Search

Things to Do in NYC (2/15-2/22)

 
"Sour, Sweet, Bitter Spicy" on view October 6, 2016 through Ma...

"Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy" is on view October 6, 2016 through March 26, 2017. #SourSweetBitterSpicy http://bit.ly/1SfDek8 Posted by Museum of Chinese in America on Thursday, August 25, 2016

(2/15-2/22) City Guide's Things to Do in NYC brings you the best in special NYC events, exhibits, sightseeing activities, fun for kids, concerts, and nightlife. This weekend, the breathtaking Orchid Show returns to New York Botanical Garden for its 15th anniversary. Also, head to Intrepid to meet a NASA astronaut and more during Kids Week, plus check out Tattooed New York, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more! 

 

THIS WEEK: THE BIG EVENT 

NYBG Orchid Show

(2/18-4/9) The Orchid Show celebrates its 15th year at The New York Botanical Garden with an homage to the orchids and culture of Thailand. With 1,200 native orchid species calling Thailand home, expect a diverse array, culminating with a flower-festooned recreation of a traditional Thai pavilion. The garden (just a 20-minute Metro-North ride from Grand Central Terminal) also features a living collection of more than one million plants.

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK: EXHIBITION OF THE WEEK

Zoe Rose

Nicole Reed, Tattoo Art by Rose Hardy on Zoe Brown, 2016. Courtesy Nicole Reed Photography. 

(2/3-4/30) Tattooed New York at the New-York Historical Society. This exhibition showcases more than 250 items, including mezzotints of the heavily inked Mohawk Indians who shocked London society during a visit in 1710; one of the earliest surviving pictographs of a Seneca warrior's tattoos (1706); an example of the Thomas Edison electric pen whose invention ushered in the modern era of tattooing; colorful banners advertising carnival sideshows of tattooed performers; and flash designs by pioneers of modern tattooing working on the Bowery. nyhistory.org  

PLUS

(now-5/21) Visitors to The Morgan Library & Museum get a rare insight into the life of one of literature’s most enigmatic poets, Emily Dickinson. The museum’s exhibition I’m Nobody! Who are you? The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson, opened on January 20, is the most ambition exhibition on the iconic poet to date. The show will display nearly 100 rarely seen items related to Dickinson’s life and work, including manuscripts and letters, along with such visual materials as photographs and hand-cut silhouettes that illuminate the environment that informed Dickinson’s writing. Also featured will be close examinations of drafts of 24 of Dickinson’s poems.

(ongoing) The Museum of the City of New York presents NY at Its Core. Ten years in the making, New York at Its Core tells the compelling story of New York’s rise from a striving Dutch village to today’s “Capital of the World.” The exhibition captures the human energy that drove New York to become a city like no other and a subject of fascination the world over. Entertaining, inspiring, important, and at times bemusing, New York City “big personalities,” including Alexander Hamilton, Walt Whitman, Boss Tweed, Emma Goldman, JP Morgan, Fiorello La Guardia, Jane Jacobs, Jay-Z, and dozens more, parade through the exhibition. Visitors will also learn the stories of lesser-known New York personalities, like Lenape chieftain Penhawitz and Italian immigrant Susie Rocco. Even animals like the horse, the pig, the beaver, and the oyster, which played pivotal roles in the economy and daily life of New York, get their moment in the historical spotlight. Occupying the entire first floor in three interactive galleries (Port City, 1609-1898, World City, 1898-2012, and Future City Lab) New York at Its Core is shaped by four themes: money, density, diversity, and creativity. Together, they provide a lens for examining the character of the city, and underlie the modern global metropolis we know todaymcny.org

(now-4/23/17) Now on display at the New-York Historical Society are two revealing new exhibits—Muhammad Ali, LeRoy Neiman, and the Art of Boxing and "I Am The King of the World"—Photographs of Muhammad Ali by George Kalinsky. The complementary exhibits, one by a watercolor painter/sketch artist and one by a Madison Square Garden photographer, offer an intimate perspective of the heavyweight boxing champion's trailblazing career. Both shows come from a place of deep respect and trust;  they chronicle highlights and low points, as well as capturing Ali's sometimes quieter, more thoughtful interior life.

