free things to do in New York City
Free events for Tuesday, 12/12/23
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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 December 12, 2023?

35 free events take place on Tuesday, December 12 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 December 12 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 December . 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!

35 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Tuesday, December 12, 2023

All events are free unless otherwise noted.

Editor's Picks

free events nyc Noon Holiday Concert
free events nyc New York City Opera Singers Perform Christmas Carols and Holiday Favorites
free events nyc Fascism in America: Past and Present (in-person and online)
free events nyc The Mendelssohn Glee Club's Annual Winter Holiday Concert
free events nyc The Violin of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
More Editor's Picks for 12/12/23
        

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


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 Holiday Lights Tour
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:00 am
Free

Workshop | Adult Zumba


Exercise in disguise! Join in on the fun featuring easy-to-follow Latin dance choreography while working on your balance, coordination and range of motion. Bring your friends and come prepared for enthusiastic instruction, a little strength training and a lot of fun.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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10:30 am
Free

Concert | Noon Holiday Concert


Featuring pianist/singer/composer Joseph Ittoop joined by singer Sarah Ittoop.
   New York City, NY; NYC
12:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Bach at Noon (In Person and Online)


Take a momentary respite from a busy day to enjoy a selection of organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach in an intimate venue.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:20 pm
Free

Concert | Holiday Caroling with The Broadway Carolers


With over 25 years of experience, Broadway Carolers perform across the region and are committed to bringing light into people’s lives during the holiday season. They have performed at houses and apartments, parks and country clubs, and NYC landmarks.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free

Concert | Holiday Harmonies


Featuring: The guitar duo Aerial Acoustics has been delighting audiences for over 25 years with their spirited original and cover instrumentals. Described as “electrifyingly acoustic,” Dorothy Wagner and Dennis Smith play complex arrangements of classic tunes, as well as original compositions, infused with elements of rock, jazz, classical and Spanish guitar. Ilya Shneyveys (accordion) and Jake Shulman-Ment (violin) are two of the leading contemporary musicians breathing new life into old-world klezmer, the celebratory music of East European Jews. This performance for Hanukkah will be filled with soulful Hasidic spirituals and rollicking dance melodies.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free

Classical Music | Lunchtime Organ Concert


The Gabe Wiener Foundation presents Bruno Bergamini performing on the organ.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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12:30 pm
Free

Film | Home Alone (1990) with Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Catherine O'Hara


When bratty 8-year-old Kevin McCallister acts out the night before a family trip to Paris, his mother makes him sleep in the attic. After the McCallisters mistakenly leave for the airport without Kevin, he awakens to an empty house and assumes his wish to have no family has come true. But his excitement sours when he realizes that two con men plan to rob the McCallister residence, and that he alone must protect the family home. Director: Chris Columbus Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, Roberts Blossom, Catherine O'Hara Macaulay Culkin is an American actor. One of the most successful child actors of the 1990s, Culkin rose to prominence as a child actor starring as Kevin McCallister in the first two films of the Home Alone film series (1990 and 1992), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. He also starred in the films My Girl (1991), The Good Son (1993), The Nutcracker (1993), Getting Even with Dad (1994), The Pagemaster (1994), and Richie Rich (1994). Joe Pesci is an American actor known for portraying tough, volatile characters in a variety of genres and for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in the films Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Irishman (2019). Pesci won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the gangster character Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas and received two other nominations in the same category for his portrayals of Joey LaMotta and Russell Bufalino in Raging Bull and The Irishman, respectively. Catherine O'Hara is a Canadian-American actress and comedian. She is known for her comedy work on Second City Television (1976-84) and Schitt's Creek (2015-2020) and in films such as After Hours (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and the first two installments of the Home Alone franchise (1990-1992). 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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1:00 pm
Free

Talk | Artist Talk: The Performance of Masculinity (in-person and online)


Kenneth Tam is an artist based in Houston, Texas, and Queens, New York. Tam received his BFA from the Cooper Union and his MFA from the University of Southern California. Tam works with video, sculpture, installation, movement, performance and photography. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, he examines themes including the performance of masculinity, the transformative potential of ritual and expressions of intimacy within groups. Tam often implicates the male body in his projects, using humor and pathos to reveal the performative and unstable nature of identity and often creates situations that foreground tenderness and vulnerability within unlikely settings. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Discussion | The Artists Roundtable (online)


