31 free things to do in New York City (NYC) on Friday, November 2, 2018
All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Editor's Pick
These free tours take place at various times during the day, all day long. You can make reservations ...
more >> 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
Scientifically-based dance-exercise program. Gentle warm-up, light aerobics and targeted strengthening ...
more >> that is safe, fun and enjoyable for all.
New York City, NY; NYC
10:30 am
free, no reservation required
The Ma’aminim – the faithful – are the decedents of Sabbatian Jews who converted to Islam in the ...
more >> late 17th century, following in the footsteps of their messiah Sabbatai Tsevi. They formed secret communities in Ottoman Salonica and created a hybrid Messianic religion which combined reinterpretations of Kabbalistic sources as well as elements of Mystical Islam. This lecture will focus on the esoteric inner writings of the Ma’aminim and offer an interdisciplinary examination of their content and performance. Speaker Hadar Feldman Samet researches the lives and texts of the Sabbatean Ma’aminim, their syncretic religion, and the development of Sabbateanism, based on a corpus of approximately a thousand 18th- and 19th-century mystical and messianic liturgical poems, written in Ladino, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Ottoman-Turkish.
New York City, NY; NYC
10:30 am
free, no reservation required
Coloring is an activity we think of as being for kids. However, it can be beneficial for adults. Coloring ...
more >> helps us de-stress because when we focus on a particular activity, we focus on it and not on our worries. Coloring generates wellness, quietness and also stimulates brain areas related to motor skills, the senses and creativity.
New York City, NY; NYC
11:00 am
free, no reservation required
The organ works of J.S. Bach (1685-1750) offered in 30-minute meditations. Bach at Noon concerts take ...
more >> place every Tuesdays through Fridays, from September 11, 2018 to May 22, 2019.
New York City, NY; NYC
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 historians Peter Laskowich and Madeleine Levi. This tour takes place every Friday.
New York City, NY; NYC
12:30 pm
free, no reservation required
Evan Birch is a family man and esteemed professor at a distinguished university, where his charm and ...
more >> reputation have made his philosophy class very popular. When a female student named Joyce goes missing, Evan's previous off-campus dalliances make his wife questions his alibi. Gruff police Detective Malloy has even more reason to be suspicious when crucial evidence makes Evan the prime suspect in her disappearance. Directed by Simon Kaijser. Starring Minnie Driver, Guy Pearce. 100 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
1:00 pm
free, no reservation required
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.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Organist Donald R. Meineke serves as Cantor at The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity where ...
more >> he oversees the musical life of the Parish, conducts the Holy Trinity Parish Choir, curates an extensive concert series, and is Artistic Director of Bach Vespers featuring the renowned Bach Choir and Players. Weekly recitals showcasing the new organ, featuring New York City's leading organists.
New York City, NY; NYC
1:00 pm
free, no reservation required
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
The experimental form of John Dos Passos’s first major novel, the episodic, multilinear Manhattan Transfer ...
more >> (1925), has long been understood in connection with the montage techniques of avant-garde cinema. However, Dos Passos’s notes and drafts for the book reveal the ahistoricity of this analogy even as they offer up other spectatorial contexts for understanding its experimental form. With: Alix Beeston, Cardiff University
New York City, NY; NYC
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession is intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's ...
more >> 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book. Starring Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Chris Messina. 123 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
In the year leading up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of ...
more >> life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York. Starring Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor. 113 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
2:00 pm
free, no reservation required
A conversation with Kelly Anne Shaw, Trade Counsel, US House Committee on Ways and Means and Special ...
more >> Assistant to the President for International Trade, Investment and Development, and Elissa Alben, International Trade Counsel to the Senate Finance Committee.
New York City, NY; NYC
3:30 pm
free, no reservation required
This talk considers the ways in which legal reform unfolds as a palpable, if vague, “change in the ...
more >> air” in new zones of urban revitalization and port development in contemporary China. Drawing from various examples of air’s tactile circulation through the rezoned areas of coastal Fuzhou, it shows how redevelopment as filtered through “the rule of law” still politically and literally stinks for those caught up in its environs. Speaker Julie Y. Chu is a sociocultural anthropologist with interests in mobility and migration, economy and value, ritual life, material culture, media and technology, and state regulatory regimes.
New York City, NY; NYC
Kundiman Poetry Prize winner Sharon Wang’s first collection is Republic of Mercy. Franny Choi's second ...
more >> collection is Soft Science. Mia Ayumi Malhotra is the author of Isako Isako.
New York City, NY; NYC
5:00 pm
free, no reservation required
A retrospective look at the art of acclaimed Cuban and queer artist Cepp Selgas. The show focuses on ...
more >> Selgas’ body of work inspired by graphic art master M.C. Escher.
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
The first complete presentation of Diane Arbus’s Untitled series. The sixty-six images were made at ...
more >> residences for people with developmental disabilities, places Arbus repeatedly returned to for picnics, for dances, and at Halloween between 1969 and 1971, the last years of her life. The exhibition will include several images that have never before been exhibited.
