New York City is a multicultural hub with dozens of museums, hundreds of parks and millions of people. The number of potential things to see and do can feel overwhelming, but NY1 has you covered with some of the highlights taking place this weekend across the five boroughs.

Blues BBQ Festival

  • Saturday, Aug. 15 from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.
  • Pier 76, Manhattan
  • More information here

The annual Blues BBQ Festival returns to Pier 76 with barbecue, live blues music and family-friendly fun.

The free festival will feature performances across two stages, dance lessons, a festival marketplace, hot sauces and activities for all ages. Local restaurants will also serve up barbecue and desserts throughout the day.

Coney Island Sand Sculpting Competition

  • Saturday, Aug. 15 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Coney Island Beach at West 21st Street and Surf Avenue, Brooklyn
  • More information here

Sand artists of all skill levels will compete to create elaborate sculptures at the annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Competition.

The free event is open to all ages, with categories for solo artists, adult groups, families and semi-professional artists. The day will also feature live entertainment, giveaways and family-friendly fun, with winners eligible for cash prizes and tickets to local attractions.

4th International Puppet Fringe Festival 2026

  • Ongoing through Sunday, Aug. 16
  • The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, Manhattan
  • More information here

The fourth annual International Puppet Fringe Festival features five days of exhibitions, workshops, panels, film screenings and more than 100 performances by puppeteers from around the world.

The festival will showcase groups from 10 countries, along with exhibitions including a tribute to the iconic marionette Pinocchio.


‘Summer Streets’

  • Saturday, Aug. 15 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • From the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway and Dyckman Street, Manhattan
  • More information here

Summer Streets continues this weekend, giving pedestrians and cyclists car-free space to explore the city.

The walk- and bike-friendly route will feature music, activities and family-friendly fun.

The following streets will be closed to car traffic from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday:

  • Lafayette Street and Park Avenue between Brooklyn Bridge and East 110th Street
  • East 110th Street between Park Avenue and Broadway
  • Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between West 110th Street and West 113th Street
  • Broadway between West 110th Street and Dyckman Street

Meet Daniel Tiger at the Bronx Zoo

  • Through Sept. 7
  • Bronx Zoo
  • More information here

Families can step into the world of “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” at the Bronx Zoo, with activities inspired by the popular children’s show.

Kids can explore a life-sized, accessible Trolley, make music at a replica of the neighborhood’s music wall, learn about zoo workers and compare themselves with wildlife. Children can also hop like frogs and spread their feathers like peacocks while exploring the “Land of Make-Believe.”

Head to the Beach

  • Open for the summer
  • Across the city
  • More information here

Beaches across the city will stay open through the weekend after Labor Day.

Lifeguards will be on duty every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Swimming is prohibited during their off-hours.

Luna Park

  • Open for the season
  • Coney Island, Brooklyn
  • More information here

Luna Park in Coney Island is open for the season, with its full lineup of rides, treats and “high-flying excitement.”

Visitors can ride the iconic Cyclone roller coaster, play arcade games, get food or shop around.

Queens Night Market

  • Saturdays from 4 p.m. to midnight through Aug. 22
  • Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens
  • More information here

The Queens Night Market has returned for its 11th season. 

The market is a family-friendly, open-air event that features 100 independent vendors selling merchandise, art and food. There are also performances that organizers say, along with the vendors, celebrate “the rich cultural diversity and heritage of NYC and Queens.”


Smorgasburg

  • Open for the season
  • Thursdays and Fridays: World Trade Center
  • Saturdays: Marsha P. Johnson State Park, Williamsburg
  • Sundays: Prospect Park, Brooklyn
  • More information here

The city’s annual warm weather food frenzy is back, and organizers say it features one of their biggest lineups yet.

More than 70 vendors offering global bites, longtime favorites and experimental new concepts will set up in Manhattan every Thursday and Friday — and then in Brooklyn every weekend — through October.

If you can’t make it out to one of their sites, you can still enjoy dining al fresco at a restaurant near you, as the city’s roadway dining program has officially returned for the season.

Movies Under the Stars

  • Events throughout summer
  • Across the city
  • More information here

Movies Under the Stars is back at NYC Parks. The city agency is putting on more than 150 family-friendly film screenings across the five boroughs.

Bring your own blanket, chairs and snacks and find a free event near you here.

SummerStage

  • Shows through Oct. 1
  • Across the city
  • More information here

More than 60 shows — most of them free — will take place at 13 locations across the five boroughs this summer as the city’s annual SummerStage program returns for its 40th year.

Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield hosts many of the shows, including benefit concerts that support the City Parks Foundation.

For those interested in the history of the annual event, a new exhibit at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park showcases photographs dating back to the concert festival’s founding. It will be open until Aug. 21.

‘Greater New York’

  • Open through Aug. 17
  • MoMA PS1, Queens
  • More information here

This is the last weekend to catch MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York” exhibit, a “signature survey of artists living and working in the New York City area.”

This year’s sixth edition spans all levels of the museum’s school building and features the work of more than 50 multidisciplinary artists.

Whitney Biennial 2026

  • Open through Aug. 23
  • Whitney Museum, Manhattan
  • More information here

The Whitney Museum says its biennial exhibit is the “the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States.”

The 82nd edition features the work of 56 artists and reflects the current moment by examining “interspecies kinships, familial relations, geopolitical entanglements, technological affinities, shared mythologies, and infrastructural supports.”

Sotheby’s ‘Botero in New York’ Exhibit

  • Jul. 22 to Sept. 7 
  • Sotheby’s Breuer Building
  • More information here

Presented at one of the “world’s most vibrant art capitals,” the exhibition will include important works of art on loan from The Botero Foundation until Sept. 7.

In addition, a collection of work featuring Fernando Botero’s voluminous, ironic figures will be available for sale.

‘Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists’

  • Open through Sept. 13
  • American Folk Art Museum, Manhattan
  • More information here

This exhibit at the always-free American Folk Art Museum on the Upper West Side takes a look at how artists without formal training have depicted and defined themselves on their own terms.

There are 60 artists featured, with paintings, sculptures, photos and other forms, all on display. The selection showcases those who have worked outside the lineage of artistic networks.

(Spectrum News NY1/Roger Clark)

BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!

  • Events through Sept. 19
  • Manhattan venues and Brooklyn Bowl
  • More information here

A slate of annual free performances at Prospect Park has returned for the summer as the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! festival enters its 47th season.

There will be 15 free shows and three benefit shows, all of which support Prospect Park. This year’s lineup includes Common, Patti LaBelle, Katie Yamasaki, Lady Wray, Victory Boyd, and Reggae with Wayne Wonder and Lila Iké.

(Courtesy Edwina

Hay)

‘Flower Power’ at NYBG

  • Open through Oct. 18
  • New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx
  • More information here

This recently-opened exhibit at New York Botanical Garden celebrates flowers as a cultural symbol of peace and love.

In addition to flowers, visitors can expect to see all things related to the “flower power” movement — like art and fashion from the ’60s, including works from Andy Warhol and Milton Glaser. There are also painted Volkswagen vans, giant peace signs and large hand-painted fabric canopies.

Plenty of activities are scattered throughout the exhibit, including friendship bracelet-making and ticketed liquid light shows with live bands.

Flower Power is a new exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden, opening May 23. (Spectrum News NY1)

‘Uptown Visions’

  • Open through Nov. 1
  • Hispanic Society Museum & Library, Manhattan
  • More information here

This year’s selection for the Hispanic Society Museum & Library’s “Art on Audubon Terrace” exhibit, “Uptown Visions” by Harlem-based painter Tom Sanford is meant to capture the “joy, rhythm, and layered experience of Uptown summer life.”

Featuring scenes of basketball, cart vendors and communal energy, the work was inspired by Joaquín Sorolla’s mural series, “Vision of Spain,” which depicted the people and customs of the country.

MoMI LAB

  • Now open
  • Museum of the Moving Image, Queens
  • More information here

Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image has opened a free new space for people to check out newly emerging technology.

The MoMI LAB is located in the museum’s lower level, and welcomes the public to “discover, create, and reflect in this space where people from varied backgrounds can interact with new technologies and each other.”

‘For the Win’

  • Now open
  • American Museum of Natural History
  • More information here

A new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History celebrates “the objects that define athletic greatness.”

There are more than 70 items covering over 150 years of sports history, including gold medals, trophies and championship rings.


New Museum

  • Open Tuesday to Sunday
  • 235 Bowery, Manhattan
  • More information here

The New Museum in Manhattan has reopened following a 60,000-square-foot expansion. The new space features twice the gallery size, new elevators, new venues, an entrance plaza and an atrium staircase, among other additions.

Alongside several new commissions, “New Humans: Memories of the Future” will be the inaugural exhibition. The museum says it showcases “works by more than 200 artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers to explore how dramatic technological and societal changes have spurred new conceptions of what it means to be ‘human.’”