NYC events in October 2024

Carving a jack-o'-lantern may be a time-honored American tradition for many, but nobody—and we mean nobody—does pumpkin carving quite like Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze.

Every fall, pumpkins aplenty decorate two locations of this festive, family-friendly attraction. This year promises thousands of intricately carved jack-o'-lanterns in mesmerizing displays, plus dazzling new experiences in honor of the event's founding 20 years ago. 

Blaze: Hudson Valley runs at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson in Westchester County from September 13 through November 17. Blaze: Long Island runs at Old Bethpage Village Restoration in Old Bethpage, Long Island from October 4 through November 3. Tickets are on sale now.

The Village Halloween Parade—NYC’s creative and spooky procession—is one of the best Halloween events in Greenwich Village and it's coming back this year on Halloween, Thursday, October 31. Each year, more than 50,000 zombies, ghouls, witches, monsters, robots, Jedis, giant puppets and more things that go bump in the night take to the streets for a night of costumed revelry that you won't want to miss. 

Whether you march or watch from the sidelines, don't miss this iconic Halloween event.

Heading to Madison Square Garden to watch the Knicks play is an iconic night out in NYC. The basketball team made the playoffs recently in the 2020-21 season led by forward Julius Randle and RJ Barrett. 

Catch them at MSG now!

The Brooklyn Museum is gearing up to celebrate its 200th anniversary, and it’ll come in hot with a year-long lineup of special events, exhibits and programming starting in October. 

The celebrations will kick off on Friday, October 4, with an exhibition highlighting the contributions of Brooklyn artists throughout the years and on Saturday, October 5, it’s hosting a special edition of First Saturdays, their popular monthly event series. The kickoff celebrations will also include special performances and local vendors. 

The 200th anniversary celebration will come with more changes and renovations to the museum, including an expansion of the first-floor gift shop. Check out the museum’s website for more information and updates on programming.

In our humble opinion, there are never too many places to go shopping around here. In fact, the more options there are out there, the better, especially when it comes to rare and great quality vintage pieces.

If you're a fan of flea markets, then BQ Flea, which is making its debut in Brooklyn in October, should be on your radar right now. 

Curated by the people behind the beloved and renown Brooklyn Flea, which takes place under the Manhattan Bridge in Dumbo, BQ Flea will be open from 10am until 5pm every Sunday in October on Meeker Avenue between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street, right under the BQE. BQ Flea's first operating day will be Sunday, October 6.

The winter festivity has already begun even before the snow falls. The Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Park returns to NYC with exciting holiday shops, food and activities from October 25 until March 2, 2025

Its 17,000-square-foot ice-skating rink that’s free to use (if you bring your own skates) is always the highlight, but its Winter Village in all its holiday spirit is a close second. This year, over 170 new and returning kiosks will be there for you to peruse through—all at one of the best NYC parks.

Each year, the Amazing Maize Maze's shape changes, and this year, it's designed like a butterfly. The species starts their life cycle on the farm's milkweed plants before they migrate nearly 3,000 miles to Mexico every year. The maze is not only a fun family activity this year, but also an homage to a threatened species that we should all protect.

You can visit the Amazing Maize Maze at the Queens County Farm Museum every Friday through Sunday until October 26. Tickets are $14 for adults and $10 for children ages 4-11. Entry is free for children under 3 years old. Online tickets are required before you visit and you can get them through their website. 

After the sun goes down, the Bronx Zoo will light up this fall with more than 5,000 animal-themed jack-o’-lanterns in incredible displays. Officially called Pumpkin Nights, this festivity is back for its second year after a popular debut in 2023. 

Expect to see intricately carved jack-o'-lanterns set up in different animal ecosystem scenes, such as the Amazon rainforest, Himalayas, Congo, bioluminescent deep-sea, an African Savanna waterhole and many more. Pumpkin Nights will be held on select dates from September 26 through October 27 with tickets on sale here. 

