free things to do in New York City
Free events for Monday, 04/17/23
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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 April 17, 2023?

30 free events take place on Monday, April 17 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 April 17 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 April . 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!

30 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Monday, April 17, 2023

All events are free unless otherwise noted.

Editor's Picks

free events nyc An Eclectic Afternoon of Jazz (In Person and Online)
free events nyc Dance on Film: One & One Other: a bizarre play between reality and absurdist fantasy (online thru Apr 24)
free events nyc How To Cover Antisemitism (And How Not To)
free events nyc Grease, Tell Me More, Tell Me More: Stories from the Broadway Phenomenon That Started It All
free events nyc Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence (in-person and online)
More Editor's Picks for 04/17/23
        

Birdwatching | NYS Birding Trail


Naturalists tell you more about The New York State Birding Trail which highlights world-class birding opportunities across the state. Together, you will explore the parks of BPC, and see what makes this spot a hang-out for urban birds and marvelous migrators! Binoculars and field guides provided, or bring your own.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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9:30 am
Free

Tour | 13 Tours, All City Neighborhoods, Any Time Of The Day, Choose One Tour Or Many


These free tours take place at various times during the day, all day long. You can make reservations for as many tours as your schedule allows. SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights + DUMBO 3 Hour Lower Manhattan Harlem Chelsea and the High Line 6 Hour Downtown Combined Greenwich Village Central Park Lower Manhattan Midtown Manhattan Grand Central Terminal Graffiti and Street Art Tours World Trade Center
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:00 am
Free

Tour | Tour of Gracie Mansion, Home of New York's Mayors


In 1799, a prosperous New York merchant named Archibald Gracie built a country house overlooking a bend in the East River, five miles north of the then-New York City limits. Little did he know that, more than 200 years later, his home would be serving as the official residence of the First Family of New York City - a place where history is made, not merely recorded. As a historic house museum run by the Parks Department, sitting on 11 acres of grounds now known as Carl Schurz Park, Gracie Mansion has served as the home of 11 mayors, beginning first with Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia in 1942. Start times: 10:30am, 12pm, 1:30pm
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:30 am
Free

Lecture | Early Israeli and American Artists: Re-visioning the Holocaust (online)


Goorgetown University professor Ori Z Soltes speaks about Israeli and American artists not typically thought of as focusing on the Holocaust. Soltes focuses on three Israeli and three American familiar and unfamiliar artists working in very diverse styles and not typically thought of as focusing on the Holocaust. Each of them, however, has offered powerful reflections on the defining catastrophe of the twentieth century.
   New York City, NY; NYC
12:00 pm
Free

Workshop | Juggling in the Park


Jugglers use the park throughout the year to provide free classes to the public. Stop by for a quick lesson, stay for the whole time, or just enjoy watching them put their skills to the test. They're a friendly group and open to drop-ins, even if you catch them outside of the regular juggling lessons. All skill levels welcome. Equipment is provided.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Lecture | The Last Word: Defendants’ Final Statements as the Opportunity for Free Speech in Russia (in-person and online)


In recent years and, particularly, in recent months in Russia, a distinct oral/literary genre has re-emerged — the “final statement” of a defendant.   Paradoxically, the “cage” in a court room (in today’s Russia, the accused are put in a bullet-proof glass booth) appears as the only remaining place where a person can still speak freely. Thus, it can be said, without exaggeration, that the courtroom, where people are tried for dissent, is a last bastion of freedom of speech in today’s Russia.  And the voices that reach us, despite the obstacles, help the external world to understand the conditions in which people live under Putinism. We explore the final statements delivered by women. Women’s resistance is directed not only against the political system in today’s Russia, but also against the patriarchal way of life, which support this system. Because of this, women are more vulnerable and, as a result, their political statements frequently are more radical than their male counterparts’.  A lonely female voice stands up against the omnipresent violence. Speaker Anna Narinskaya is a Russian journalist, curator, documentary filmmaker and playwright. She has worked in Russia’s most influential media since the late nineties, notably as a special correspondent for Kommersant newspaper, covering cultural and social issues, and as a literary editor. After Russia annexed Crimea, censorship intensified and the media, linked to the state and big money, could no longer afford freedom of expression. Narinskaya then moved to fully independent media. She worked at «Novaya Gazeta” daily and the Dozhd TV channel.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Change Starts with Me: Talking About Race in the Elementary Classroom


