New York City is a multicultural hub with dozens of museums, hundreds of parks and millions of people. The number of potential things to see and do can feel overwhelming, but NY1 has you covered with some of the highlights taking place this weekend across the five boroughs.
‘Summer Streets’
Saturday, Aug. 1 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Various Manhattan streets
More information here
Summer Streets continues this weekend with more car-free plazas for pedestrians and cyclists to enjoy.
The walk and bike-friendly spaces will include music, activities and other family-friendly fun.
The following streets will be closed to car traffic from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday:
Lafayette Street and Park Avenue between Brooklyn Bridge and East 110th Street
East 110th Street between Park Avenue and Broadway
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between West 110th Street and West 113th Street
Broadway between West 110th Street and Dyckman Street
Family Adventure Races
Saturday, Aug. 1 (Timeslots depend on age group)
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens
More information here
Families can compete together for free in a one-hour test of skills and endurance in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on Saturday.
Open to kids ages seven to 13 and their parents, teams will race through a course of 12 activity stations where they must complete the task to continue.
The event is designed to promote exercise and healthy competition. Teams will divided by the child’s age group. First one across the finish wins!
‘Uptown Visions’
Open through Nov. 1
Hispanic Society Museum & Library, Manhattan
More information here
This year’s selection for the Hispanic Society Museum & Library’s “Art on Audubon Terrace” exhibit, “Uptown Visions” by Harlem-based painter Tom Sanford is meant to capture the “joy, rhythm, and layered experience of Uptown summer life.”
Featuring scenes of basketball, cart vendors and communal energy, the work was inspired by Joaquín Sorolla’s mural series, “Vision of Spain,” which depicted the people and customs of the country.
Ridgewood Reservoir Tour
Sunday, Aug. 2 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Highland Park, Queens
More information here
NYC Parks is offering a chance for New Yorkers to learn about their local enviornment during a walk with Urban Park Rangers on Sunday.
Experts on the history, ecology and engineering behind the Ridgewood Reservior, the rangers will guide attendees on a walk around the 50-plus-acre natural oasis.
8/2👟Join the Rangers for a guided walk through the history, ecology, and engineering of the Ridgewood Reservoir, a cultural treasure in Queens: https://t.co/t70VUwRsuG pic.twitter.com/M3CzLDQBTm
— NYC Parks (@NYCParks) July 30, 2026
Head to the Beach
Open for the summer
Across the city
More information here
Beaches across the city will stay open through the weekend after Labor Day.
Lifeguards will be on duty every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Swimming is prohibited during their off-hours.
Mark your calendars: NYC beaches officially open for the season on May 23. Get ready for boardwalk walks, post-swim snacks, ocean breezes, and long summer days by the water! pic.twitter.com/VI7ZXboNL8
— NYC Parks (@NYCParks) May 12, 2026
Luna Park
Open for the season
Coney Island, Brooklyn
More information here
Luna Park in Coney Island is open for the season, with its full lineup of rides, treats and “high-flying excitement.”
Visitors can ride the iconic Cyclone roller coaster, play arcade games, get food or shop around.
Queens Night Market
Saturdays from 4 p.m. to midnight through Aug. 22
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
More information here
The Queens Night Market has returned for its 11th season.
The market is a family-friendly, open-air event that features 100 independent vendors selling merchandise, art and food. There are also performances that organizers say, along with the vendors, celebrate “the rich cultural diversity and heritage of NYC and Queens.”
Smorgasburg
Open for the season
Thursdays and Fridays: World Trade Center
Saturdays: Marsha P. Johnson State Park, Williamsburg
Sundays: Prospect Park, Brooklyn
More information here
The city’s annual warm weather food frenzy is back, and organizers say it features one of their biggest lineups yet.
More than 70 vendors offering global bites, longtime favorites and experimental new concepts will set up in Manhattan every Thursday and Friday — and then in Brooklyn every weekend — through October.
If you can’t make it out to one of their sites, you can still enjoy dining al fresco at a restaurant near you, as the city’s roadway dining program has officially returned for the season.
Movies Under the Stars
Events throughout summer
Across the city
More information here
Movies Under the Stars is back at NYC Parks. The city agency is putting on more than 150 family-friendly film screenings across the five boroughs.
Bring your own blanket, chairs and snacks and find a free event near you here.
Join us for a free flick near you! Bring your blankets to cozy up to one of our Movies Under the Stars across the five boroughs all summer long! pic.twitter.com/pkBmRu4COJ
— NYC Parks (@NYCParks) May 28, 2026
SummerStage
Shows through Oct. 1
Across the city
More information here
More than 60 shows — most of them free — will take place at 13 locations across the five boroughs this summer as the city’s annual SummerStage program returns for its 40th year.
Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield hosts many of the shows, including benefit concerts that support the City Parks Foundation.