A talk with Ragnar Kjartansson, an artist who engages multiple artistic mediums, creating video installations, performances, drawings and paintings that draw upon myriad historical and cultural references. An underlying pathos and irony connect his works, with each deeply influenced by the comedy and tragedy of classical theater. Kjartasnsson blurs the distinctions between mediums, approaching his painting practice as performance, likening his films to paintings, and his performances to sculpture.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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3:00 pm
Free

Workshop | Glowy Game Night


Enjoy a night of friendly competition with LED games that add a unique twist to classic favorites. Keep the party going at our glowy game night with a round of foosball, ping pong, and other fun activities. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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4:30 pm
Free

Jazz | Creating New Music Jazz Ensemble


Led by award-winning trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas, this performance class involves all the elements of creative music practice: from conception of ideas, to composition, notation, and rehearsal techniques. All participants will perform as instrumentalists in the ensemble and compose new works for other ensemble members.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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5:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Arthur and Lilly: The Girl and the Holocaust Survivor


What do a 75-year-old Los Angeles-based rocket engineer and an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Austria have in common? Not much at first glance, but Arthur and Lilly influenced each other’s lives in a fateful way. When Arthur Kern knocked on the door of the house where he grew up as a boy in Vienna, Austria, an eleven year old girl opened. Neither of them knew that this chance encounter would change both of their lives forever. In 1939, Arthur‘s Jewish parents sent their son abroad on a so-called Kindertransport (“children’s transport”), hoping to save him from the Holocaust. The separation is a traumatic experience for the ten-year-old. Although he is rescued – from Austria via France to the USA – his family is murdered by the Nazis. He never sees them again. Sixty-five years later: During a visit to his parents‘ former apartment in Vienna, Austria, Arthur Kern – by now a retired rocket engineer involved in the moon landing – meets eleven-year-old Lilly Maier. A decisive encounter for both of them, which not only shapes Lilly’s further life, but also leads to Arthur receiving a long-lost legacy from his parents. Lilly Maier's book is a moving tale of two lives that fatefully cross paths, and an immensely knowledgeable insight into an unknown Holocaust story: the rescue of hundreds of Jewish children to America on a Kindertransport.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Poetry Reading | Sibilance: Poems Filled with Wordplay


The word "sibilance" refers to pronunciations of the letter "s," including the emission of a hissing or whistling sound. As the title of Sally Van Doren's fourth collection of poetry, the word alerts readers to the sounds of language in the poems that follow in abecedarian order. Filled with wordplay, Van Doren's poems vacillate between the extremes of joy and despair, by turns witty and chagrined, punning and reflective.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
$5

Jazz | Jazz Orchestra


MSM Jazz Repertory Orchestra; Jon Faddis, Conductor.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Liederabend (In-Person and Online)


Shelén Hughes, Soprano; Michał Skowronek, Piano; Shavon Lloyd, Baritone; Marianna Vartikian, Piano; Kate Morton, Mezzo-Soprano; Zoey Zhou, Piano; Younggwang Park, Bass; Joanne Chang, Piano; Leonor Vasconcelos Rodrigues, Soprano; Saul Ibarra Ramos, Piano; Adriana Stepien, Soprano; Lohan Park, Piano; Michael Butler, Tenor; Joanne Chang, Piano.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | New York City Opera Singers Perform Christmas Carols and Holiday Favorites


Kathryn Olander, Music Director and pianist; A quartet of singers from New York City Opera (Kate Fruchterman, soprano; Kristee Haney, mezzo-soprano; Victor Starsky, tenor; Rocky Sellers, bass); LaGuardia High School Show Choir directed by Jeanne Cascio, perform iconic Christmas carols and holiday favorites, accompanied by a brass quintet featuring artists from New York City Opera Orchestra.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
Free

Open Studios | Open Studios


Students show their work and greet visitors.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Workshop | Play bridge in a stress-free environment