Author Madeleine Rogin has been an educator of young children for over 15 years. After teaching kindergarten for over a decade in the Bay Area, Madeleine recently became the Program Director at Step One School, a preschool for children ages 2-5, in Berkeley, CA. Madeleine received national recognition for developing the Peaceful Changemakers Curriculum as a way of teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. and social justice to young children.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free

Jazz | An Eclectic Afternoon of Jazz (In Person and Online)


Jazz concert at an intimate venue featuring Winard Harper and Jeli Posse.
   New York City, NY; NYC
1:00 pm
Free

Talk | Meet the Beekeeper


A presentation and talk led by Alveole beekeepers at the Battery Park City hive. Learn about the importance of urban beekeeping and its benefit to sustainability efforts in BPC and throughout the city.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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1:30 pm
Free

Master Class | Master Class with Works by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert (In Person AND Online)


Piano Master Class With András Schiff: Ryan Zhu, piano; Bo Zhang, piano; and Sarah Tuan, piano. Program J.S. Bach (1685-1750), English Suite No. 6 in D Minor, BWV 811 Beethoven (1770-1827), Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78 Schubert (1797-1828), Sonata in B Major, D. 575
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Poetry Reading | Poet Caridad de la Luz


Bronx-based poet Caridad de la Luz will perform a live reading of her works. Caridad De La Luz is a multi-faceted performer known as “La Bruja,” who was selected as a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship 2019-2021 and was a finalist for the highly competitive 2021 David Prize. She is considered one of America’s leading spoken word poets and was named one of the "Top 20 Puerto Rican Women Everyone Should Know.” Caridad was awarded the Puerto Rican Women Legacy Award, The Edgar Allan Poe Award for excellence in writing from The Bronx Historical Society and has been titled a Bronx Living Legend, along with a Citation of Merit from the Bronx Borough President. She has performed in venues such as The Apollo, Lincoln Center, Gracie Mansion, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, City Hall, and in venues internationally.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Lecture | Anti-Fascism and the Avant-Garde Documentary: From Dziga Vertov to Matsumoto Toshio


In 2009, Japanese art historian Oishi Masahiko argued that Matsumoto Toshio’s unabashedly queer, fervently experimental quasi-documentary Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) was the true inheritor of Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s avant-garde documentary Man with a Movie Camera (1929). This talk delves more fully into this comparison and explores the curious lineage connecting these two documentary filmmakers and film theorists. This talk explores how both films, with their experimental montage and abundance of editing tricks, served an inherently counter-hegemonic and antifascist function through their desire to liberate human perception. First, it explains how Vertov’s theory of filmmaking practice could be interpreted as revolutionary phenomenology. The talk then traces the trajectory of the avant-garde documentary from the Soviet 1920s to the Japanese 1960s, well known for being a “season of politics.” Fittingly, the films of this era are revolutionary in form as well as content: they are extremely stylistically varied, revealing a wealth of experimentation unmatched since then in Japanese film history. Yet this is not a simple case of influence, as Vertov’s films and theories were yet not very available in the Japanese context. This talk pairs two seemingly disparate eras and areas to demonstrate how both were engaged in a fervently transnational exploration of documentary film form as inherently political—anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and indeed anti-fascist—which served to liberate individual and collective consciousness. The avant-garde documentary form spoke to the zeitgeist of the counter-cultural 1960s by prioritizing surrealism, the questioning of assumed truths, and a reinvigoration of leftist thought.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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4:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | 2 Books on Music Media in Africa: Media of the Masses / Recording History (online)


