Experience a kaleidoscope of photo-ops, plus acrobatic shows, tasty food, craft cocktails, live music, and more at the captivating light festival, Lektrik, at the Queens Botanical Garden. Photo courtesy of Fever
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Bring your skates and you can hit the ice for free at Bryant Park. Photo by Colin Miller
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Things to Do in NYC This Weekend: West Side County Fair, Harvest Moon Fests, Ferragosto

Explore the customs and traditions behind the harvest Mid-Autumn Moon Festival with a mooncake tasting, arts and crafts, story time, and more family fun at MOCA. Photo courtesy of the museum
Explore the customs and traditions behind the harvest Mid-Autumn Moon Festival with a mooncake tasting, arts and crafts, story time, and more family fun at MOCA. Photo courtesy of the museum
9/4/19 - By Drew Kristofik

School is back in session, but for NYC kids there's so much fun to be had, it might as well still be summer. In Manhattan, check out the popular West Side County Fair, a family-friendly art show in Carl Schurz Park, and Sunday's Folk Music fest in Washington Square Park, or hit a harvest moon festival in Queens, Staten Island, or Chinatown. Head to Arthur Ave in the Bronx for Ferragosto, where you'll find great food, live music, and fewer crowds than Little Italy's San Gennaro fest.

Birds and other high fliers get their due this weekend, too. Don't miss the Migration Celebration in South Cove, Randall's Island's Fairy Workshop, and Socrates Sculpture Park's Kite Making Workshop. You can also learn about bird migration at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

All that, plus...Fall theater for families is ready for a round of applause. Check out Mettaee River Theatre Company's The Ringdove, Water, Water, Everywhere on Governors Island, and Lear: That Old Man I Used to Know for a jump on the season.

Keep our September GoList handy, and our roundup of the Best Fall Festivals for NYC Kids in September, packed with more apple-bobbing, Halloween festivities, and harvest celebrations than you can shake a cornstalk at. As always, our trusty Event Calendar stands at the ready with daily activities and details.

OUR LATEST VIDEOS

Delve into the lives, work, and culture of Africans—both free and enslaved—who called New York their home in the 18th century at Revolutionary Summer: Black New York. Photo courtesy of the New York Historical Society
Delve into the lives, work, and culture of Africans—both free and enslaved—who called New York their home in the 18th century at Revolutionary Summer: Black New York. Photo courtesy of the New York Historical Society

Things to Do All Weekend

Revolutionary Summer: Black New York

Upper West Side
Did you know that during the American Revolution New York City had the largest enslaved population, second only to Charleston, SC? Learn about the jobs and culture of Africans, both free and enslaved, who called New York City their home during the Revolutionary War. READ MORE

48th Gracie Square Art Show

Upper East Side — FREE
The Carl Schurz Park Conservancy is proud to present the 48th Annual Gracie Square Art Show. Staged in one of the prettiest and most peaceful waterside parks in New York City, the Art Show attracts over 100 regionally and nationally celebrated artists. ​ READ MORE

Chuseok Korean Moon Festival

Flushing, Queens — FREE
The Korean American Harvest Festival Committee presents the 37th Annual Chuseok Korean Moon Festival at Queens Botanical Garden. Celebrating South Korean culture, and riding the globally popular “Korean Wave” of pop culture, this event features musical entertainment with K-pop performances, Korean products, food vendors, and more. READ MORE

Family Art Project: Herds, Schools and Bevys

Wave Hill, the Bronx
Celebrate collaboration, community and power in numbers and explore the many ways animals exist and work together in herds, schools, flocks, bevys and more. READ MORE

Back to School Special

Upper West Side
The Children’s Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) invites kids to get ready to go back to school, with snack making, storytelling, and more! READ MORE

Taste of History: Apple Butter

Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Every weekend in September Lefferts Historic House offers the chance for visitors to help peel, cut and core apples for the preparation of freshly stewed apple butter: a historic way of preserving fresh apples for a sweet and nutritious treat all winter long. READ MORE

Mettawee River Theatre Company: The Ringdove

Morningside Heights
First produced by Mettawee in 1988, The Ringdove's central characters are a crow, a rat, a turtle and a gazelle, whose adventures, behavior, and relationships reflect many aspects of human nature. READ MORE

Water, Water, Everywhere...