(now-9/6/17) The newest show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim, provides a rare chance to explore in-depth some of the key artists of this essential New York institution. Framed by the interests of six leading patrons, Visionaries brings together canvases from masters like Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Yves Tanguy, and sculptures by Joseph Cornell and Alberto Giacometti. In addition, Jackson Pollock’s Alchemy (1947) is being shown in the U.S. for the first time in nearly 50 years. More than a dozen works on paper by Picasso and Van Gogh, rarely on view to the public, can be seen in the Thannhauser Gallery, and paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Édouard Manet are displayed on the museum’s legendary ramps.

(now-2/17) Final days! The Holiday Express show, also at the New-York Historical Society, is about more than trains; it includes boats, planes, and even dirigibles. With items from the Jerni Collection of more than 10,000 toys and trains dating to between 1850 and 1950, it modernizes the old-fashioned miniatures with a multiscreen, multimedia display. You'll hear the clanging of bells and the mooing of cows as a train passes them in the countryside. A figure eight of track runs overhead. In one display, kids can crawl into a transparent bubble and pop their heads in for a close-up look as European and American trains swirl around them.

(now-4/23/17) Prolific NYC filmmaker Martin Scorsese is the subject of an exhibition at Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image. In addition to exploring his films, the exhibit grants visitors unprecedented access to his personal storyboards (including one he made when he was 11 years old!), screenplays, photos, props, costumes, letters written to him by various directors including Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Paul Schraeder, actor Robert DeNiro, and others. 

(now-2/17) Final days! Don't miss The Taylor Swift Experience at South Street Seaport! The Taylor Swift Experience has dozens of the superstar’s personal items and awards on display—costumes, handwritten song lyrics, a Grammy award, and more. 

(now-2/26/17) The First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World at the New-York Historical Society. This exhibition examines the story of newcomers to the New World, both Jewish and of Jewish ancestry, who made their way to colonial America and engaged fully in the cultural, social, and political life of the young nation. The exhibition showcases more than 170 rare early portraits, drawings, maps, books, documents, and ritual objects, illuminating the birth of a new Jewish American tradition and the extraordinary contributions of 18th- and 19th-century Jewish artists, writers, activists, and others to the development of American culture and politics.

(now-5/14/17) Considered one of the city’s greatest treasures, the Morgan Library & Museum showcases manuscripts, art, history, and architecture. An extraordinary group of more than 75 masterpieces is currently being shown in Treasures from the Nationalmuseum of Sweden: The Collections of Count Tessin. Among the artists represented are Italian masters, Tessin’s French contemporaries, and Northern European luminaries like Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt van Rijn. The show is on display until May while Sweden’s largest and most distinguished art institution undergoes a major refurbishment.

(ongoing) The legendary aircraft carrier that’s now the Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum served three tours of duty in Vietnam between 1966 and 1969. Learn more about its experiences in the Gulf of Tonkin, launching aircraft for missions over mainland Vietnam, at the exhibit On the Line: Intrepid and the Vietnam War, featuring many artifacts displayed for the very first time.

Click here for our Intrepid Coupon to save $3 now (max 4 persons) off general admission!

(now-2/19/17) Final Days! Night Fever: New York Disco 1977-1979, the Bill Bernstein Photographs at the Museum of Sex explores the sexually and socially radical multiculturalism embraced by the New York disco clubs of the late '70s. The exhibition assembles 40 photographs from Bill Bernstein, accompanied by audio interviews, in an immersive installation that invites viewers to experience the freedom and intoxication of the disco era. Take $3 off Museum of Sex admission with this coupon

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK: COMEDY

Billy Gardell

(2/17-2/18) Mike & Molly's Bill Gardell at Gotham Comedy Club

(2/17-2/19) Comedian and star of Community Joel McHale at Carolines On Broadway

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK: KIDS

Kids Week at Intrepid

(2/20-2/25) The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum hosts its annual Kids Week, this year exploring the theme of the science and art of games. Kids can discover STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math) as they play cutting-edge digital games, explore interactive displays, view live demonstrations, and meet special guests like zoologist and naturalist Jarod Miller, NASA spacewalk flight controller Allison Bolinger, and former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino. All Kids Week activities are free with museum admission.