This year's festivities include an expanded and enhanced jack-o'-lantern trail that stretches for half a mile. As you walk through the experience, you'll be met with atmospheric sounds, music, costumed characters, fog, bubbles and colored lights. Last year's carved creations included a furry bear, a wrinkly elephant and a dramatically decorated leopard.

This fall, you'll get a chance to feel like you're inside the mind of the one and only Tim Burton. The New York Botanical Garden is hosting the worldwide debut of a new light trail entirely inspired by the 1993 classic Disney film Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The trail is comprised of over 8,300 square feet of light installations with interactive video projections, intelligent LED lighting and 3D printed sculptures of the film's iconic characters. 

The outdoor adventure runs from September 27 through November 30; get tickets here.

New York City residents have always cherished their pets, and the New-York Historical Society is here to document that. In the new special exhibition titled Pets and the City, they’ll feature an array of artwork—primarily obtained from the New-York Historical’s Museum and Library collections—that document the multidimensional roles animals have played to serve and coexist alongside human beings. See the exhibition from October 25 to April 27, 2025. 

Through photographs, memorabilia, film and television clips, the exhibition explores how the relationship between humans and their pets has transformed alongside the ever-changing New York City landscape. 

Shop 'til you drop at FAD Market, a curated fashion, art and design pop-up marketplace, which is back for 2024. Expect to see your favorite makers plus brand new creatives to help you live smarter, gift better and support local businesses. 

FAD—which stands for Fashion, Art and Design—takes over different venues with a horde of independent vendors and creators. Admission is free and dogs are welcome!

Peruse handmade jewelry, apparel, skincare products, tableware, artisanal packaged food, and more. Whether you're shopping for you or a friend (or even getting an early on that holiday shopping), there are plenty of local gems to pick up. Here's the full schedule.

The pun, that most democratic of jokes: At its best, it’s sublimely satisfying to the reptilian part of our brains that loves easy comedy. At its worst, it produces a groan so gut-deep, it’s almost as good as a belly laugh. The form is mined for all it’s worth at this monthly tournament, hosted by Rodney Dangerfield impersonator Fred Firestone and his daughter, Jo.

A fixture on the NYC comedy landscape for more than a decade, this show at Littlefield in Brooklyn is like a rap battle, only much nerdier. Hear pun pros face-off in the All-Star Tournament of Pun Champions where punsters deliver two-minute pun-stand-up routines, after only two minutes of preparation.

The show's on October 30.

Anime lovers residing in New York, rejoice! This fall, Kodansha, one of Japan's largest publishers of manga, will debut a special immersive pop-up experience dedicated to all things anime at 45 Grand Street near West Broadway in Lower Manhattan.

Kodansha House: Where Manga Meets will officially open on October 4 and welcome guests on Wednesdays to Sundays between noon and 9pm through the end of October.

There will be lots to do at the pop-up, with activities and programming spanning in form and topic.

Puppet master Jonathan Rockefeller's kaleidoscopic adaptation of Eric Carle’s classic children’s stories is a pure, kid-pleasing joy. The ravenous larva doesn’t appear until the final quarter, but there are plenty of colorful puppets, dancing and music to entrance youngsters until then. Along with the main story, the show dramatizes three of these seven other Carle books: 10 Little Rubber Ducks, The Very Lonely Firefly, The Very Busy Spider, Mister Seahorse, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, Dream Snow and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See. (A different combination of stories is performed at each show.)

Get your silicone ears and Infinity Gauntlets ready: The biggest pop culture event in North America is back—New York Comic Con 2024! This year’s event is filled with can’t-miss panels, celebrities and all the cosplay you could ever fantasize about.

New York Comic Con is from Thursday, October 17, through Sunday, October 20 at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Eleventh Ave in Hell's Kitchen.

Promising to get us all in the Halloween spirit, a spooky pop-up bar is rising from the dead, bringing goth, ghouls and all the scary good times.