Andrew Simon, Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt This book investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Over the 1970s and 1980s, cassettes became a ubiquitous presence in Egyptian homes and stores. Audiocassette technology gave an opening to ordinary individuals, from singers to smugglers, to challenge state-controlled Egyptian media. Enabling an unprecedented number of people to participate in the creation of culture and circulation of content, cassette players and tapes soon informed broader cultural, political, and economic developments and defined "modern" Egyptian households. Christopher Silver, Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth Century North Africa A new history of twentieth-century North Africa, that gives voice to the musicians who defined an era and the vibrant recording industry that carried their popular sounds from the colonial period through decolonization. If twentieth-century stories of Jews and Muslims in North Africa are usually told separately, this book demonstrates that we have not been listening to what brought these communities together: Arab music. For decades, thousands of phonograph records flowed across North African borders. The sounds embedded in their grooves were shaped in large part by Jewish musicians, who gave voice to a changing world around them.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Dance Performance | Dance on Film: One & One Other: a bizarre play between reality and absurdist fantasy (online thru Apr 24)


In a bizarre play between reality and absurdist fantasy, One & One Other is a dance film offering a window into the secret world that exists on the fringes of our late-night consciousness. At the heart of the film is the mind's ability to transport us away from the mundane, habitual rhythm of life into the incongruous realm of our imagination; a place that oscillates between the fantastic and the harrowing. One & One Other is Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern and Emilie Leriche's fifth collaboration together, driven by a shared ambition to push the boundaries of film and dance and uncover how the two media might meet, intersect, and disrupt each other.
   New York City, NY; NYC
5:00 pm
Free

Discussion | How To Cover Antisemitism (And How Not To)


As attacks on American Jews become more widespread, journalists are faced with the challenge of accurately depicting what is often called "the oldest hatred." Three journalists will share their perspectives and experiences in reporting on this complex phenomenon.
   New York City, NY; NYC
5:00 pm
Free

Lecture | Data Engines: The Allure of Automating China’s Soil and Soul (in-person and online)


In this talk, Silvia Lindtner will draw from ethnographic research she has conducted over the last 14 months across two sites in China: 1) small-scale businesses that center on alternative food and spiritual practices via life in nature and the countryside and 2) large-scale, data-driven agricultural experiments at the outskirts of major urban centers. Prof. Lindtner will discuss how these two sites interact for the implementation of two recent state policies on “rural revitalization” and “national strengthening.” These policies are aimed at reinvesting into China’s “hinterlands:” from rural farmland to people’s most inner selves. They position data-driven techniques of automation, surveillance technology, and smart systems as key to the state’s ability to manage life that has partially escaped the state’s reach. And they call upon China's youths who have turned away from the city to live and work in China’s countryside to co-produce what she calls “data engines,” i.e. a participatory form of techno-governance driven by an engineering mindset that aims to cultivate citizens as productive selves who operate on behalf of the party state and its ambition to build a “strong China” by turning inwards—China’s history, soil, and agriculture. Data engines, she shows, simultaneously enable, and slow down the automation of China’s soil and soul.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:30 pm
Free

Discussion | The Future of the International Monetary System


Remarks by Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan (March 2013 - April 2023) and dialogue with Alan S. Blinder, the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1994-1996).
   New York City, NY; NYC
5:30 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Environmentally Sustainable Growth: A Pragmatic Approach


The launch of Senior Vice Dean of the School of Professional Studies and Professor in the Practice of Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs Dr. Steven Cohen’s new book. Fellow academic Louise Rosen will interview Dr. Cohen about the content and context of the work. They will discuss what Dr. Cohen has learned in his many years of experience at the forefront of an ever-changing field and his vision for a path toward a sustainable future.  
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Opening Reception | Momar Seck: United Colors of Africa: Environments


