Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Arts & Entertainment
The Best Things To Do In NYC This Week: From Morningside Lights To The Queens County Fair
By
Oriana Leckert
Published Sep 17, 2019
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Arts Initiative
By
Oriana Leckert
Published Sep 17, 2019
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
The Wide, Wild World of NYC Cycling @ Museum of the City of New York
In conjunction with their excellent exhibit Cycling in the City: A 200-Year History, MCNY is bringing the New York bicycling community together for a freewheeling conversation. The Wide, Wild World of NYC Cycling convenes Brenda Clavijo, daughter of the founder of the Puerto Rican Schwinn Club; Tyrone Means, longtime rider at the South Bronx’s Mullaly Bike Park; Red Hook Crit founder David Trimble; elite bicycle racer Tara Parsons; and Black Label Bicycle Club member Tom Porter. Arrive early for a winter cycling workshop with Bike New York.
Tuesday, September 17th, 7 p.m. // Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave., Harlem // Tickets: $15
Poetry World Series @ Housing Works Bookstore Café
The Poetry World Series promises plenty of energetic unpredictability. Like the name suggests, the event features teams of poets, and each will improvise verses on the spot based on topics “pitched” to them by the audience. "Umpires" and poets Kimiko Hahn and Terrance Hayes will determine the winners, and NYC literary man-about-town Isaac Fitzgerald will host the whole shebang.
Tuesday, September 17th, 7 p.m. // Housing Works Bookstore Café, 126 Crosby St., Manhattan // Free
Brooklyn Americana Music Festival @ Various venues
Get ready for plenty of hand-clapping and foot-stomping at the Brooklyn Americana Music Festival, touching down all across Dumbo and Red Hook for the fifth year running. The fest promises 50 shows in nine venues over four days, all free of charge except for the opening-night gala. Some highlights include Female Songwriter of the Year Dayna Kurtz, Americana-folk troubadours Underhill Rose, NOLA R&B group Sabine McCalla and the Dew Drops, classic country crooners the Haggard Kings, country-blues outfit Cari Ray and the Shaky Legs, a Green Chile Bluegrass Brunch, and much, much more.
Opens Thursday, September 19th // Various venues // Free
Dance to the dulcet tones of Underhill Rose and many more at the Brooklyn Americana Music Fest
Courtesy of BAMF
NYRB Classics 20th Anniversary @ Murmrr Theater
Book publishing is a tough business these days, so a hearty congratulations is in order to the NYRB Classics for making it two decades and still going strong. Celebrate their 20th Anniversary with an evening of readings from the series’ newest anthology, The Red Thread, which collects highlights from their 500+ books. Readers include Paul Giamatti, Jeffrey Eugenides, Meg Wolitzer, Amit Chaudhuri, Deborah Eisenberg, and more. Special guest DJ Tim Mohr will close out the show.
Thursday, September 19th, 6:30 p.m. // Murmrr Theater, 17 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn // Free or $17.95 with a copy of the book
Easy Rider Live @ Radio City Music Hall
Pay a fitting tribute to a legend at Easy Rider Live, a live-music and cinematic experience in celebration of the classic film’s 50th anniversary. The film will be shown on the world’s largest installed LED screen, while its legendary soundtrack—including “Born To Be Wild,” “The Weight,” and “Ballad of Easy Rider”—is performed live onstage by John Kay, Roger McGuinn, and special guests, produced by T Bone Burnett. The evening was originally planned to include opening remarks by Peter Fonda, who passed away last month; his wife Parky Fonda has praised the event, saying, “The celebration of a cinematic masterpiece, a Hollywood icon, and my beloved husband [will be] exactly what he wanted.”
Friday, September 20th, 8 p.m. // Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Sixth Ave., Manhattan // Tickets: $20
Prove you're born to be wild at the 50th anniversary of "Easy Rider"
Columbia Pictures
Food & Ideas Festival @ China Institute
Get a huge helping of the modern Chinese foodie scene at the Food & Ideas Festival, an afternoon of delicious talks, tabling, and interviews. You’ll hear from chefs, sustainability experts, artists, educators, and influencers on topics like China’s “experimental culinary zeitgeist,” its green revolution, and its new urban lifestyles. Then the space will transform into a Mid-Autumn Festival Night Market, with cocktails and bites, vendors, mahjong tables, and Chinese hip-hop. Tickets include a free drink.