Starting October 1, Black Lagoon will bring mixology and the macabre to Someday Bar (364 Atlantic Avenue). Described as “an immersive, creepy-as-hell cocktail experience,” expect skeletons, life-sized coffins you can take a selfie in, illuminated skulls, and themed cocktails.

When Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker was first published 50 years ago, the book's release was met with great anticipation. Excerpts in The New Yorker gained lots of attention—including from the biography's subject, NYC government official Robert Moses, who described the deeply researched book as "venomous." Even so, it was impossible to predict whether a 700,000-word biography would resonate with readers. 

The book quickly earned acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize and finding a home on bookshelves across America, especially among New Yorkers. Now, five decades later, the monumental work still resonates for its look at NYC’s past and the lessons it holds for our future. The book and its tenacious author are the subject of a new exhibit at New-York Historical Society Museum & Library titled “Robert Caro’s The Power Broker at 50." See it at the Upper West Side museum through February 2, 2025. 

Are you afraid of the dark? After exploring Dark Matter, a new immersive art exhibition at Mercer Labs in Lower Manhattan, you just might be. 

The exhibition, running on select evenings from October 4 to 30, is the brainchild of experimental artist Roy Nachum, Mercer Lab’s co-founder and creative director. Through immersive visuals, interactive displays, audio installations, oil painting and robots, Dark Matter explores the depths and darkness of the human psyche and paranormal expression. The show is available from 8pm-midnight in October; get tickets here for $52/adult.

At Rooftop Cinema Club this October, you can scare yourself silly (or laugh yourself into a fit if that’s more your style) with its slate of festive films. 

Rooftop Cinema Club promises to put the "sin" in cinema with a lineup of haunting and horrifying films—if you’re brave enough to watch. On the calendar for October: Hocus Pocus, Friday the 13th, Mean Girls, The Shining, Beetlejuice, Death Becomes Her, Halloweentown, Practical Magic, American Psycho, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloween, Scream, and more. Here's what to expect and how to get tickets.

Ah, the ’90s—a simpler time when grainy camcorder videos ruled the cultural zeitgeist, rather than slickly produced TikToks. An upcoming exhibit at Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) will pay homage to that era through the lens of skater culture. 

"Recording the Ride: The Rise of Street-Style Skate Videos" will honor DIY filmmaking with videos, vintage skate decks and other objects related to the formative years of the skate video in the 1980s and 1990s. See it in Astoria from September 7, 2024 through January 26, 2025. 

With limited budgets and cheap video equipment, skaters recorded their limit-pushing tricks on stairs, benches, and other skate-able elements of public architecture. These grainy videos of bodies in flight were set to music-driven montages on VHS-format videos, often with a defining fish-eye lens. 

Edges of Ailey is the first large-scale museum exhibition to reflect on the life, work and legacy of the visionary artist Alvin Ailey. Ailey founded his eponymous dance company in 1958, creating a platform for modern dance through his innovative repertoire and the unflinching support of other dancers and choreographers. His creative pursuits even extended far beyond dance.

This multimedia cross-disciplinary exhibition—presented in the museum’s 18,000+ square-foot fifth-floor galleries—brings together painting, sculpture, photography, drawings, print, and video made before, during, and after the artist's lifetime (1931-1989). It crystallizes his incredible influence on the contemporary art world and establishes him as one of the great polymaths and earliest, most celebrated multi-hyphenates of the 20th century. 

See it from September 25, 2024-February 9, 2025 at The Whitney.

Get ready, ghouls and girls, for an epic Halloween in NYC! The city is bursting with terrifying haunted houses, Halloween parties and more pumpkin-packed events. Whether you enjoy getting seriously spooked while watching the scariest horror films of all time or prefer to celebrate Halloween by leaf peeping while visiting some of the greatest fall getaways from NYC, we’ve got you covered.

You don't have to travel to Germany to celebrate this annual autumnal festival.

Lucky for you, New York City hosts some of the best boozy, musical sausage fests in the world.This year’s events include weeks-long waterside parties and brewery bashes—all with plenty of German (and local!) beer to celebrate the season.