Visual artist, painter and sculptor, Momar Seck is a citizen of the world and a transmitter of knowledge. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale des arts in Dakar in 1994, he received a scholarship from the Swiss Federal Commission for Culture for the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Geneva. He obtained a doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of Strasbourg in 2012. Momar Seck earned many awards including the UNESCO Prize for the promotion of visual arts.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Discussion | Willa Kim: Made in New York


Bobbi Owen, the curator behind The Wondrous Willa Kim exhibition, presents a close examination of Willa Kim's costumes in motion. See Kim's innovative designs made in New York, captured in performance footage from works preserved in theatre and dance moving image archives. Owen will be joined by special guests from Kim's life and career. The Wondrous Willa Kim celebrates the long and colorful career of costume designer Willa Kim in her first-ever major retrospective exhibition. The show features an assortment of designs and costumes from her long and prolific career, including work from productions like Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, The Will Rogers Follies, and her final Broadway show, Victor/Victoria, starring Julie Andrews. About the Speaker Bobbi Owen is professor emerita of dramatic art at the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she taught costume design and history, and author of a monograph of Kim's work published in 2005. Registration required.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Lecture | "Another Amsterdam": St. Petersburg and the Romanovs' Maritime Project in the 18th Century


Lecturer Alexei Kraikovski will present ideas, concepts and conclusions of his book, now submitted to Cambridge Oceanic Histories. His basic idea is to trace and discuss the efforts undertaken by the Russian imperial authorities in the 18th century to make Russia maritime as they understood it. In his research, Kraikovski expands traditional perspectives of this story, for centuries centered around the construction and use of battleships, to the more general concept of maritimity as a combination of social specificities used by the community to represent itself as maritime. From this perspective, apparently heterogeneous measures in various spheres, from shipbuilding to consumption, appear to be integral parts of larger undertakings Kraikovski defines as the Romanovs' maritime project of the 18th century. Inspired by complex and picturesque images of maritime future, based on the multilayered impressions from the observation of European, predominantly Dutch, maritimity, the Romanovs' maritime project was epitomized with the construction of St. Petersburg as a maritime metropolis, controlling the maritime economy, shipping, and the sociocultural perception of marine nature in the vast area from the Black Sea to Spitsbergen. Eventually, Kraikovski intends to place this story in the global perspective of Royal maritime projects of the 17th and 18th centuries. This was an important yet so far understudied aspect of the Early Modern Great Divergence. Trying to overcome the growing gap in prosperity and living standards, caused by the dramatic differences in the per capita GDP between the economic leaders of the Atlantic world and the rest of Europe, the rulers of Eastern and Central Europe (the Austrian Habsburgs, the Danish Oldenburgs, the Swedish and Polish Vasa, and the French Bourbons) tried to follow the examples of maritime leaders - England and the Netherlands with various methods, but equally unsuccessfully.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:30 pm
Free

Staged Reading | A Thousand Cranes: Drama About Abortion


In David Caudle's play, White GOP Texas Congressman Walt Woodhouse leaves the midterm campaign trail to be with his coed daughter, in a coma from a brutal attack. When the doctor urges the morning-after drug to prevent a pregnancy from rape, Walt faces a choice that could put him at odds with his family, his God and himself.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Grease, Tell Me More, Tell Me More: Stories from the Broadway Phenomenon That Started It All


What do John Travolta, Richard Gere, Marilu Henner, Patrick Swayze, Ilene Kristen, Treat Williams, Barry Bostwick, and Carole Demas have in common? In the new book, they tell you, in their own words, how their individual careers began in this historic Broadway musical which started in the basement of an old Trolly Barn in Chicago, became the longest running show in Broadway history, and went on to become a worldwide phenomenon, spawning a blockbuster Hollywood movie and continuous stage productions in nearly every language. Please join us for a special evening with Ken Waissman, original Broadway producer for Grease and co-author of the book. He will be joined by several original cast members.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:30 pm
Free

Film | Let's Kiss: Franco Grillini - History of a Gentle Revolution (2021): Gay Politician in Italy