New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
James English Leary is a New York-based artist, filmmaker, and educator whose paired down biomorphic ...
more >> canvases compel a psychological reading, confronting the viewer with “a Rorschach test as a parody of abstraction.” The duality of his works’ objectness and figurative allusions synthesize into a gestalt awareness of authorial subjectivity through his playfully callous material handling. His work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, Greater New York show at MoMA PS1 and the Sundance Film Festival. The Rorschach Test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning.
New York City, NY; NYC
6:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Two men make the dangerous journey from Africa to Italy for a better life, but then face hostility and ...
more >> violence in this shocking look at the life-and-death struggle of refugees. Director: Jonas Carpignano Stars: Alassane Sy, Koudous Seihon, Pio Amato 107 min. In multiple languages with English subtitles
New York City, NY; NYC
Editor's Pick
Rigged exposes how our most important right, the right to vote, is being undercut by a decade of dirty ...
more >> tricks and political shenanigans -- from gerrymandering to new voter restriction laws and from wide-scale voter purges to the 2013 gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court. Shot during the 2016 election season, it is narrated by Jeffrey Wright. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Brennan Center voting experts.
New York City, NY; NYC
One man’s journey from stock market to farm market, and his tenacious desire to make local food the ...
more >> future…one bite at a time. Director: Ken Marsolais 79 min. Q&A with the film’s director to follow the screening.
New York City, NY; NYC
Celebrate with a festival kick-off event. The evening begins with the Borimix Awards ceremony honoring ...
more >> leaders in the Puerto Rican and Colombian communities, followed by with the opening of the visual arts exhibitions, Dislexia geográfica, Geography on the edge and special entertainment by Latinx artists. Don’t miss this fun-filled evening celebrating both Puerto Rican and Colombian heritage, arts and culture.
New York City, NY; NYC
6:30 pm
free, no reservation required
99 Histories is a beautifully haunting and moving play about memory, legacy, and the unbreakable bond ...
more >> between mother and child. Presented by the College of Performing Arts. Written by Julia Cho.
New York City, NY; NYC
This fall, a classic New York City block party becomes the enchanted setting where fairies work their ...
more >> mischief in Shakespeare’s beloved play. Acclaimed director Jenny Koons takes you to the royal wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, where a celebratory play is being rehearsed. But the real drama is unfolding in the concrete jungle of fairy King Oberon. There, four young New Yorkers discover the course of true love runs anything but smooth, as supernatural sprites and the lovable Puck conspire to reveal what fools we mortals be, and draw us all into the collective dream of romance and merriment.
New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
Free tickets required...
Editor's Pick
New York, New York, in the late 1960s. German interpreter Gesine Cresspahl, who was born in a small village ...
more >> in the German province of Mecklenburg, feels out of place in her adopted country. She has never gotten over the death of Jakob, her true love. The father of her now eleven-year-old daughter was run over by a train and killed. At Marie’s insistence Gesine begins to tell the story of her family, which in turn is a story of what happened in Germany. The memories stretch from Hitler’s rise to power and World War II, to the post-war period and the establishment of East Germany, and finally to the suppression of the Prague Spring in the summer of 1968. For a long time Uwe Johnson’s complex masterwork Anniversaries was believed to be unfilmable. Director Margarethe von Trotta filmed it anyway. The result is a four-part miniseries, in which von Trotta succeeds in translating the complexity and intricacy of the novel into cinematic language. 90 min. In German with English subtitles.
New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
It’s the summer of 1972, and the college-aged "Star-Spangled Singers" are at the top of their game. ...
more >> They’ve kissed performing at local Kiwanis clubs and VFW halls goodbye and are now singing and dancing their patriotic show choir routines for Bob Hope and President Nixon. But, in America, change is afoot! It's “Up with People” in the age of Watergate. Can everything be sorted out in time for the bicentennial? A college production: Written and directed by Douglas Carter Beane Music and lyrics by Lewis Flinn Choreography by Joey Pizzi
New York City, NY; NYC
This documentary presents interviews with witnesses who describe the realities Syrians face today. The ...
more >> progressive civil opposition that started the Syrian Revolution in 2011 continues to exist. In some areas of Syria it continues to be the real power on the ground in self-governing municipalities. The film gives an overview of the roots of the revolution and the subsequent problems and crises that have resulted from war conditions. Director: Ronan Tynan 91 min.
New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Editor's Pick
We often talk as though free and fair elections were the definition of democracy. This assumption begs ...
more >> to be demolished. Cynthia Fleury, Ingrid LaFleur, James Fishkin, and Andreas Kalyvas dare to imagine a better way of doing politics with informed and motivated citizens. Moderated by Masha Gessen.
New York City, NY; NYC
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
A standup comedy show featuring comics who have appeared on NBC, TruTV, Comedy Central and more.
New York City, NY; NYC