43 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Friday, September 22, 2023
All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Editor's Pick
Kelly Clarkson ose to fame after winning the first season of American Idol in 2002, which earned her ...
more >> a record deal with RCA. Her debut single, "A Moment Like This", topped the US Billboard Hot 100, and became the country's best selling single of 2002. It was included on her debut studio album, Thankful (2003), which debuted atop the Billboard 200. Clarkson parted ways with Idol management and shifted to pop rock for her second studio album, Breakaway (2004). Supported by four US top-ten singles - the title track, "Since U Been Gone", "Behind These Hazel Eyes", and "Because of You" - Breakaway sold over 12 million copies worldwide and won two Grammy Awards.Her latest album is Chemistry.
New York City, NY; NYC
Improve balance, strength and focus through gentle exercises. The sights and sounds of the river provide ...
more >> a serene background for the ancient flowing postures.
New York City, NY; NYC
These free tours take place at various times during the day, all day long. You can make reservations ...
more >> for as many tours as your schedule allows.
SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown
Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights + DUMBO
3 Hour Lower Manhattan
Harlem
Chelsea and the High Line
6 Hour Downtown Combined
Greenwich Village
Central Park
Lower Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Grand Central Terminal
Graffiti and Street Art Tours
World Trade Center
New York City, NY; NYC
Exercise in disguise! Join in on the fun featuring easy-to-follow Latin dance choreography while working ...
more >> on your balance, coordination and range of motion. Bring your friends and come prepared for enthusiastic instruction, a little strength training and a lot of fun.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Get a group together for some lunchtime grooves and play. A variety of lawn and board games will be made ...
more >> available to borrow and play over the lunch hour, while a DJ spins your favorite beats. Dominoes, cornhole, ping-pong and more.
New York City, NY; NYC
Jugglers use the park throughout the year to provide free classes to the public. Stop by for a quick ...
more >> lesson, stay for the whole time, or just enjoy watching them put their skills to the test. They're a friendly group and open to drop-ins, even if you catch them outside of the regular juggling lessons. All skill levels welcome. Equipment is provided.
New York City, NY; NYC
Cities such as New York are at serious risk from climate change, and have the power and responsibility ...
more >> to take the lead on solutions. This Symposium will explore potential scalable regenerative technologies for the world's largest urban constructed environments. The material science of carbon storing building components is receiving much needed attention, but scalable solutions need wider adoption and development. The building industry is focused on reaching carbon neutrality in operations and construction, taking a holistic view of the enormity of this responsibility. Passive House energy efficiency coupled with scalable carbon storing materials for widespread use and large urban contexts, can provide the solution humanity needs and deserves now. Join us as we explore the emerging tools, policy, start-up financing, and material science around embodied carbon in high performance architecture.
New York City, NY; NYC
Take a momentary respite from a busy day to enjoy a selection of organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach ...
more >> in an intimate venue.
New York City, NY; NYC
Come on by and tap your toes to The Big Apple's finest ragtime, stride, and jazz pianists around! Featuring ...
more >> special events and performances by distinguished musicians. Today's pianist: Marc Devine.
New York City, NY; NYC
Geraldine Brooks' most recent historical novel was hailed last year in The Washington Post as “a sweeping ...
more >> tale that uses the true story of a famous 19th-century racehorse to explore the roots and legacy of enslavement,” among many other positive reviews.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
A woman whose politician husband is cheating on her, and an undertaker, who has been in love with her ...
more >> since their childhood, decide to fake her death so they can be together. Director: Nick Hurran Cast: Alfred Molina, Brenda Blethyn, Christopher Walken, Robert Pugh, Menna Trussler, Jerry Springer Christopher Walken has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. He has appeared in supporting roles in films such as The Anderson Tapes (1971), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Roseland (1977), and Annie Hall (1977), before coming to wider attention as the troubled Vietnam War veteran Nick Chevotarevich in The Deer Hunter (1978). His performance earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated for the same award for portraying con artist Frank Abagnale's father in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002).
New York City, NY; NYC
1:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Bring your own project or choose something from a provided collection to work on during this freeform ...
more >> crafting workshop. The workshop will include materials for sewing, knitting, crochet, coloring, paper crafts, and puzzles.
