
Complimentary Tickets

to shows, concerts ... (CFT Deals!)

Play | Retro Musical Comedy

Regular Price: $45
CFT Member Price: $0.00

Dance Performance | High-Energy Dance by Acclaimed Choreographer

Regular Price: $49
CFT Member Price: $0.00
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