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Free events for Thursday, 05/15/25
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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 May 15, 2025?

18 free events take place on Thursday, May 15 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 May 15 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 May . 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!

18 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Thursday, May 15, 2025

All events are free unless otherwise noted.
        

Film | Bridge to the Sun (1961): Romantic Drama


Based on a true story, this compelling drama relates the difficulties of a young woman married to a Japanese diplomat during World War II; victim of animosity from her husband's government. Director: Etienne Périer Cast: Carroll Baker, James Shigeta, James Yagi, Tetsurō Tamba, Sean Garrison
   New York City, NY; NYC
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11:00 am
Free
Films, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Bridge to the Sun (1961): Romantic Drama

City Walk | Annual Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk, Featuring 125+ Local Artists


This spring, Brooklyn will come alive with creativity with over 125 local artists exhibiting their work at 70 local businesses for the Annual Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk. This vibrant,self-guided, 1.5-mile art event will showcase the diverse talents of emerging and established artists at galleries, salons, boutiques, restaurants, and home decor shops. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience a diverse collection of art ranging from paintings, drawings, three-dimensional art, mixed media, and photography. While enjoying Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk, people are encouraged to take time to visit and support the local, small businesses and restaurants in the area. They can grab a cup of coffee for their stroll, sit and eat, pick up a unique gift, or a new spring outfit, and explore new services- all of which help to keep the businesses that make up the fabric of the neighborhood thriving.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free
City Walks, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Annual Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk, Featuring 125+ Local Artists

Concert | Piano in the Park: AAPI Heritage Month Celebration


A five, six, seven, eight… Come on down and swing along to the best ragtime, stride, and jazz the Big Apple has to offer.  The park is proud to present a special performance in celebration of AAPI Heritage Month led by Yuka Aikawa. Pianist and composer Yuka Aikawa began playing piano at the age of five in her native country, Japan. She's received the prestigious Michael Feinstein Award for “Outstanding Talent.” You can hear Yuka at various jazz clubs in and around the New York area, as an accompanist for jazz choir The Lance Hayward Singers, or on Carline Ray's beautiful album Vocal Sides. Yuka's new trio album, Clouds and Water, has been released in Japan, where she tours every year. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free
Concerts, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Piano in the Park:&nbsp;AAPI Heritage Month Celebration

Classical Music | The Queen's Heart: A Distilled Performance of Handel's Opera, Radamisto (In Person AND Online!)


Performed by Opera Essentia musicians (Jeffrey Mandelbaum, countertenor; Kristin Renee Young, soprano; Hans Tashjian, bass-baritone; Rebecca Pechefsky, harpsichord; Serafim Smigelskiy, violoncello; and Amelia Sie, violin), this opera event is a meditation on obsession, betrayal, and self-sacrifice. The Queen's Heart is a distillation of George Frideric Handel's Radamisto, an opera seria, is a saga of familial treachery and marital love which unfolds in bittersweet beauty, one ravishing aria after another. What's in store for the hounded Zenobia or the wretched Queen?
   New York City, NY; NYC
1:15 pm
Free
Concerts, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, The Queen's Heart: A Distilled Performance of Handel's Opera, Radamisto (In Person AND Online!)

Tour | Historical House of The Distinguished American President of the Early 20th Century


This historic site honors the early life of a renowned American figure. The restored brownstone reflects late 19th-century architecture and offers insights into the family's daily life. Learn about various exhibits and artifacts that showcase the cultural and historical context of the era, providing a glimpse into the formative years of this visionary leader-to-be. First-come, first-served; this guided tour may reach capacity before your desired tour time, so please be sure to arrive early. Tour duration: 45 minutes. This tour takes place at 11 am, 12 pm, 2 pm, and 3 pm.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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2:00 pm
Free
Tours, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Historical House of The Distinguished American President of the Early 20th Century

Staged Reading | Uncommon Scent: A New Play by Award-Winning Playwright Vern Thiessen