New York City, NY; NYC
Elite spy Orson Fortune must track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology wielded ...
more >> by billionaire arms broker Greg Simmonds. Reluctantly teamed up with some of the world's best operatives, Fortune and his crew recruit Hollywood's biggest movie star, Danny Francesco, to help them on their globe-trotting mission to save the world. Director: Guy Ritchie Cast: Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone, Eddie Marsan, Hugh Grant Guy Ritchie is an English film director, producer and screenwriter. His work includes British gangster films, and the Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey Jr. Jason Statham is an English actor known for portraying characters in various action-thriller films who are typically tough, hardboiled, gritty, or violent. Aubrey Plaza is an American actress, comedian, and producer. She starred as April Ludgate on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation (2009-2015). In 2022, she starred in the second season of the HBO anthology series The White Lotus, for which she received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. Josh Hartnett is an American actor and producer. He made his feature film debut in 1998 in the slasher film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, followed by roles in films such as the sci-fi horror film The Faculty (1998) and the drama The Virgin Suicides (1999). Hartnett had starring roles in Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down (all 2001), and the romantic comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002). In 2023 he portrayed and Ernest O. Lawrence in the biographical thriller Oppenheimer. Hugh Grant is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as a charming and vulnerable romantic leading man, and has since transitioned into a more dramatic character actor. Among his accolades, he has received a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and an Honorary Cesar.
New York City, NY; NYC
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Whenever Casey Newton touches a lapel pin with the letter T on it, she finds herself transported to Tomorrowland, ...
more >> a city filled with huge robots and sleek buildings. The gifted young woman recruits the help of scientist Frank Walker, a previous visitor to Tomorrowland, who years ago made a startling discovery about the future. Together, the two adventurers travel to the metropolis to uncover its mysterious secrets. Director: Brad Bird Cast: George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key George Clooney is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including four Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards. Clooney started his career in television, gaining wide recognition on the NBC medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He expanded to leading roles in films, with his breakthrough role in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), followed by superhero film Batman & Robin (1997), and more. Greater stardom came from his starring role in Soderbergh's Ocean's film series from 2001 to 2007.
New York City, NY; NYC
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
In the two years since the fall of the republic in Afghanistan and victory of the Taliban, the Islamic ...
more >> Emirate has consolidated its power and increased its control over the political, economic and social aspects of life in the country. A visible challenge of the current relationship of the Islamic Emirate with the international community is that they lack an understanding of their capacity to influence and persuade the other side to concede from its stance, and both sides are waiting to see the other side retreat from its position. Importantly, the people of Afghanistan, specifically women and minorities, are losing during this patience game. This panel discussion will explore the decision and policy making environment of the Emirate, and mechanisms of influencing this environment that will encourage positive policy steps by the Emirate for the rights of women, children, and minorities.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Did you know that the first place in New York City where all four Hip Hop elements were presented together ...
more >> for the first time and outside of the Bronx was at a club/concert hall in the East Village? Did you know that rappers like Mos Def and Biggies got their start at an open mic show in the West Village? Join Tara Crichlow, aka "Big Tara," a native of the Lower East Side, and a cultural ambassador. This walking tour (10 stops) honors the artists and entrepreneurs; explores spaces and sites in the Village that were pivotal in introducing Hip-Hop cultural elements (B-Boying, DJ-ing, Graffiti, Fashion and Emceeing) to the world. During a pivotal 20-year period in Hip-Hop history (1979-1999) nightlife venues, art galleries, walls and parks throughout the Village functioned as a secondary incubator and stage for B-Boys, Graffiti artists, Emcees, DJs and designers creating what we now call Hip-Hop Culture. It's part of a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, which began in The Bronx, but which grew and developed substantially in our neighborhoods. With Tara Crichlow
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Syed Ali and Margaret M. Chin's book looks at how the power of peers and peer culture shapes individual ...
more >> behavior and future success. For decades, parents across America have asked their kids, "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" The answer is, "Duh, yes." Peers, as parents well know, have a tremendous impact on who their kids are and what they will become. And even while they insist otherwise, parents know that they're largely powerless to change this. But the effect of peers is not just a story about kids; peers can also affect adult behavior-they affect what we do and who we are well into old age. Noted sociologists Syed Ali and Margaret M. Chin call this "the peer effect." In their book, they take readers on a tour of how our peers, and the peer cultures they create, shape our behavior in schools and the workplace. Ali and Chin begin their look at the peer effect at the high school from which they both graduated: New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School, arguably the best public high school in the nation. Through a fascinating and often humorous narrative, they show how peers can influence each other-in this case, how highly motivated students can create a culture of influence to achieve success in learning and in admission to elite colleges. They also show the many other ways that peers can influence one another beyond school performance, from hookup culture to school bullying and youth suicide.