For those interested in the history of the annual event, a new exhibit at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park showcases photographs dating back to the concert festival’s founding. It will be open until Aug. 21.
Celebrate American History
Exhibits open daily
Across Manhattan
Some free, some ticketed
The Fourth of July may be over, but there are still many exhibits open across the city to learn about American history.
At The New York Historical, the new Tang Wing for American Democracy includes new galleries, classrooms, conservation studios, a rooftop terrace and sculpture court.
Check out the Fraunces Tavern Museum, the oldest building in Manhattan, to see the spot where George Washington gave an emotional farewell speech to his officers after the Revolutionary War ended in 1783.
And at the South Street Seaport Museum, “The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation” is a free exhibit with some of the most important documents in American history on display.
There’s an official edition of the U.S. Constitution printed on Sept. 17, 1787, the Emancipation Proclamation, an advanced copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech from the 1963 March on Washington — without the “I Have a Dream” passage, which he ad-libbed — and items from the women’s suffrage movement, among others.
💫Now open: “The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation!”
This timely exhibition explores how speeches, publications, and personal narratives shaped the ongoing struggle for liberty, equality, and democracy in the US.
Plan your visit today! https://t.co/I5hxfhYOTa pic.twitter.com/RseMW9sItu
— Seaport Museum (@SeaportMuseum) May 27, 2026
‘Greater New York’
Open through Aug. 17
MoMA PS1, Queens
More information here
MoMA PS1 calls its annual “Greater New York” exhibit a “signature survey of artists living and working in the New York City area.”
This year’s sixth edition spans all levels of the museum’s school building and features the work of more than 50 multidisciplinary artists.
Whitney Biennial 2026
Open through Aug. 23
Whitney Museum, Manhattan
More information here
The Whitney Museum says its biennial exhibit is the “the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States.”
The 82nd edition features the work of 56 artists and reflects the current moment by examining “interspecies kinships, familial relations, geopolitical entanglements, technological affinities, shared mythologies, and infrastructural supports.”
Sotheby’s ‘Botero in New York’ Exhibit
Jul. 22 to Sept. 7
Sotheby’s Breuer Building
More information here
Presented at one of the “world’s most vibrant art capitals,” the exhibition will include important works of art on loan from The Botero Foundation until Sept. 7.
In addition, a collection of work featuring Fernando Botero’s voluminous, ironic figures will be available for sale.
‘Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists’
Open through Sept. 13
American Folk Art Museum, Manhattan
More information here
This exhibit at the always-free American Folk Art Museum on the Upper West Side takes a look at how artists without formal training have depicted and defined themselves on their own terms.
There are 60 artists featured, with paintings, sculptures, photos and other forms, all on display. The selection showcases those who have worked outside the lineage of artistic networks.
(Spectrum News NY1/Roger Clark)
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!
Events through Sept. 19
Manhattan venues and Brooklyn Bowl
More information here
A slate of annual free performances at Prospect Park has returned for the summer as the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! festival enters its 47th season.
There will be 15 free shows and three benefit shows, all of which support Prospect Park. This year’s lineup includes Common, Patti LaBelle, Katie Yamasaki, Lady Wray, Victory Boyd, and Reggae with Wayne Wonder and Lila Iké.
(Courtesy Edwina
Hay)
‘Flower Power’ at NYBG
Open through Oct. 18
New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx
More information here
This recently-opened exhibit at New York Botanical Garden celebrates flowers as a cultural symbol of peace and love.
In addition to flowers, visitors can expect to see all things related to the “flower power” movement — like art and fashion from the ’60s, including works from Andy Warhol and Milton Glaser. There are also painted Volkswagen vans, giant peace signs and large hand-painted fabric canopies.
Plenty of activities are scattered throughout the exhibit, including friendship bracelet-making and ticketed liquid light shows with live bands.
Flower Power is a new exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden, opening May 23. (Spectrum News NY1)
MoMI LAB
Now open
Museum of the Moving Image, Queens
More information here
Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image has opened a free new space for people to check out newly emerging technology.
The MoMI LAB is located in the museum’s lower level, and welcomes the public to “discover, create, and reflect in this space where people from varied backgrounds can interact with new technologies and each other.”
‘For the Win’
Now open
American Museum of Natural History
More information here
A new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History celebrates “the objects that define athletic greatness.”
There are more than 70 items covering over 150 years of sports history, including gold medals, trophies and championship rings.
New Museum
Open Tuesday to Sunday
235 Bowery, Manhattan
More information here
The New Museum in Manhattan has reopened following a 60,000-square-foot expansion. The new space features twice the gallery size, new elevators, new venues, an entrance plaza and an atrium staircase, among other additions.
Alongside several new commissions, “New Humans: Memories of the Future” will be the inaugural exhibition. The museum says it showcases “works by more than 200 artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers to explore how dramatic technological and societal changes have spurred new conceptions of what it means to be ‘human.’”