50 things to do in New York City on a Sunday 2012

The borough’s flagship library branch presents a free monthly silent film series on Sunday afternoons. Typical offerings include the slapstick antics of Laurel and Hardy and the swashbuckling of Douglas Fairbanks, which is made even more enjoyable by the stirring music of MoMA’s silent-film accompanist, Stuart Oderman. All films are archival quality, projected onto a six-by-eight-foot screen.

Wordsmiths invade this LES bakery, bar and performance space one Sunday every month.

Thrill seekers should head to this jewel in the Parks Department‘s crown, a series of obstacles designed for team building and scaring the crap out of you. Live out your Indiana Jones fantasy by scaling a bouldering wall, whizzing down the zip line, balancing on a high wire and getting catapulted from the “Human Swing Shot,” a device that lifts you 45 feet in the air before sending you into free fall.

In November 2011, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation opened a new visitors’ center at the former shipbuilding complex, offering information on the facility and its connection to the surrounding neighborhoods. The location includes a café, weekend bus tours ($18–$30) and an 8,000-square-foot exhibition space that features the permanent “Brooklyn Navy Yard: Past, Present and Future” exhibit, as well as rotating offerings. A free weekend shuttle departs from Jay St at Willoughby St every 15–20 minutes.

We're stoked this market has two outdoor locations featuring an eclectic mix of antique, vintage and food vendors. Keep an eye out for Today’s Vintage hatpins and hairsticks ($10–$25) and Anodyne quirky flying-dinosaur necklaces ($125). Stop by Saraz Closet's table to nab a ’90s Betsey Johnson swing skirt ($88) and an ’80s Pucci cropped silk jacket ($220). Foodies, take note: Both locations feature a dizzying array of edibles, from Fine and Raw coconut chunky bonbons ($7) to Porchetta chicory salad with garlic dressing ($6).

Years of planning went into this monument, which opened on the tenth anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks. Called “Reflecting Absence,” the design by architect Michael Arad features two reflecting pools that sit within the footprint of each of the Twin Towers.

Take a bite out of Brooklyn on this culinary bus tour, offering kosher deli fare in Williamsburg, chocolate from Jacques Torres in DUMBO, and a Cuban-sandwich picnic lunch in Sunset Park. Sun, Mon, Fri 11am; $95, children under 12 $75.

Work on that sexy belly at Joe Fiore's weekly far–West Side gay party featuring cheap beer and shots.

The stove-top-impaired can find solace in Sunday Suppers, the dinner party/cooking class hybrid from photographer and culinary enthusiast Karen Mordechai. A few times a month, guests gather at her airy Brooklyn loft; each person tackles a different job to create the seasonal menu. The unique charm of the resulting meal is in the details: custom-designed menus, elaborate floral arrangements and enticing parting gifts, such as homemade preserves, plus a stack of recipe cards for the next time the urge strikes to tie one on (an apron, that is). To make reservations, e-mail info@sunday-suppers.com or visit sunday-suppers.com. $85 and up.

You’ll need your sneakers for this one: Mauricio Lorence leads a three-hour excursion through some of the borough’s oldest and most charming neighborhoods, including Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Brooklyn Heights, with a focus on historic sites, ethnic enclaves and municipal institutions. .

A house-music happy hour with beats positioned closer to cool jazz than to fist-pump on the aural spectrum, Smoother Sunday Sessions features DJ Trevor Ricci holding it down in the heart of Williamsburg every Sunday evening.

Brad Loekle hosts a weekly queer comedy lineup, while you slurp $7 Cosmos all night.

Can you endure riding with tourists for the chance to sample some seriously good pies? Brooklyn’s best pizzerias are revealed on the four-hour bus tour A Slice of Brooklyn, along with some of the borough’s most famous movie locations and other landmarks.

Wicked Willy’s ($1 per song) is not a proper karaoke bar—there are no private rooms—but it does host amateur performers Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at around 8pm. Performers also get a free drink with the first song they sing—presumably to help steady those nerves. Should the caterwauling overwhelm your fancy ears, there is a large projection screen in the back for taking in the Yankees game.