New York City, NY; NYC
Emilie L. Gossiaux gives an artist talk in advance of her debut museum solo exhibition, Other-Worlding, at ...
more >> the Queens Museum in New York City. Gossiaux will be in conversation with Georgina Kleege, author of More than Meets the Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art. Gossiaux and Kleege will preview Gossiaux’s exhibit, discuss her artistic practice, and consider the ways a disabled artist’s experience can inform how museums provide access.
New York City, NY; NYC
Mobility is a dynamic concept that encompasses movement across borders as people respond to climate change, ...
more >> conflict, and threats to safety. Migratory flows include those seeking citizenship and dignified work, refuge, and ultimately asylum. This is a screening of two short films by Peter Lucas and Daphne Matziaraki that explore the temporality of mobility through the theme of purgatory.
New York City, NY; NYC
A reading and conversation by Creative Writing Program Axinn Fellows Amir Ahmadi Arian, Hafizah Augustus ...
more >> Geter, Raven Leilani, and Jasmin Sandelson read from their work, followed by a reception/signing. Amir Ahmadi Arian started his writing career as a journalist in Iran in 2000, while an undergrad engineering student at the University of Tehran. From 2002 he began writing fiction and translating books. He has published hundreds of articles in Iranian newspapers and magazines on literature and politics, two novels (one of them was shortlisted for the prestigious Golshiri award), a collection of stories, and a book of nonfiction on the state of Iranian literature in the new millennium. Hafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian-American poet, writer, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. Her debut memoir, The Black Period: On Personhood, Race & Origin (Random House, 2022) is winner of the 2023 PEN Open Book Award, winner of a 2023 Lammy Award in LGBTQ+ Nonfiction from Lambda Literary, a New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2022, a Good Morning America Anticipated Book, an Amazon's Best of the Month Editor's Pick, and a finalist for the 2023 Chautauqua Prize. Raven Leilani’s work has been published in Granta, the Yale Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Conjunctions, the Cut, and New England Review, among other publications. She received her MFA from NYU and was an Axinn Foundation Writer-in-Residence. Luster is her first novel. Jasmin Sandelson is the author of My Girls: The Power of Friendship in a Poor Neighborhood (University of California Press). Her work also appears in The Georgia Review, Longreads, Hobart, and elsewhere. Her next project is a personal reckoning with family mythology, intergenerational trauma, and the many facets of inheritance.
New York City, NY; NYC
Seven new images by New York photographer, digital artist and photon sorcerer Cat Trzaskowski. The series ...
more >> presents members of New York’s queer community through vibrant recreations of iconic Baroque imagery in stunning photographic composites. Representing the synthesis of years of art history research, travel, studio photography, and post production magic, Cat’s pieces utilize the visual language of Baroque art to create new images of queer transcendence. While being beautiful objects in their own right, many of the works produced during the Italian Baroque were also commissioned with the intent of being tools of patrons in support of the Counter-Reformation. Fascinated by the idea of using beauty in art as a means of persuasion, Cat saw value in leveraging this concept as a means of affirmation rather than oppression.
New York City, NY; NYC
Curious about a board game or looking to try something new? Games Hosts will be teaching how to play ...
more >> a wide range of fun board games every Friday.
New York City, NY; NYC
Discover the surprising diversity of birds that call the park home during migratory season with guided ...
more >> tours by NYC Audubon, led by environmental educator and urban naturalist Gabriel Willow. The park is a hotspot for avian visitors and birders alike. Past sightings include warblers, tanagers, vireos, thrushes, and even a Chuck-will’s-widow.