Two perfumers battle each other to create a scent that will defeat the Nazis during WW2. Based on the lives of Jean Carles and Germaine Cellier.
   New York City, NY; NYC
3:00 pm
Free
Staged Readings, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Uncommon Scent: A New Play by Award-Winning Playwright Vern Thiessen

Gallery Talk | Contemporary Artists Speak on Willem de Kooning's Career and Influence


This event is a talk on Willem de Kooning with artists John Currin, Jenny Saville, and Dana Schutz, moderated by Cecilia Alemani. This conversation will take place inside an exhibition of Willem de Kooning;s work. It will center around de Kooning's enduring artistic legacy and the continued impact of his techniques and processes on artists today. The exhibition presents works spanning five decades--paintings dating from 1944 through 1986 and two sculptures--and foregrounds visual motifs that recurred throughout the artist's career. Doors open at 2:30 pm. Capacity is limited. Seating is first come, first served. Advance registration does not guarantee admission once the event reaches capacity.
   New York City, NY; NYC
3:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talks, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Contemporary Artists Speak on Willem de Kooning's Career and Influence

Birdwatching | Evening Birding in the Park with NYC Audubon


Discover the surprising diversity of birds that call New York home during migratory season with guided tours by NYC Audubon, led by environmental educator and urban naturalist Gabriel Willow. This 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
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5:00 pm
Free
Birdwatchings, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Evening Birding in the Park&nbsp;with NYC Audubon

Museums | Thursday Evening Exploring the Photography Museum


This museum is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. It was founded in 1974 to champion “concerned photography”—socially and politically minded images that can educate and change the world. Through its exhibitions, education programs, community outreach, and public programs, the museum offers an open forum for dialogue about the power of the image.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free
Museumss, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Thursday Evening Exploring the Photography Museum

Classical Music | "Spanish Landscapes" Concert in a Museum Gallery: de Falla, Granados, Sarasate, Turina.


Prize-Winning violinist Leticia Moreno, acclaimed by critics for her profound interpretative strength, will join Antonio Galera, piano, in a program with pieces by Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, Pablo de Sarasate, and Joaquin Turina. The recital will take place in a museum gallery with the stage located in the center of the room so that attendees can enjoy the canvases commissioned from Joaquin Sorolla by Archer Milton Huntington. Pianist Enriqueta Somarriba, Doctor in Music from Rutgers University, will introduce the performance and contextualize the repertoire, territorially and culturally linking these pieces with the different scenes represented in the gallery.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
Free
Concerts, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, "Spanish Landscapes" Concert in a Museum Gallery: de Falla, Granados, Sarasate, Turina.

Film | Forty Guns (1957): American Western


High-riding rancher Jessica Drummond commands a forty-strong posse of cowboys, ruling her county without challenge. When a U.S. Marshal and his brothers arrive in town with a warrant for one of her hired guns, Jessica begins to fall for the lawman even as he chips away at her authority. Director: Samuel Fuller Cast:  Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Gene Barry
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free
Films, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Forty Guns (1957): American Western

Party | Art Academy Benefit Auction Party


This event celebrates this art academy and its powerful community of artists, architects, scholars, students, and art-lovers. It's a chance to see the remarkable collection of artwork donated in support of the academy’s exhibitions and public programs advancing American art and architecture. Donations are welcomed.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free
Partys, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Art Academy Benefit Auction Party

Party | Dance Party: Latin Festival


At this event, attendees meet at the park to learn basic steps with expert instructors at 6pm. Afterwards, participants can test out their new moves to live music performed by a diverse selection of bands from afterwards. 6pm-6:30pm: Dance Instruction with Jorge Riascos and Adoralynn Pagan 6:45pm-8pm: Live Dance Music with Sebastian Natal & The Orchestra 8:00pm-8:30pm: Dance Instruction with Sekou McMiller and Ahtoy Juliana WonPat-Borja 8:45pm-10pm: Live Dance Music with Flaco Navaja & The Razor Blades
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free
Partys, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Dance Party: Latin Festival