One of the most popular card games of the last century, bridge is still enjoyed by professional and amateur players alike today - and now you can stop by and enjoy it too! Bring your bridge partner, or you will be matched up with someone to play as a pair. There will be instructions and the chance to observe players, making this a perfect event for beginners looking to learn how to play bridge.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:00 pm
Free

Discussion | The Art of Digital Manipulation (online)


An evening of conversation between artist Jason Salavon and host and producer of "Art Sense" Craig Gould. Together, they aim to explore the intricate connections between art, digital manipulation, and artificial intelligence, offering both a retrospective and visionary outlook on the evolving landscape of art. Salavon lives and works in Chicago and runs the forward-thinking Salavon Lab at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His notable accolades, such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, highlight his enduring impact on the art world. His artwork, resonating with themes of identity, memory, and the nature of reality, stand as a testament to the transformative power of digital manipulation in the modern age.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Fascism in America: Past and Present (in-person and online)


A timely new book on the history of fascism in the United States from the 1930s to today. Co-editors Gavriel Rosenfeld and Janet Ward will lead a panel discussion featuring many of the volume's contributors, including Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Anna Duensing, Linda Gordon, Alexander Reid Ross, Ousmane Power-Greene, Matthew Specter, Richard Steigmann-Gall, and Thomas Weber. After the program, there will be a light reception.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:30 pm
Pay-what-you-wish

Tour | Hanukkah in the Tenements Tour (online)


Did they spin the dreidel in 1910? What does it take to fry a latke in a tenement apartment? For Jewish tenement residents of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, Hanukkah was a much smaller holiday than it is today, but one still full of traditional foods and rituals. This is a virtual holiday tour exploring how the Rogarshevsky and Confino families might have celebrated the holiday in the 1910s. From the Rogarshevsky's Eastern European Ashkenazi traditions to the Confino's Sephardic ones, explore this moment when Hanukkah grew in popularity and importance in the United States.
   New York City, NY; NYC
6:30 pm
Free

Workshop | Origami Meetup


OMG NYC (Origami Meetup Group! New York City) is a group for people to come together and share in the beautiful art of Origami - an ancient art of folding various mediums, most commonly paper. The word comes from the combination of the Japanese verb oru (to fold) and the noun kami (paper). Other materials often folded are fabric, wire mesh, sheet metal, tissue, thin plastic, cardboard, and straws.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free

Screening | Screening and Book Presentation on Trans Issues


Screening: Summer Within (2019, Documentary, USA, 23 min.) Directed by Summer Minerva and Adam Golub In this autobiographical documentary, a trans dancer from Staten Island struggles to find belonging in her Italian American community. She journeys to Southern Italy and encounters an ancient transgender tradition. The film weaves Minerva's personal quest for self-understanding and deeper knowledge of her Italian heritage with a broader narrative about the femminielli, a type of "third gender" people who are revered in southern Italy for performing rituals meant to bring luck to the community, and fulfilling traditionally feminine roles like childcare. Followed by the book presentation of: Italian Trans Geographies (SUNY Press, 2023) Edited by Danila Cannamela, Colby College; Marzia Mauriello, University of Naples L'Orientale; and Summer Minerva, author, filmmaker, and activist How does the mapping of Italian culture change when it is charted from the perspective of gender-variant people? This book tackles this question by retracing trans and gender-variant experiences within the Italian peninsula and along diasporic routes. The volume adopts a cross-disciplinary approach that combines scholarly analyses with grassroots engagement and creative work and centers the voices of Italian and Italian American transpeople through autobiographies, memoirs, interviews, poetry, and visual works. Contributions include works by key Italian trans activists as well as critical interpretations of scholars and artists (many of whom self-identify as trans). Ultimately, these voices show how trans people have contributed to shaping Italian places and cultures while, in turn, being shaped by those places and cultures. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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6:30 pm
Free

Book Discussion | Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South


Author Elizabeth R. Varon presents a long-overdue thorough re-evaluation of an American hero. It was the most remarkable political about-face in American history. During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously for the Confederacy. He was alongside Lee at Gettysburg (and counseled him not to order the ill-fated attacks on entrenched Union forces there). He won a major Confederate victory at Chickamauga and was seriously wounded during a later battle. After the war Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed course. He supported Black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial state militia, did battle against former Confederates. His defiance ignited a firestorm of controversy, as white Southerners branded him a race traitor and blamed him retroactively for the South’s defeat in the Civil War.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | The Great Gimmelmans: Clan on the Run