New York City, NY; NYC
Approximately 126,000 Russians voluntarily repatriated from China to the Soviet Union between 1935 and ...
more >> 1960. Their families had moved to China either when the Russian Imperial State leased land from the Chinese government to build the C.E.R. railroad, or when the White Army retreated to Manchuria. In China, especially in Harbin, the capital of “Russian” China, stateless emigres expanded the Russian language infrastructure created by the pre-revolutionary settlers and established the closest replace to Imperial Russia after 1917. Most repatriated rather than migrating to capitalist countries, and their repatriation may be the most significant ethnic return migration motivated primarily by cultural, rather than political or economic reasons, in world history. This chapter on the Harbin Diaspora in the U.S.S.R. is chapter 9 of a 12 chapter monograph entitled From China to the U.S.S.R.: The Return of the “True” Russians. The majority of those who repatriated did so beginning in 1954, and were not repressed. The Soviet government greeted those who arrived in 1947 and during and after 1954 with official silence. Locals were not told who they were, and repatriates were not allowed to form official associations or publish newsletters. Instead, they formed an unground diaspora that included even those few who had repatriated in 1935 and survived the terror of 1917 which targeted them specifically. This chapter explores how this diaspora functioned underground, who was most active in it, and how it served an integral role in allowing repatriates after the fall of the Soviet Union to unite in opposition to “local” Russians to declare themselves the “real” Russians. With Laurie Manchester. Moderated by Catherine Evtuhov.
New York City, NY; NYC
The first U.S. solo exhibition featuring new work by artist Leila Mattina Gregory. Through practice and ...
more >> process-based works, Mattina Gregory shares her research on the cultivation and processing of the añil (indigo) in Puerto Rico, and its connections to the Caribbean and Latin America.
New York City, NY; NYC
The first U.S. solo exhibition featuring new work by La Residencia artist Leila Mattina. Through practice ...
more >> and process-based works, Mattina Gregory shares her research on the cultivation and processing of the añil (indigo) in Puerto Rico, and its connections to the Caribbean and Latin America.
New York City, NY; NYC
In 2004, at the age of 17, Mike Brodie left home, hoping a freight train to Jacksonville, Florida. Although ...
more >> this first trip lasted only a few days, it was the start of a life long journey that would see him become one of the most intuitive photographers of his generation. On finding a polaroid camera camera stuffed behind a car seat, Brodie began to produce a document of his journey across the expanse of North America, alongside a group of like minded young people. This new collection of 50 facsimile polaroids recounts Bodie’s earliest work, when he traveled under the name The Polaroid Kid.
New York City, NY; NYC
A 12-year-old boy searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of ...
more >> his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world. Directors: Chris Renaud, Kyle Balda Stars: Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Danny DeVito 86 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Put on your dancing shoes and learn with Strictly Tango NYC Dance School. Experience "the authentic Buenos ...
more >> Aires Tango feeling." Come with your partner, your friends, or come by yourself and find a new dance partner.
New York City, NY; NYC
Did you know that the first place in New York City where all four Hip Hop elements were presented together ...
more >> for the first time and outside of the Bronx was at a club/concert hall in the East Village? Did you know that rappers like Mos Def and Biggies got their start at an open mic show in the West Village? Join Tara Crichlow, aka “Big Tara,” a native of the Lower East Side, and a cultural ambassador. This walking tour (10 stops) honors the artists and entrepreneurs; explores spaces and sites in the Village that were pivotal in introducing Hip-Hop cultural elements (B-Boying, DJ-ing, Graffiti, Fashion and Emceeing) to the world. During a pivotal 20-year period in Hip-Hop history (1979-1999) nightlife venues, art galleries, walls and parks throughout the Village functioned as a secondary incubator and stage for B-Boys, Graffiti artists, Emcees, DJs and designers creating what we now call Hip-Hop Culture. It’s part of a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, which began in The Bronx, but which grew and developed substantially in our neighborhoods. With Tara Crichlow
New York City, NY; NYC
Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world’s attention during the Cold War. Their stories ...
more >> were given sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy novels and films. In contrast to other migrants, defectors were pursued by the states they left even as they were eagerly sought by the United States and its allies. Taking part in a risky game that played out across the globe, defectors sought to transcend the limitations of the Cold War world. Recently published by Oxford University Press, Erik Scott's book is the first history of defection on a global scale. The book charts a global struggle over defectors that unfolded among rival intelligence agencies operating in the shadows of an occupied Europe, in the forbidden border zones of the USSR, in the disputed straits of the South China Sea, on a hijacked plane 10,000 feet in the air, and around the walls of Soviet embassies. Surprisingly, the competition for defectors paved the way for collusion between the superpowers, who found common cause in regulating the spaces through which defectors moved. Disputes over defectors mapped out the contours of modern state sovereignty, and defection’s ideological framework hardened borders by reinforcing the view that asylum should only be granted to migrants with clear political claims. Erik Scott is Associate Professor of History and director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Kansas.
