NYC events in September 2025

Hitting a Yankees game couldn’t be more quintessentially New York. The Major League Baseball team, which won the World Series in 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009, made it to the World Series again in 2024! To date, the Yankees have won 27 World Series in 42 appearances, the most in the MLB in addition to major North American professional sports leagues. Through 2024, their all-time regular season winning percentage is .569 (a 10,778 – 8,148 record)—the best of any team in MLB history.

Grab your tickets now to see NYC in action!

We could all use a big plate of pasta chased with a cannoli right about now. The Feast of San Gennaro is here to meet those needs with its annual festival featuring parades, live music and of course, glorious foods.

Festivities run from September 12 to 22 in Little Italy. Activities kick off on Thursday, September 12 with the Blessing of the Stands. The Grand Procession Procession begins at 2pm on Saturday, September 14. There's a Solemn High Mass celebrating the patron Saint of Naples on Thursday, September 19 starting at 6pm.

The U.S. Open—New York’s exhilarating summer sports event—is one of the most exciting things to do in Queens. It returns this month with plenty of exciting activities for fans. The U.S. Open's main draw will begin on August 26 and run through until September 8. 

There are around 40 tournament sessions to pick from, and either day or evening passes. The seats range from reserved stadium seating to general admission ground passes or even luxury suits. All tickets are available to purchase on Ticketnetwork, USOpen.org and Ticketmaster.

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.

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.

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.

Set to open on September 27, the outdoor adventure will run for nine weeks only through November 30 and tickets for the experience are currently available right here.

The trail is comprised of over 8,300 square feet of light installations “forced by cutting-edge technology including interactive video projections, intelligent LED lighting and 3D printed sculptures of the film's iconic characters." You'll basically feel like you're inside the mind of the one and only Tim Burton.

Smorgasburg, the food bazaar spectacular, is back for 2024 with dozens of great local vendors across four locations.

In fact, with more than 70 vendors, it's the largest Smorgasburg lineup since 2018! Vendors this year will serve up fragrant Ethiopian stews, Hawaii-style street comforts, explosive pani puri, potato puff poutine, and lots more.

Smorgasburg WTC runs on Fridays; Williamsburg is on Saturdays; and Prospect Park is on Sundays. Each location is open from 11am-6pm and operates weekly through October.

Bougie "secret" outdoor dinner party Le Dîner en Blanc will return on September 26. As usual, thousands of New Yorkers clad in white will migrate to a secret location, where they will indulge in a gourmet picnic complete with fancy food, fine China, silverware and loads of wine. 

Keep an eye here for details as the event date approaches.

On view at the International Center of Photography (ICP) this fall from September 25, 2024 through January 6, 2025, We Are Here: Scenes from the Streets will spotlight contemporary street photography from over 30 international iconic street photographers, including Devin Allen, Shoichi Aoki, Farnaz Damnabi, Debrani Das, Romuald Hazoumè, Youcef Krache, Josué Rivas, Randa Shaath, Jamel Shabazz, Trevor Stuurman, Alexey Titarenko, and Nontsikelelo Veleko. The exhibit is an in-depth exploration of contemporary life in diverse public and community spaces, with some photos dating back to the 1970s.

“We Are Here invites viewers to confront the richness and complexities of our modern, multifaceted life, emphasizing our shared humanity beyond geographic and cultural divides,” said curator Isolde Brielmaier. “Today’s world moves fleetingly, but these images prove that though circumstances might change, humanity is not going anywhere; the stories of our lives will remain.”

Eat your way through Japan without ever leaving New York City at JAPAN Fes, the massive foodie festival, which is back and bigger than ever for 2024. The organization is hosting 30 outdoor events this year stretching through November in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Event organizers say it's the largest Japanese food festival in the world, attracting 300,000 visitors and featuring 1,000 vendors every year.

Expect dishes including takoyaki, ramen, matcha sweets, yakisoba, karaage, okonomiyaki, and lots more. They're even hosting a ramen contest and a konamon contest this year to crown the best of the bunch. Vendors hail from New York City, as well as other states and other countries. 

Here's the full list of dates and neighborhoods.