Welcome Lee Matthew Goldberg for a discussion of his new novel in which middle child Aaron Gimmelman watches as his family goes from a mild-mannered reform Jewish clan to having over a million dollars of stolen money stuffed in their RV's cabinets while being pursued by the FBI and loan sharks.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:00 pm
Free

Book Discussion | The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia's Jews on the Eve of World War I (online)


Bestselling historian Steven Ujifusa tells the largely forgotten, colorful story of three remarkable businessmen who, driven by very different motives, made much of this immigration possible and forever changed the fate of millions. They were: Jacob Schiff, managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line who created a transportation network of trains and steamships; and the notorious J.P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine trust who tried to take over the lucrative steamship business. With often contradictory goals, these titans of industry forged powerful alliances and compelling rivalries.
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
$10 suggested donation...

Concert | The Mendelssohn Glee Club's Annual Winter Holiday Concert


Including music of the season and works by Brahms, Gershwin, Randall Thompson, Prokofiev, Cy Coleman & Dorothy Fields, Rachmaninoff, Peter Yarrow, Scriabin, Meredith Willson, Tchaikovsky, Mel Torme, Tom Lehrer Guest artist: Alexandra Beliakovich, pianist Champagne reception to follow the concert.
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | The Violin of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


A presentation of and a concert with the original violin of Wolfang Amadeus Mozart. Learn more about this musical instrument which was built by Pietro Antonio dalla Costa in Italy in 1764 and listen to its sound. Tomas Restrepo Cardona and Santiago Avila Salazar, two musicians of the Orquestra Iberacademy, will perform 12 Duets K. Anh. 152 for 2 violins composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Works by Mozart and More


Young artists of Mannes and The School of Drama of the College of Performing Arts of The New School; and William Gustafson, Director, perform opera selections and instrumental music by Josef Myslivecek's (1737-1781) and Mozart (1756-1791).
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Works by Mozart and More (In Person AND Online)


Khoi Dinh, flute; Jacks Pollard, oboe; Taig Egan, clarinet; Carys Sutherland, horn; Bobby Thompson, bassoon; Coco Mi, violin; Gabrielle Couillard-Despres, violin; Jeremy Klein, viola; Julia Lee, cello. Program Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), Wind Quintet, op. 43 Mozart (1756-91), String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 495
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free

Discussion | Year in Jazz Critics Roundtable


Organized and moderated by WRTI's editorial director Nate Chinen, The Year in Jazz is a panel discussion about the music, the artists, and the moments that shaped jazz in 2023.
   New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free

Classical Music | Percussion Ensemble Works (In Person AND Online)


Percussion Ensemble; Daniel Druckman, Director. Program Mark-Anthony Turnage (b. 1960), New England Etudes Tonia Ko (b. 1988), Real Voices and Imagined Clatter Charles Wuorinen (1938-2020), Second Percussion Symphony
   New York City, NY; NYC
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7:30 pm
Free

Classical Music | Trumpet Works by Mahler and More (In Person AND Online)


David Green, Trumpet. Program Jean Françaix (1912-1997), Sonatine Mahler (1860-1911), Leider eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) Vladimir Peskin (!906-1988), Trumpet Concerto No. 1 in C Minor
   New York City, NY; NYC
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8:00 pm
Free

Jazz | Vocal Blues Ensemble


The blues is the foundation of almost all jazz. This ensemble will express the understanding of the blues in its many guises, interpret the blues with feeling, and apply its patterns and moods to their own improvisations.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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8:00 pm
Free
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to shows, concerts ... (CFT Deals!)

Musical | Award-Winning Comedy at One of the Major NYC Theaters

Regular Price: $64
CFT Member Price: $0.00

Classical Music | Opera and Orchestral Works at a Landmark Venue

Regular Price: $45
CFT Member Price: $0.00
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