NYC Free & Cheap Things to Do in October

There are a gazillion FREE and budget-friendly things to do in New York City any month of the year, and October is no different.

The NYC on the Cheap list of the best things to do in October is beyond the obvious Columbus Day Weekend parade and Halloween celebrations – we’ll have those for you soon.

Some events require advance registration to manage space, so if you are interested, sign up.

Get more NYC for less money with NYC on the Cheap.

What to do in NYC on Oct. 3rd

Things Worth Fighting For

Join two top women discussing recent and current political events in this FREE program.

Spend an evening with Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in a conversation with NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

They’ll be discussing Rice’s new new memoir, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, in which she reveals pivotal moments from her career on the front lines of U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy with unflinching candor.

Mother, wife, scholar, diplomat, and fierce champion of American interests and values, Rice powerfully connects the personal and the professional. Taught early, with tough love, how to compete and excel as an African American woman in settings where people of color are few, Rice shares the wisdom she learned along the way.

Rice shares her personal story as well as examine the current state of foreign affairs and the challenges facing American leadership. What are the greatest threats to democracy around the world? To what extent does our current approach to foreign policy advance or endanger our national security? How do we repair our relationships with our democratic allies?

• FREE, 6:30pm
• NYU Kimmel Center, Rosenthal Pavilion, 10th FL, 60 Washington Square South, NYC
• Registration is required for admission

What do do in NYC Oct. 4-62019 Downtown Brooklyn Arts Festival (DBAF)

The festival showcases the artists and arts institutions of the Brooklyn Cultural District in this FREE weekend festival.

Arts organizations open their doors for behind-the-scenes talks and tours, plus special outdoor performances by local musicians and a street fair.

Entertainment includes a performance by Soul Tigers Marching Band and dance party led by Soul Summit, spinning old-school house music, and DJ sets by Brooklyn’s own Talib Kweli.  The street fair includes a pop-up of Nkiru Books, Brooklyn’s oldest African-American bookstore.

Saturday October 5^th, is the DBAF Community Day, with a full day of FREE outdoor activities and programming on the Plaza at 300 Ashland.

Highlights include a partnership with Bang on a Can, with an instrument-building workshop led by renowned guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart (Paul Simon, Bang on a Can All-Stars) and an interactive performance of Mark Stewart’s Orchestra of Original Instruments in collaboration with the radical, parade spectacle street band Asphalt Orchestra; a performance of Rhys Chatham’s Le Possédé for bass flute in partnership with Issue Project Room, the opportunity to learn Mark Morris Dance Group repertoire with a Dance with MMDG dance class, and Pop-Up: An Artistic Treasure Hunt throughout Downtown Brooklyn presented by Strike Anywhere. Additional programming is forthcoming.

For more information, visit the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Festival website

• FREE, on the Plaza at 300 Ashland, at the corner of Flatbush and Lafayette.

What to do in NYC Oct. 10 & 11

“Enduring Slavery: Resistance, Public Memory, and Transatlantic Archives”

This two day FREE conference will brings together scholars, visual artists, and writers to discuss the history of transatlantic slavery and its afterlives, on topics including gender, resistance, speculation and the archives of slavery, digital humanities, the Civil War, abolition, slavery memorialization, and more.

The 2019 Lapiduc Center Conference begins with the awarding of the 2019 Harriet Tubman Book Prize as well as an opening plenary session on 1619 in U.S. Memory. A reception follows.

Participating scholars include Ed Baptist (The Half Has Never Been Told), Herman Bennett (African Kings and Black Slaves), Marisa Fuentes (Dispossessed Lives), Stephanie Jones-Rogers (They Were Her Property), the poet Marilyn Nelson (The Homeplace, The Fields of Praise), and the architect Julian Bonder (co-designed the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes, France).

Registration is required for each day you plan to attend

• FREE, at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the branch of the NYPL at 515 Malcolm X Blvd

What to do in NYC on Oct. 13

Native American Heritage Day

Celebrate the vast history and contemporary voices of Native American New Yorkers who come from Tribal Nations across the country. Enjoy storytelling, songs, and dances performed by the renowned Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, the oldest resident Native American dance company in New York.

See Lenape objects in New York at Its Core and contemporary art by Native American New Yorkers in Urban Indian: Native New York Now, and create art to take home.

• 11am to Noon. Free with museum admission at the Museum of the City of New York.
• Registration suggested, but not required.

Native American Dane Workshop and Crafts Sale