New York City, NY; NYC
Katie Barnes's new book is a richly reported and provocative look at the history of women’s sports ...
more >> and the controversy surrounding trans athletes.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
With the current rise of antisemitism, this important book looks at how one Jewish family --the Rothschilds--became ...
more >> a lightning rod for the conspiracy theories of the last two centuries, and how those theories are still very much alive today. In 2018 Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media to share her suspicions that the California wildfires were started by 'space solar generators' which were funded by powerful, mysterious backers. Instantly, thousands of people rallied around her, blaming the fires on "Jewish space lasers" and, ultimately, the Rothschild family. For more than 200 years, the name "Rothschild" has been synonymous with two things: great wealth, and conspiracy theories about what they're "really doing" with it. Almost from the moment Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons emerged from the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt to revolutionize the banking world, the Rothschild family has been the target of myths, hoaxes, bizarre accusations, and constant, virulent antisemitism. Over the years, they have been blamed for everything from the sinking of the Titanic, to causing the Great Depression, and even creating the COVID-19 pandemic. Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories is a deeply researched dive into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family - from the "pamphlet wars" of Paris in the 1840s to the dankest pits of the internet today. Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, who isn't related to the family, sorts out myth from reality to find the truth about these conspiracy theories and their spreaders. Who were the Rothschilds? Who are they today? Do they really own $500 trillion and every central bank, in addition to "controlling the British money supply?" Is any of this actually true? And why, even as their wealth and influence have waned, do they continue to drive conspiracies and hoaxes?
New York City, NY; NYC
The world premiere of a site-specific opera that tells the story of a collector looking to gather up ...
more >> the world’s most beautiful objects. This opera is adapted from Hans Christian Anderson’s "The Nightingale."
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
A celebration of Village Latin music from Carreno and Piazzolo to Puente and Cruz. Featuring soprano ...
more >> Adriana Valdes, Duo Mundi, Ceylon Mitchell flute, Elizabeth G. Hill, and more
New York City, NY; NYC
A screening of 16mm experimental films, an opportunity to view titles that can currently only be seen ...
more >> in their original analog medium. Six of the films come from NYU’s collection: three Stan Brakhage films representing a nearly 25-year period of his career, and three films from Hollis Frampton’s Hapax Legomena series restored by former MIAP students. The program also features rarities from outside NYU’s collection in the form of the single scene filmed for Willard Maas’ unfinished St. Teresa project, Owen Land’s final evangelical film, and one of Warren Sonbert’s musical montages. There will be refreshments after the screening.
New York City, NY; NYC
Fashion historian and author of She’s Got Legs: A History of Hemlines and Fashion, Keren Ben-Horin, ...
more >> takes us on a journey through fashion history to discover the styles, attitudes, customs, sex appeal, socially acceptable postures and walks, and more in a comprehensive view of leg fashions through the ages. Ben-Horin will share how athletics, dance, depictions in literature and art, and motifs in advertising and films all reflect our changing times. Keren Ben-Horin is a fashion historian, curator, and the author of The Sweater: A History, as well as an essay in the volume Fashion, Agency, and Empowerment.
New York City, NY; NYC
A foster kid who lives with her mean foster mom sees her life change when business tycoon and New York ...
more >> City mayoral candidate Will Stacks makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Director: Will Gluck Stars: Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx 118 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
Shunned by everyone for being the son of an evil warlord, a teenager seeks to defeat him with the help ...
more >> of his fellow ninjas. Directors: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan Stars: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Fred Armisen 101 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
The Rhythm Method, a string quartet comprised of D.M.A. candidates Marina Kifferstein (violin) and Carrie ...
more >> Frey (viola) along with violinist Leah Asher and cellist Meaghan Burke, performs works by Kifferstein, Frey, Asher, Mischa Salkind-Pearl, and Tim Crist.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Screening of some of the best short thesis films by 2023 graduates. An evening of exceptional live action, ...
more >> documentary, and animated shorts by the most recent graduates from ten different academic departments. The films included in the evening are not rated by the MPAA, and some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 17.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
The Psychedelic Rock and Soul Ensemble explores psychedelic music from its origins in the late 1960s ...
more >> through the 1970s. The group will perform and record music by artists including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, Isaac Hayes, and others.
New York City, NY; NYC