Saturday, September 21st, 1:45 p.m. // China Institute, 100 Washington St., Manhattan // Tickets: $10
Queens County Fair @ Queens County Farm Museum
One of this country’s first-ever agrarian fairs took place in Queens in 1693. Keep the tradition alive at the Queens County Farm Museum’s 37th-annual Queens County Fair. The two-day extravaganza offers family-friendly fun, with live comedy, music, juggling, acrobats, and clowns, plus carnival rides and midway games, pie-eating and corn-husking contests, hayrides, horseback rides, tractor pulls, and relay races. There will be a beer garden sponsored by Bridge & Tunnel Brewery and featuring signature craft beer 1697 Adriance Ale, as well as tours and demos at the 18th-century Adriance Farmhouse. It’s also the season-opening of this year’s Amazing Maize Maze.
Saturday, September 21st, and Sunday, September 22nd // Queens County Farm Museum, 73-50 Little Neck Pkwy., Queens // Tickets: $5 children; $10 adults
IdeasCity Bronx @ Concrete Plant Park
Head north for a day of conversations, performances, and workshops about the impacts of climate change at IdeasCity Bronx. Presented by New Museum, the festival features a range of cultural agents, including keynote conversations by visual artist Teddy Cruz, Co-Director of the Center on Global Justice Fonna Forman, and Jon Gray of Ghetto Gastro. There will also be participatory workshops and pop-up activations by Bronx-based art and activist groups, organized with DreamYard, a community organization that works with Bronx youth and schools, plus free tours of the Bronx River with Rocking the Boat, in rowboats made by students out of fallen trees from the Bronx Botanic Gardens.
Saturday, September 21st, 2 p.m. // Concrete Plant Park, Westchester Ave. and Bruckner Blvd., Bronx // Free
Come together for cultural conversations about climate change at Concrete Plant Park
Nathan Kensinger
Morningside Lights @ Morningside Park
Illuminate the night at the eighth-annual Morningside Lights, a community processional featuring 50+ homemade lanterns. This year’s theme is “Island,” and the event is part of Columbia University’s Year of Water initiative, an “interdisciplinary investigation of water in all of its social, political, historical, cultural, economic, and environmental inequities and complexities.” There will be lantern-making workshops in the week leading up to the parade, at which participants can collaborate on making portable “islands” while learning about techniques for creating illuminated art. The procession will cover about one mile, through Morningside Park to Columbia University.
Saturday, September 21st, 8 p.m. // Morningside Park at 116th St., Harlem // Free
Brooklyn Book Festival @ Brooklyn Borough Hall
It’s the most bookish day of the year: Brooklyn Book Festival, the largest free literary fest in NYC. More than 300 authors writing in every category will participate in readings, discussions, signings, tabling, and assorted events, including the festival on Sunday, Children’s Day on Saturday, and myriad Bookend Events surrounding the weekend. A tiny fraction of this year’s authors include Alexander Chee, Edwidge Danticat, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mira Jacob, Marlon James, Lucy Knisley, DeRay Mckesson, Bill McKibben, Joyce Carol Oates, Matt Taibbi, and Nell Zink.
Sunday, September 22nd, 10 a.m. // Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon St., Brooklyn // Free
Tagged
events
events guide
Oriana Leckert
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE arts-entertainment
Inside a photographer's journey to visit every neighborhood in New York City
What do you see when you record the whole of the boroughs?
By
Sonia Rao
Published Oct 5, 2026
Banned books and Winnie the Pooh: October in NYC libraries
It's a busy month at the branches.
By
Alec Hamilton
Arts & Entertainment
Banned books and Winnie the Pooh: October in NYC libraries
It's a busy month at the branches.
By
Alec Hamilton
NYC music in October: The Strokes, a Blink-182 cover band, and Polish experimentalism
By
Hank Shteamer
Are you a New Yorker? The Department of New Yorker Verification will now decide.
By
Hannah Frishberg
In the mood for a pastoral autumn experience? Try Queens.
By
Elizabeth Shwe
and
James Ramsay
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .