54 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Friday, April 21, 2017
All events are free unless otherwise noted.
This is a 3-hour tour that begins with a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, an icon of New York City for ...
more >> over 125 years, with spectacular views of Manhattan and Brooklyn. The tour then moves on to a stroll of Brooklyn Heights, America’s and New York City’s first suburb. The tour then explores the neighborhood DUMBO before ending at the Fulton Ferry landing.
The 3-hour walking and subway tour covers the Financial District including Wall Street and the World ...
more >> Trade Center, SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown. These are neighborhoods that simply can’t be fully appreciated from a bus. There will be one or two opportunities to sample tasty treats.
It is here, as much as anywhere, where American history started. It's where the first US Congress assembled ...
more >> and produced the Bill of Rights and where President George Washington took his first oath of office. It's here where the world's most important stock exchange and one of the most famous bridges stand. And it is here where an unspeakable tragedy took place and where a rebirth is underway.
Join a Manhattan Street Art Tour and experience the Lower East Side - SoHo, NoHo, Nolita and Little Italy. ...
more >> The Lower East Side of Manhattan is a playground for street artists, Soho is known to be one of NYC first permit Joint Live-Work Quarters for artists and the area received landmark designation in 1973. Noho and Nolita’s street art is either hidden in courtyards or on the more prominent street art facades. Learn about the history of the art of many famous and unknown artist.
Landscape and seascape have been abiding interests in the history of American art, inspiring iconic national ...
more >> imagery and stimulating significant bodies of literature. Many studies have examined how landscape and marine painting encode American culture, politics, and philosophy, often promoting a monolithic notion of American identity. As histories of American art become more culturally and geographically expansive, taking into consideration the larger context of the Western Hemisphere and the transatlantic world, how can scholars reassess images of land and sea? Featuring papers by both established and emerging scholars, this conference explores the ways in which the reinterpretation of American landscape and marine art across media can challenge, subvert, and transform traditional conceptions of American identity. Keynote speaker: Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, the Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Painting and Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing
10:00 am
free, no reservation required
"In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the passing, we ...
more >> have arrived." — Knut Hamsun "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." — Romans 7:6 Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans inaugurates a Western tradition that heralds a coming messianic time, a joining of its community, and a circumscribing of a universality that continues to haunt our collective history, our pursuit of justice, and even our sense of lack and hope. Charged with a calling, an address, and the irruptive signature of “Paul,” this single letter, like the endless stream of letters to come, burns itself into Western memory, digs itself into the cannon, and erupts with a repressive force. Whether it is Goethe’s nauseating romanticism in Werther doubling as suicide note, Freud’s erotic writings to Fliess at the core of psychoanalysis, Derrida’s satirical (even blasphemous) deconstruction of the epistolary in The Post Card, or Else Lasker-Schüler’s bohemian, nomad correspondences, we cannot escape the letter, but perhaps, we can lean into its punch. In risking exactly this, we might just divine the messianic character of the letter whether in law or spirit, and reckon with what is to come. Oriented in this fashion, there is no doubt that one can find all sorts of Schatzkästlein, if not outright spiritual nourishment, in becoming epistolary ourselves as philologians of the letter and inheritors of a its accumulated past. In our calling and address to you, our conference seeks to be acommemorable conventicle of philologians of the letter who do not hesitate being transfigured by reading and working on ‘correspondence.’ Attuning our minds to the secret of letters, as Hamsun did, we will ultimately be, ‘like a batch of letters’ arriving on the scene of something uncannily ours. We might even experience ‘Jetzt der Erkennbarkeit’ for the sake of which Walter Benjamin never stopped writing letters in messianic vein of his very own.
Are you a Bridge buff? Put your game face on and show off your best plays. Join the fun and meet new ...
more >> friends! All players welcome!
10:00 am
free, no reservation required
Don't have enough time to take all of the tours? Prefer to experience Manhattan with a smaller group, ...
more >> but a private booking is out of reach? Then consider our All-in-One New York Tour. This tour utilizes your feet and the New York City Subway to transport you from Lower Manhattan, the birthplace of New York, through Wall St and the Financial District, the World Trade Center, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, Little Italy, Chelsea Market and the Highline Park.
Editor's Pick
Three midwestern states flipped the Electoral College for Trump in places that voted for Obama for President. ...
more >> What are the economic conditions of those counties and how does the long decline in manufacturing, the rise in globalization, and the decline in unions affected these voters now in the spotlight? Speaker Teresa Ghilarducci (Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis) will discuss the political economy of the U.S. "rust belt".