At this festival, New Yorkers can time travel through over 90 years of New York City history. This September 8, the New York Transit Museum’s treasured Bus Festival returns, providing New Yorkers with the opportunity to board beloved vintage buses in Brooklyn at a free outdoor event.

The Bus Festival includes photo ops, a chance to meet some of the bus drivers who keep our city running smoothly, and a scavenger hunt activity sheet that'll help you learn about these cool vehicles.

The festival is free to attend, open to all ages, and runs from 10am to 3:30pm. If you RSVP, you have the chance to win a family membership to the New York Transit Museum. You might as well make it a full-circle experience and take the bus to Bus Fest—the B25 stops close to the festival site.

Explore the extraordinary life of Lord Byron—the famous scribe known for his lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage—at this new exhibition at the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Running from September 7 through January 12, the collection of personal letters, literary manuscripts, illustrated biographies, paintings, prints, and even wine bills traces Byron’s movements, from his youth in Aberdeen, to his sudden fame after the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, to his death in Greece at the age of 36. 

And his seeming contradictions will be delved into just as much as his storied life, library officials promise. "Byron is a fascinatingly mixed character," said Elizabeth Denlinger, curator of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle at the New York Public Library. "Despite his well-earned reputation as a party boy and misogynist, he was also a committed writer for whom writing wasn’t the most important thing in life; his ultimate commitment, expressed in joining the Greek war for independence, was to the principles of self-determination and liberty."

One hundred life-size elephants will appear in the Meatpacking District from September 6 to October 2024 as part of “The Great Migration,” a global fundraising effort to uplift Indigenous voices and motivate the human race to share space with their animal neighbors.

“The Great Migration” relies on the collaboration between Indigenous artisans, contemporary artists, and cultural institutions, all of whom work together to raise money to fund human-wildlife coexistence projects. The funds are also used in biodiversity conservation and protection efforts of migratory animals that traverse land, skies, oceans and seas. 

Each elephant is created by The Coexistence Collective, a group of 200 indigenous artists from the Bettakurumba, Paniya, Kattunayakan and Soliga communities of India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Tamil Nadu.

After more than a year of significant construction, nonprofit cultural arts center Pioneer Works is opening its doors in Red Hook once again. The artist- and scientist-led Brooklyn organization will mark its return with a suite of visual and performing arts experiences. 

The reopening events, including solo exhibitions by Alejandro García Contreras and Le’Andra LeSeur, kick off on Friday, September 6 with an annual gala set to return on October 8. 

The popular Second Sundays series, a free monthly open house with exhibitions, workshops, music and food, resumes on September 8.

Sometimes you’ll feel very tall, sometimes very small, and sometimes in awe of it all at this new New York Botanical Garden exhibit that celebrates the magic of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. With a variety of botanical and artistic exhibitions throughout the Bronx garden’s 250 acres, “Wonderland: Curious Nature” encourages visitors to get “curiouser and curiouser” around every turn. 

See a massive white (well, actually green) rabbit made entirely of plants; explore an enchanting English garden with delightfully weird flora; climb through a rabbit hole; hang out in a house made of mycelium bricks; and much more at this sprawling exhibition. Wonderland: Curious Nature runs through October 27, 2024, and will evolve with each season.

Though it's now more than 150 years since the first publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the delightful story with its heroic protagonist feels just as fresh as ever—especially at New York Botanical Garden with its enchanting scientific and artistic twist on the story. 

One of the top things to do in New York this fall includes two weeks of drinking some of the best beer in NYC during Oktoberfest. Take in the beautiful fall foliage while drinking at one of the best beer gardens and German eateries in New York City. Oktoberfest New Yorkers, take advantage of this glorious holiday to sample fine Bavarian beer and food. Prost!

Wild Captives, the nation’s first female- and LGBTQ-owned archery studio, is now open. It's a place where everyone can "be their own superhero." The studio in Brooklyn’s Industry City offers empowering and fun hour-long introduction to archery classes every weekend for $45/person. 

Each intro class includes a chance to learn about different parts of the bow and safety requirements. After the lesson, each participant gets a chance to shoot the bow trying to pop a balloon pinned onto the bullseye. Intro-to-archery classes are available each Friday, Saturday and Sunday, bookable online for anyone over age 12.