Governors Island
Four overlapping storylines unfold in an immersive, interdisciplinary experience inspired by Governors Island’s history inside a historic house that was once a home. The show invites visitors to explore the exhumation of memory, what makes a home and how water connects us all. READ MORE

Lear: That Old Man I Used to Know

Midtown West
A young girl has run away to her Grandmother's attic, a space for forgotten objects, covered with drop cloths and dusty time. When searching through a stack of old books, she opens one up to reveal that the words literally come alive off the pages as characters and creatures emerge around her and begin to tell her the story of King Lear. A classic story, retold through the eyes of a child. READ MORE
Visit the urban woodland on Randall's Island to make all things fairy: wands, wings, and little fairy houses. Photo courtesy of NYC Parks
Visit the urban woodland on Randall's Island to make all things fairy: wands, wings, and little fairy houses. Photo courtesy of NYC Parks

Things to Do Saturday, September 7

Wings, Wands, Fairies, and Dragons - CANCELED

Randall's Island — FREE
This event has been canceled. Visit the Randall's Island White Garden for this fairy-focused workshop. Make all things fairy: a pair of wings, a wand, a dragon mask, and a fairy house to celebrate these enchanted creatures and the island's beautiful woodland. READ MORE

First Saturdays for Families: Composite Capacities for Love

Lower East Side — FREE
Help create a collaborative mural inspired by Diedrick Brackens: darling divined, on view at the New Museum through September 15. READ MORE

1776 Peace Conference Celebration

Tottenville, Staten Island
The Conference House Association celebrates the 245th anniversary of the 1776 Peace Conference. Turn back time and see how John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, and Lord Howe attempted to end the Revolutionary War in Tottenville on Staten Island. READ MORE

Migration Celebration

Battery Park City — FREE
The fall season kicks off with a celebration of all the creatures that migrate through and by Battery Park City. Stop by for artmaking, birdwatching, and a nature walk . READ MORE

Mid-Autumn Family Moon Festival at MOCA

Chinatown
Celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) with mooncakes, magic, and the Jade Rabbit on the moon! Stop by for an afternoon of storytelling, drop-in arts and crafts, mooncake making, and more. READ MORE

Movies Under the Stars: How to Train Your Dragon - The Hidden World (PG)

Midtown East — FREE
When Hiccup discovers Toothless isn't the only Night Fury, he must seek "The Hidden World", a secret Dragon Utopia before a hired tyrant named Grimmel finds it first. READ MORE

Fly: Kite Making Workshop

Long Island City, Queens — FREE
This workshop is inspired by an experimental class taught by Joseph Albers at the Bauhaus. Participants will rethink the kite as a structure for display by adding text and graphics. A total of 100 kites will be flown as a group to create a banner/an image/a floating graphic. READ MORE

Saturday at the Seaport: Here Be Sea Dragons

South Street Seaport — FREE
Intrepid kids can create their own Viking ships and design fantastical creatures (sea monsters, merpeople, kraken, finfolk, and more) to be fearsome figureheads on their ships. READ MORE
Enjoy a full day of county fair magic in Manhattan with live bands, sideshow performers, carnival rides and games, local vendors and cotton candy at the West Side C0unty Fair. Photo courtesy of Summer on the Hudson
Enjoy a full day of county fair magic in Manhattan with live bands, sideshow performers, carnival rides and games, local vendors and cotton candy at the West Side C0unty Fair. Photo courtesy of Summer on the Hudson

Things to Do Sunday, September 8

West Side County Fair

Upper West Side — FREE
Summer on the Hudson's biggest event of the season—the West Side County Fair—returns, bringing with it a full afternoon of county fair magic in Manhattan. READ MORE

Washington Square Park Folk Festival

Greenwich Village — FREE
The best of local New York and national folk talent—including old-time string bands, blues, jug bands, traditional Mexican and Balkan music, songwriters, New Orleans jazz, klezmer music, and more—come together for this festival in Washington Square Park. READ MORE

Nature Walk with Brad Klein: Autumn Bird Migration, Part 1

Prospect Park, Brooklyn
In September, the autumn bird migration is well underway, with over 100 species passing through New York’s parks and gardens on their way to their wintering grounds. Join naturalist Bradley Klein to learn identification tips for fall, a time that poses special challenges to birders. READ MORE

Ferragosto 2024

Belmont, the Bronx
The Belmont section of the Bronx hosts the annual Ferragosto festival in the original Little Italy: Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street. READ MORE

Fall Family Festival at Commonpoint Pool

Forest Hills, Queens
Join in for a day of bouncies, carnival games, sports obstacle courses, arts and crafts, giveaways, and of course, swimming at the pool. READ MORE

Sunday Story Time: Teddy: The Remarkable Tale of a President, a Cartoonist, a Toymaker and a Bear

Upper West Side
Bring your favorite stuffed animal to Sunday Story Time and celebrate National Teddy Bear Day with a reading of Teddy: The Remarkable Tale of a President, a Cartoonist, a Toymaker and a Bear. READ MORE

Places featured in this article:

Riverside Park South - Pier I