What to Do Free & Cheap This Weekend in NYC

Your weekend plans begin here, with a couple of dozen FREE and cheap things to do this long holiday Columbus Day Weekend, including the start of Halloween celebrations and celebrating Indigenous People’s day, and the opening of the popular Butterfly Conservatory at AMNH.

We’re exhausted already, and the weekend hasn’t even started yet!

There’s so much to see and do in NYC and never enough time to see and do it all.

All events are FREE and family-friendly, unless otherwise noted.

The NYC on the Cheap motto is get more NYC for less money.

Let’s hope the weather cooperates with outdoor events, but if it doesn’t, here are some rainy day activities in NYC, besides re-arranging your sock drawer.

Know Before You Go

There are lots of street fairs and parades this holiday weekend. 

Be sure to check the street closures advisory so you are not stuck in traffic.

Official NYC Bridge and Street Closures weekly advisory

Official NYC 2019 parking calendar

What to do in NYC on Columbus Day, Monday, Oct. 14

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Spend the day celebrating and learning more about the people Christopher Columbus and his crew encountered on Oct. 12, 1492.

The National Museum of the American Indian, which celebrates the native people of North and South America, from the Arctic to the Antarctic and everywhere in between, has an all-day family-friendly schedule of FREE tours, films, demonstrations and hands-on activities throughout the museum.

Dak’Toká Taíno/I Am Taíno

In this live-action puppet film, a grandmother talks with her granddaughter about their Taíno heritage in post-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico.

There are several screenings throughout the day, and a discussion with director Alba Enid Garcia follows each screening.

• See the hourly schedule of events here.
• NMAI is FREE every day.  NMAI is at Battery Park.

Columbus Day Parade

The annual celebration of all things Italian marches up Fifth Avenue from 44th to 71nd Streets

Opening Saturday, Oct. 12

Butterfly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter

This popular display returns to the American Museum of Natural History for its 22nd season with more than 500 butterflies fluttering among colorful tropical flowers and lush green vegetation.

The butterflies are from farms in Florida, Costa Rica, Kenya, Thailand, Malaysia, Ecuador, and Australia.

Beyond being just beautiful, butterflies are important harbingers of environmental change, and the exhibit includes an educational component about the roles butterflies play in ecosystems and the importance of protecting them.

• At AMNH through May 2020
• FREE with museum admission

Now Underway

The Amazing Maize Maize

Enjoy getting lost in NYC’s only corn maze. The adventure begins with a stalk talk to prepare you for the 3-acre challenge of finding clues, solving puzzles and making your way out of this interactive maze.

Feel up to the challenge? Maybe the kids will lead you out.

There’s also a Maize by Moonlight evening event in October.

• Every weekend through Oct. 26th, plus on Mon., October 14, 2019
• 11:00 am–4:30 pm (last ticket sold at 4:30)
• Advance Tickets: $10; $5 (ages 4-11), Door Tickets: $15; $8 (ages 4-11), Free for ages 3 & under
• Queens Farmhouse Museum, 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Floral Park
• Click here for directions, including by MTA subway and bus and LIRR

Art of the Brick

Experience The Art of the Brick the world’s largest display of LEGO® art.

Artist Nathan Sawaya created more than 100 pieces for this exhibition using only LEGO bricks. The collection features original pieces, as well as re-imagined versions of some of the world’s most famous art masterpieces, including the famous painting known as Scream.

More than one million LEGO bricks were used to create Sawaya’s sculptures.

In addition to the LEGO artworks on display, there are activity stations where kids of all ages can create and design their own.

• Art & Architecture – Recreate famous building, bridges and structures using LEGO bricks.
• Hidden Hands – Build a mystery object inside a covered box using only your sense of touch.
• Assistive Devices – Design a tool that will allow you to pick up an object on a post through a series of various sized windows.
• Describe It – Build a simple object out of view and describes the object to your friend. Then, see if your friend can build the same object based only on the description.
• Six Bricks – Find out how many different things you can build using only six LEGO Duplo bricks.
• LEGO Drag Race – Build a LEGO brick car and test it out on ramps of different inclines.
• Tilt Maze – Rearrange straight LEGO “bar” bricks to create a maze for a wooden ball to navigate through on a tilt-table.
• LEGO Music Box – Create your own unique song using a special LEGO baseplate. On the baseplate, horizontal lines represent different “tracks,” and vertical columns represent the eight “beats.” Use different colored LEGO bricks as instruments or notes/pitches to create your song. Then put the visual representation of your song under a camera, where simple image processing algorithms will turn it into music.

Art of the Brick is at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadow Park.

• $7 per person, plus NYSCI admission.
• Take the 7 train to the 111th St. station.

See also

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