Opening Reception | Drama in Light and Shadow


Known for his intimate, detail-rich paintings, Alexis Ralaivao presents a new body of work that explores light and shadow through a monochromatic lens. In this series of large-scale portraits and still lifes, the artist draws on cinematic influences—particularly film noir—to evoke a sense of quiet drama and suspended narrative. Ralaivao’s nuanced compositions highlight fleeting gestures and textures, inviting close attention to moments that might otherwise go unnoticed.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free
Opening Receptions, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Drama in Light and Shadow

Book Discussion | Book Launch and Conversation: On the Legacy of Magnus Hirschfeld


This May marks the 90th anniversary of the death of groundbreaking German physician, sexologist, and LGBTQ advocate Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). This event is a double book launch and conversation on Hirschfeld's legacy and its relevancy today with authors Daniel Brook and Brandy Schillace. In 1919, Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Science, the world's first sexology research center, in Berlin. The Institute led the way in studying and treating various aspects of gender and sexuality, including topics related to gay, transgender, and intersex individuals. Additionally, the Institute championed sex education, contraception, the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, and women's rights. By 1933, the institute was closed permanently, having been ransacked by Nazis, its library and archives burned. Hirschfeld had fled Germany in 1930—embarking on a global research tour that took him to the United States, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—before settling in France, where he would die of heart attack on his 67th birthday. In his new historical biography, The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin, journalist Daniel Brook has retraced Hirschfeld’s life and legacy. Hirschfeld publicly advocated for gay rights while privately counseling patients toward self-acceptance, helping turn Weimar Berlin into the world’s queer capital. In The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story, historian Brandy Schillace tells the story of the Institute for Sexual Science through the eyes of Dora Richter, a patient of the Institute whom we follow in her quest to transition and live as a woman.  Copies of both books will be available for purchase and signing.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussions, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Book Launch and Conversation: On the Legacy of Magnus Hirschfeld

Workshop | Dance Aerobics Class: Low Stakes & All Fun


Find your inner dancer and get your body moving with pure joy at this cathartic dance aerobics class! Low stakes, all fun, and open to all levels. Space is limited, unreserved, and available on a first-come, first-served basis. If there is heavy rain at the time of the event, the event will be canceled.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free
Workshops, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Dance Aerobics Class: Low Stakes & All Fun

Play | Original ialian Play exploring the Life and Relationships of an Author: Amara Sapienza: To My Mother


This play that explores the work and life of Italian writer and actress Goliarda Sapienza, starting with a mother-daughter relationship. Daughter of anarchists, Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996) lived intensely without ever aligning herself with the culture of her time. Her childhood in Sicily, the exile, the theater and cinematographic career, fascism, psychoanalysis, imprisonment, homosexual love, the oblivion caused by the lack of recognition of her works in life are pieces that fit into the discourse and, intermittently, appear as if evoked, bringing about encounters, thoughts, and sensations. Written & Directed by Giulia Bocciero Cast: Giulia Bocciero & Alice Camoriano In Italian with English subtitles.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free
Plays, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Original ialian Play exploring the Life and Relationships of an Author:&nbsp;Amara Sapienza: To My Mother

Concert | Performances of Songs by Tony and GRAMMY winner from the Musical Picnic at Hanging Rock


The debut concert performance of songs from the forthcoming musical adapted from Joan Lindsay’s iconic Australian novel, which was made famous by Peter Weir’s film and Netflix’s TV series. Picnic at Hanging Rock tells the story of three schoolgirls and their teacher who go missing on Valentine’s Day, 1900. One girl is later found, but with no memory of what happened; the others are never seen again. Left without answers, the community begins to unravel—with shocking consequences. The haunting new musical is informed by First Nations Australian collaborators, with book and lyrics by Hilary Bell, music by Greta Gertler Gold, and orchestrations by Tony and GRAMMY Award winner Todd Sickafoose (Hadestown).
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free
Concerts, May 15, 2025, 05/15/2025, Performances of Songs by Tony and GRAMMY winner from the Musical&nbsp;Picnic at Hanging Rock
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Classical Music | Sacred Choral Works at a Landmark Venue

Regular Price: $50
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Musical | Hit Show Musical Parody

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