10:30 am
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
Over the past decade, theoretical debates in the anthropology of religion have made few references to ...
more >> Jewish case studies. In contrast, research on Islam has heavily, and productively, influenced the field. The most influential of this work has focused on the very devout—religious activists, piety movements, and the newly religious. Recently, though, scholars have questioned whether this focus skews our sense of the lives of religious subjects. The analytical focus on religious activists, critics contend, obscures the dynamics of ambiguity, openness and indeterminacy that irrevocably shape peoples’ lives. Lecturer: Joshua Friedman.
10:30 am
free, no reservation required
There is nothing more frustrating for the job seeker than securing an interview but not a job offer. ...
more >> The job interview is, of course, a two-way process: the candidate should be interviewing the employer and not just the employer the candidate. Executive recruiter and career counselor Bruce Hurwitz examines the interview process from the prospective of each so that the job seeker will be able to think like an employer and the employer like the job seeker. Being able to appreciate the other side is a key to a successful interview.
12:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Test your coordination and dexterity with free juggling lessons in the park. All skill levels are welcome ...
more >> to join in the fun. Equipment is provided.
12:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
The keyboard works of Bach offered in 30-minute meditations by Patrick Allen, organist and master of ...
more >> choristers, and Mary Pan, organ scholar. Bach at Noon concerts takes place Tuesdays through Fridays, from September 13, 2016 to May 25, 2017.
12:20 pm
free, no reservation required
Discover architecture and social history of Grand Central neighborhood; learn secrets of Whispering Gallery ...
more >> in Grand Central Terminal; gaze upon hubcaps and roadsters on side of Chrysler Building; discover favorite Midtown Manhattan hangout of Mercury, Hercules, and Minerva; learn why Pershing Square isn’t really square; visit original Lincoln Memorial by Daniel Chester French. Award-winning tour led by urban explorer, historian, and storyteller Justin Ferate. This tour takes place every Friday.
12:30 pm
free, no reservation required
A guided walking tour of the historic and revitalized 34th Street District. Tour-goers will explore the ...
more >> neighborhood's rich history of commerce, transit, and architecture. This 90-minute tour is held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through May 28, 2017.
Learn about central banking functions that Federal Reserve System performs and see Bank's vault of international ...
more >> monetary gold on bedrock of Manhattan Island, five stories below street level. Learn why Federal Reserve has "Federal" in its name, while it's a private bank, not Federal at all. Tour times: 1:00pm, 2:00pm. This tour takes place Mondays through Fridays, except bank holidays.
Bringing to vivid life the emotions of the people of ancient Greece, and prompting questions about how ...
more >> we express, control, manipulate, or simulate feelings in our own society, A World of Emotions: Ancient Greece, 700 BC–200 AD is a path-breaking exhibition.
1:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams. A former neurosurgeon embarks on a journey ...
more >> of healing only to be drawn into the world of the mystic arts. 115 min.
1:00 pm
free, no reservation required
The Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies presents its first annual Graduate Student Fellows Symposium, ...
more >> confronting contemporary capitalism, examining the ways in which the dynamics of accumulation, dispossession, and social reproduction shape – and are shaped by – the movements of people, substances, and ideas.
1:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
1:30 pm
free, no reservation required
Beginner lessons with masters from Manhattan Fencing Center. Take a stab at the modern sport of fencing. ...
more >> No prior experience needed and equipment is provided. Must be 16 or older to participate.
Stars: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore. Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers ...
more >> go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action. 149 min.
1:30 pm
free, no reservation required
Looking for some excitement on a Friday afternoon? Join the adult art class. Come and let your creativity ...
more >> flow while meeting others that share your love for art. For April, they will be playing with clay creating coil and pinch pots. *Supplies provided * Wear clothing you dont mind getting messy.
New York City is a mecca for graffiti and street art, making it a very attractive playground for artists ...
more >> from around the world. Bushwick, in a working class district on the north side of Brooklyn adjacent to Williamsburg, has been attracting artists for some time now. The neighborhood has a fair collection of art studios and galleries, but it’s Bushwick’s industrial landscape that’s attracting the street artist. If you came looking for 1960′s Greenwich Village, you’ll find something brewing in Bushwick. Tour takes place Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Victor McLaglen. In 19th century India, three British soldiers and ...
more >> a native waterbearer must stop a secret mass revival of the murderous Thuggee cult before it can rampage across the land. 117 min.