The party continues all month. Here's what's on tap.

Just Do It. Er, Just Frame It. That's the motto of this exhibition at Poster House, a museum in Chelsea that's dedicated to posters. 

"Just Frame It: How Nike Turned Sports Stars into Superheroes" explores how one company paved the way for modern sports advertising. During the 20th century, it became a rite of passage for a professional athlete to cement their icon status by having their persona memorialized on a Nike poster. Today, in an age where athletes’ images are much more accessible and "just like us," these 60 posters may seem quaint—but they’re also larger-than-life and undeniably entertaining, just like the stars they depict.

See it through February 23, 2025.

It's a different world for politicans trying to make a name for themselves nowadays. TikToks, Instagram posts and televised debates are the method du jour. But back in the 1800s, books made Abraham Lincoln.

He became a lawyer through self-disciplined study, won the White House through the concurrent rise of American popular publishing, and remains one of the most written about figures over the 160 years since his death. "Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print" uses original printings of books and ephemera to create a sweeping, conceptual portrait of the man.

See it Grolier Club through December 28; it's free and open to the public.

New York City may be a bagel town, but another circular breakfast treat begs to be eaten. COPS, a beloved Canadian doughnut company with three shops in Toronto, has debuted in the West Village.

With its high-quality, handmade doughnuts and artful designs, this shop is unlike any other in the city right now. Like its counterparts across the border, expect unique weekly offerings drawing on classic and inventive flavors. Opening week will feature two of COPS’ best-sellers, the cinnamon sugar and the OG sour cream glaze. Find it at 10 Morton Street.

Most New Yorkers encounter pigeons every day and don't pay much attention to these ubiquitous birds often maligned as "flying rats." But this new pigeon—a 16-foot tall aluminum version—will be impossible to ignore. 

Called “Dinosaur,” this colossal pigeon will find its perch on the High Line this October where it will lord over the intersection of 10th Avenue and 30th Street in Chelsea not far from Hudson Yards. This artwork by Iván Argote isn't just a hyper-realistic rendering of the bird; instead it will challenge traditions of who and what we monumentalize, as well as explore ideas around migration and the long view of history. The pigeon statue was one of the most polarizing proposals when High Line Art shared artwork suggestions a few years ago, so it's sure to ruffle some feathers.

Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building has been giving us murders to solve for three seasons, and now as the fourth season debuts, it’s giving us one more mystery to solve—in person. Hulu and The Escape Game, located in midtown, have partnered up to create The Only Murders in the Building Escape Game.

The escape game is played across a couple of rooms that have been outfitted to look like the Arconia hallway and Charles’ apartment. You have 60 minutes to escape and if you need a clue, there’s a red button you can smash that plays a snippet from the theme song when you push it. Staffers then shell out an idea for you to try. There also may have been hidden bookcase doorways, a laser and even a water feature puzzle. Check it out now because it’s on for a limited time!

Autumn is the time to pick two of the season’s most emblematic fruits: apples and pumpkins. Fortunately there are some fantastic farms where you can go apple and pumpkin picking near NYC. These farms and orchards will get you into that fuzzy fall feeling in no time.

There’s nothing quite like taking a bite out of a crisp apple straight from the tree (even better, taking home a basketful for making pie), and your Halloween pumpkin will be that much more special when you pick it right off the vine. You’ll find a wide variety of apples and pumpkins at these farms, plus fun activities like hayrides, corn mazes and petting zoos. Don’t miss hot apple cider and other fresh-made treats at the farmstand. Apple picking and pumpkin picking have never been better at these NYC-area farms.

You might think leaf-peeping is primarily for New Englanders, but New Yorkers have plenty of options for viewing the foliage in and around the city. From a stroll through a park to a train ride through the Adirondacks, natural beauty is definitely within reach, and we've tips on exactly where to go to admire it. And if New York City fall foliage is not enough, check out our guide to all the other great spots where you can see fall foliage in the US.