A documentary about Franco Grillini, a somewhat late-blooming gay politician from Bologna, born in 1955 into a farming family, with a degree in education, who has always been active in the fight for the recognition of gay, lesbian, and transsexual civil rights. Through the story told directly by its protagonist, the biopic, with a light tone and using original documentary material, reconstructs over thirty years of political history, bearing witness to a tough and gentle fight in the name of dignity and equality. This journey – also a sentimental one – touches upon the places of Grillini's life: from his birth home in the country to his university, from the headquarters of old parties that no longer exist to Parliament, as well as in the streets and squares of Gay Pride parades, from Rome to New York. Directed by Filippo Vendemmiati 85 min. In Italian with English subtitles
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free

Lecture | Sasha Velour: Drag Manifesto (In Person AND Online)


Sasha Velour is an iconic queen. Turns out she's also a historian. Her new book is a treasure trove of revelations about radical queer expressions throughout time. The revered entertainer weaves together gender theory, politics, and memoir to tell the story of drag. She recalls her own journey, from the women who inspired and raised her to how she learned the craft of an artist (creating and styling her costumes out of nothing). Velour redefines drag for a new generation while uncovering the history of queer life that made it all possible. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free

Lecture | Urban Orishas: The City and Nature with Luzia Castañeda


This special Brazilian cultural event will feature the story of a Brazilian artist, scientist, and spiritual medium from Templo Guaracy da Umbanda, Luz Castañeda.  Urban Orishas is an artistic and cultural research that identifies Orishas based on the elements of Fire, Earth, Water, and Air in urban centers. Orishas are deeply rooted in the Yoruba and Umbanda mythologies and lore. Luz Castañeda will introduce some Orishas’ myths that guided her art and their qualities as a force of nature. For instance, Ogun is both the guardian of the world in the myths and the continuous movement of all natural phenomena.  When Luz arrived in New York in 2014, she began photographing the city to recognize her new home. Equipped with her knowledge of Afro-Brazilian traditions, especially Umbanda, Luz found in the streets and architecture of Manhattan such forces of nature: the city revealed its Orishas! The evening will also include a screening of the short documentary Urban Orishas (dir. Alex Minkin, 10 min, 2022), which peeks into the mysterious world of Umbanda ceremonies and allows viewers to observe Castañeda's creative process.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence (in-person and online)


As an orphaned survivor and witness to Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) became a torchbearer for victims and survivors of the Holocaust at a time when the world preferred to forget. How did this frail, soft-spoken man from a small village in the Carpathians become such an influential presence on the world stage? Drawing from Wiesel's writings and interviews with his family, close friends, scholars, and critics, Joseph Berger's new book presents Wiesel as both a revered Nobel laureate and a man of complex psychological texture and contradictions. Join YIVO for a discussion of this new book featuring Berger in conversation with Samuel Norich.
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free

Jazz | A Musical Statement on Climate Change


Combo Nuvo performs One World Suite. Combo Nuvo is a jazz ensemble created to explore the diverse experiences of musicians who have traveled across the globe, bringing their influences back home to Greenwich Village where they work and play. The brainchild of Dave Schroeder and Rich Shemaria, their premise was simple; let's combine our favorite music with our favorite musicians and see what happens. One World Suit is Combo Nuvo's musical statement on climate change, offering up an encouraging step in the right direction.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Dance Performance | Dance Works-in-Progress


A free, high visibility low-tech forum for experimentation, emerging ideas, and works-in-progress held in the Fall and Spring seasons. Artists are selected by a rotating committee of peer artists Featuring: Valentina Baché Rodriguez, Cayleen Del Rosario, Kensaku Shinohara
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Jazz | Saxophone Studio Concert


Paul Cohen, Director.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free
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Play | Drama with Broadway Actors

Regular Price: $77
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Classical Music | Choral Work by Haydn and More at a Landmark Venue

Regular Price: $59
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