PLUS

Sesame Street Live

(now-2/26) Sesame Street Live at The Theater at Madison Square Garden.

(2/18) Family Bowl at Brooklyn Bowl

(2/19-2/20) Harlem Globetrotters 2017 World Tour at Madison Square Garden. 

(Ongoing) Explore the beautiful interactive exhibit Connected Worlds at the New York Hall of Science in Queens. 

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK: SIGHTSEEING

 New Year's Eve Ball Ripley's Times Square

(new) Every year, at 11:59pm on December 31st, people from all over the world are focused on the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball. Millions of voices unite to count down the final seconds of the old year and celebrate the beginning of the new. Now you can get up close and personal with the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball at Ripley’s Believe It or Not—Times Square! Press the button yourself and ring in the New Year every day of the year. A home to rare artifacts and thrilling interactive exhibits, Ripley’s is for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in the unexpected and the unbelievable.

PLUS

(2/19-3/12) Audubon Winter Cruise with New York Water Taxi. Every Sunday. 

(ongoing) Sweets for the sweet! Grab your honey or friend for a cozy ride aboard A Slice of Brooklyn's Chocolate Tour. TripAdvisor's top-rated NYC tour company A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours has launched a tour that visits artisanal chocolate sites Jacques Torres Chocolate in DUMBO, The Chocolate Room in Cobble Hill, Raaka in Red Hook, and Li-Lac Chocolates in Industry City, Sunset Park. Offered every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

(Ongoing) Grab a date or friend and enjoy the most incredible views of NYC at Top of the Rock.

(ongoing) Catch the Ghostbusters Experience (walk through/immersive) and Ghostbusters Dimension, a Virtual Reality Experience at Madame Tussauds. Get ready to strap on some gear and laser some ghosts against breathtaking, realistic backdrops. The technology puts you right there!

(ongoing) Take a one-hour tour of one of the world's most important buildings, the United Nations, now celebrating 70 years. (Tours offered weekdays only.)

Check out the new "tour about nothing" When Harry Met Seinfeld with On Location Tours

Explore NYC's Financial District with Wall Street Walks.

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK: NIGHTLIFE & MUSIC

Red Hot Chili Peppers

(2/17, 2/18) California rock darlings Red Hot Chili Peppers take over Madison Square Garden

PLUS

(2/16) 20th Anniversary of Hell on Earth MOBB DEEP & Special Guests at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill

(2/16) Beth Hart at The Town Hall. 

(2/16-2/17) Matildapalooza: A Reunion of Broadway's Matildas at Feinstein's/54 Below

(2/16-2/17) Miguel Zenon Quartet at The Village Vanguard. 

(2/17) Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera

(2/16) DJ Questlove Presents Bowl Train at Brooklyn Bowl. Every Thursday, 11:30pm.

(now-4/29/17) New York Theatre Ballet 2016/17 Season at St. Mark's in the Bowery.   

(Ongoing) Every Sunday at noon and 2pm don’t miss Broadway “Boozy” Brunch, with a cabaret show and the option for bottomless bellinis, Bloody Marys, and mimosas. Don't Tell Mama.

SNEAK PEEK, NEXT WEEK

George Clinton B.B. King Blues Club

(2/28) George Clinton & P Funkadelic will perform for the 5th Funky Fat Tuesday Celebration at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill.  

(2/23-3/3) Ringling Bros & Barnum & Bailey Circus Presents Out of This World at Barclays Center. 

(2/23) Rusted Root at Brooklyn Bowl.

(2/24-2/25) Tony Danza: Standards & Stories at Feinstein's/54 Below. 

(@/23-2/25) SNL's Leslie Jones at Carolines.

Click here for more great ideas on Where to Celebrate Mardi Gras NYC 2017.

_______________________________________________________________________

Like what you see here? Share it with your friends on Facebook! Find out more about what to do in February. We've got March covered, too!

Bringing a group to NYC? Free planning services

Let us know what you are looking for and we will try to connect you directly and get discounts.

Enter the code: 3972

More Articles