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Greenwich Village is among Manhattan's most desirable and expensive residential neighborhoods. It's history, ...
more >> however, betrays it's monied status. The Village, with it's quiet, shaded streets, lined with lovely brick and brownstone townhouses, was once the incubating ground of artistic, social and political movements that have helped shape US history. From the Beats to the Folk Movement, from workers rights to gay rights, the Village has often been the center of it all.
Although world famous, Harlem may be New York's best kept secret with some of the city's best architecture, ...
more >> food, music and people. Harlem's history is also one of the city's most dramatic, having gone through many ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic changes over the past roughly 400 years, which have resulted in a diverse array of places of worship, theaters, homes and eating establishments. This tour takes place daily.
You've seen the iconic skyscrapers, attended a Broadway show, visited Lady Liberty and relaxed in Central ...
more >> Park. Looking for a little more of the Big Apple? Maybe it's time to visit some of Manhattan's oldest and most enchanting historic districts. Take a relaxing stroll through SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown.
Stars: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson. A divorcee becomes entangled in a missing persons ...
more >> investigation that promises to send shockwaves throughout her life. 112 min.
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
***THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED*** It's never too early (and, conversely, never too late) to address ...
more >> your retirement needs. Don't procrastinate! Learn what you should be doing to take control of your financial future by attending this workshop on retirement planning for women.
3:00 pm
free, no reservation required
What does it feel like to live in a nation at war? This talk will explore Romantic investigations of ...
more >> complicity, shame, and responsibility at the turn of the nineteenth century in England. Poetic and political texts by Anna Barbauld, William Blake, Charlotte Smith, and Percy Shelley suggest that, along with nationalism and pride in one’s country, war brought shame, embarrassment, discomfort, and what Blake called “awkwardness arm’d.” These writers repeatedly turn to poetic figures that link blood shed on the landscape and blood that rises to the cheeks of civilians to articulate an experience of blushing for one’s nation. These figures of borrowed blushing evoke a communal wartime awkwardness and shame that attaches to landscape and cityscape rather than to any single person. With: Lily Gurton-Wachter, Smith College.
4:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Kako Miura, Violin 4 p.m. Duanduan Hao, Piano 6 p.m. Seth Biagini, Cello 6 p.m. Robert Fleitz, ...
more >> Piano 8 p.m. Martin Jaffe, Jazz Double Bass 8 p.m.
4:00 pm
free, no reservation required
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Chamber Music Concert II 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Chamber Music Concert VI 7:30 PM - 9:30 ...
more >> PM Electronic Music Concert 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM Fuchs Competition Winners' Concert
4:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
The 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution in 2017, coming in the wake of the recent 60th anniversary ...
more >> of the 1955 Bandung Conference on Afro-Asian cooperation, provides an important occasion to reassess the revolutions of the past for a better understanding of the contradictions of global capitalism in our own time. Three distinguished scholars, Wang Hui (Tsinghua University, Beijing), Susan Buck-Morss (The Graduate Center, CUNY), and Harry Harootunian (NYU) will join faculty in a public conversation to reflect on the multifarious legacies of the Russian revolution. How did the Russian Revolution give rise to distinctive vocabularies of the political universal that traveled and took shape in distinctive locales? What challenges did this pose for thinking political subjectivities through labor, migration, war and social upheavals? And how do such global movements emend the theory and history of Marxism?
4:00 pm
free, no reservation required
An event bringing filmmakers working on Turkey and Egypt together to share and discuss their projects ...
more >> utilizing video and archive for strategic resistance. Speakers will share their experiences with the audience and engage in a useful debate about tactical mediation. 5:00 PM: Screening Audience Emancipated: The Struggle for Emek Theater, Emek is ours, Istanbul is ours 6:00-8:00 Panel, Mosireen: Sherief Gaber Filming Revolution: Alisa Lebow Audience Emancipated: Elif Refig Moderator: Salma Shamel, Design Studies M.A. student
5:00 pm
free, no reservation required
This course will cover the basic features of the iPad. Learn the basics of navigating between apps, changing ...
more >> settings, how to customize your tablet, and much more.
5:30 pm Nathaniel Bellows - Literary singer-songwriter 6:05 pm Sarah Factor (pictured) - Indie folk pop ...
more >> 6:40 pm Carolann Solebello - New York Americana
5:30 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
"Poe: Animated" is a screening of animated short films based on Edgar Allan Poe's short stories presented ...
more >> by Lois Rakoff, Community Director of the Poe Room.
Arianna is nineteen years old and still has not had her first menstrual cycle. Despite the fact that ...
more >> her breasts have become slightly enlarged, which causes her some discomfort, the hormones her gynecologist prescribed for her do not seem to be helping with her maturation. One summer her parents decide to take her back to the lake house in Bolsena where they all used to go on vacation. While staying in the house, old memories start to come back to Arianna and like pieces of a puzzle, start to slowly fall into place. 84 min. In Italian with English subtitles.
With the personal insight of The Empathy Exams, the societal exposal of Nickel and Dimed, and the stylistic ...
more >> innovation and intensity of her own break-out debut novel Binary Star, Sarah Gerard’s Sunshine State uses the intimately personal to unearth the deep reservoirs of humanity buried in the corners of our world often hardest to face.
6:00 pm
free, no reservation required
The Cimrman English Theatre is a group of 6 English-speaking actors living in the Czech Republic dedicated ...
more >> to performing the works of Jára Cimrman. Cimrman is a fictitious character of a Czech genius, who lived at the turn of the 19th century and who is dear to every Czech heart. Czechs are so proud of him that in 2005 he won a nationwide poll for the greatest Czech.
6:30 pm
Donations requested
Readings by guest author Jenny Zhang and student contributors to the Creative Writing Program’s undergraduate ...
more >> literary journal. Jenny Zhang is the author of Sour Heart (Lenny, 2017).
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
Featuring exciting musicians and speakers, the roadshow will entertain, inspire and provide opportunities ...
more >> for everyone to help fight Trump's disastrous environmental policies and attacks on Native Americans, including the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Faculty member Weng explores the composer’s relationship with the narrative journey and the transformative ...
more >> emotional arch of multi-movement works in a program of solo piano works by Schubert and Schumann.
A “sharp” and “scintillating” (Publishers Weekly) debut collection of poetry, selected by Eugene ...
more >> Gloria as a winner of the National Poetry Series
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
When Janelle relocates to Texas for the opportunity of a lifetime, she and her partner, Kane, are reminded ...
more >> that the consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be horrific. For three Waller County police officers, how might those same consequences manifest themselves along racialized and gendered lines? graveyard shift, loosely inspired by the legacy of Sandra Bland, is a love story about collision, opposing ideologies, interests, truth, and how the characters in this play make sense of them. Or don't.
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
A renaissance is taking place on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Since the terrorist attacks of ...
more >> September 11th 2001, a concerted effort has been undertaken to redevelop this part of the city, with the redevelopment of the World Trade Center and the construction of the National September 11th Memorial and Museum. And from twilight into the night is the right time to pay a visit to this part of New York City. From the Memorial to the Woolworth Building, City Hall to the Brooklyn Bridge, some of the your most memorable experiences in the city await you.
Editor's Pick
The ghosts of Greenwich Village are too numerous and interesting to meet in just one evening! Due to ...
more >> popular demand, they are offering a new tour, “Ghosts of the East Village,” as a companion tour to one of their biggest crowd-pleasers, Ghosts of the West Village.
7:30 pm
Free plus subway...
Editor's Pick
24-year-old pianist and composer Namoradze, whose performances have been hailed by critics as “sparkling… ...
more >> sensitive and coloristic” (New York Times) and “simply gorgeous” (Wall Street Journal), has given recitals at prestigious venues in several countries around the world. He has appeared as a soloist with renowned orchestras and conductors in Europe and the United States, and his performances in Hungary, Georgia, Spain and the US have been broadcast on radio and television. His compositions have been commissioned and performed by leading artists and festivals in the United States.
7:30 pm
free, no reservation required
With explosive salsa dura arrangements of indie rock favorites, this 11-piece band will keep the dance ...
more >> floor packed all night long.
7:30 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
TheEdwardMorganBallet will be honoring Earth Day and planting seeds of awareness with performances of ...
more >> The Creation. The performance is choreographed by Edward Morgan, former principal of the original Joffrey Ballet NYC, director of Joffrey II, choreographer of the television show ClubMTV, and now choreographer of his own ballet company TheEdwardMorganBallet, under the direction of Joseph Alexander. The New York Times has hailed TheEdwardMorganBallet as “luminous, joyous dance.” Lynne Charnay (pictured) and Celestiena Trower, will make special appearances with a dance installation by artist Joyce Yamada.
An intern talks her way into an interview at a startup to escape a job she originally acquired because ...
more >> she lied about her gender, only to discover that her current employer is a co-owner – and her biggest competition is her own male alter-ego.