It’s the most wonderful time of the year in New York City: the depths of winter. Well, that depends on your definition of “wonderful,” but there is something to be said about short, freezing days and a refreshing lack of people clogging up the sidewalks.
However you feel about these dark days, you may still want to get out to experience the many sights, sounds and activities the city has to offer. You can, of course, go to a Knicks (or, God forbid, Nets) game, but those could set you back hundreds of dollars in a single night.
The goal here is to find activities that are enjoyable and affordable — “affordable” within reason, of course, and reason is completely at our discretion. We tried to pick activities that don’t exceed $40.
With any luck, these will carry you through the new year and into 2025 with a sense of optimism that yes, you can leave your apartment, even when it’s sleeting!
“Barbie: A Cultural Icon” is at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York
Photo by Jenna Bascom / Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York
Hop in a Barbie Dream Car and explore the doll’s history
Barbie continues her journey from reductive tool of the patriarchy to subject of deeper, intellectual-ish contemplation about the culture that produced her. Next stop: an exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle.
“Barbie: A Cultural Icon” takes off from Barbie’s birth in 1959 and showcases more than 250 dolls from the past 65 years, marking milestones like the first Black Barbie and (of course) the arrival of Ken. Visitors can even interact with a real Barbie Corvette! It costs $20 for general admission – no Barbie included, and the exhibition runs through March 16. Children 12 and under are admitted free.
Quinceañera dress, 2019
Photograph by Anna-Marie Kellen / Courtesy of the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection
Check out real clothes at the New York Historical Society
Exhibitions on clothing sometimes focus on high fashion – the styles of the elites or trendsetters. But “Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore” turns the spotlight to regular women whose clothes often reflected their jobs and societal roles. It’s the first time some of the items – everything from work dresses to fast food uniforms – from the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection are on view in a museum.
Tickets are $24, which is a steal considering you can also check out the exhibit on Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” which closes Feb. 2. Children 4 and under are admitted free, and tickets for kids aged 5 to 13 are $5. “Real Clothes, Real Lives” is on through June 22, so you have some time.
The Lunar New Year Parade in Manhattan’s Chinatown, in February 2022.
Celebrate Lunar New Year
The Year of the Snake arrives on Jan. 29, 2025, and there will be celebrations around the city to mark the occasion. Manhattan’s Chinatown will host its annual firecracker ceremony and cultural festival at Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Wednesday, Jan. 29 from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Then, on Sunday, Feb. 16, the parade will start at 1 p.m., with an accompanying festival on Bayard between Mulberry and Mott.
If Flushing is more your speed, Kupferberg Center for the Arts is putting on Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company shows at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25 and Sunday, Jan. 26. Tickets start at $20 – and you can count on plenty of other events in the Flushing area for Lunar New Year around that time.
Play games all day at Hex & Co.
Hex & Co. has thousands of board games available for those rainy, windy, slushy days when you just want to sit inside and play Magic: The Gathering with your closest friends for three hours. A mere $15 gets you walk-in access to tables and games for as long as you like Monday through Friday. There’s a three-hour time limit on weekends.
You can also reserve a table in advance for three hours if you know when you and the crew are throwing down with Settlers of Catan. Reservations cost $17 per person, and there are three locations to choose from: the Upper East Side, Union Square and Morningside Heights.
Franz Kafka at Altstädter Ring in Prague.
© Archiv Klaus Wagenbach / Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum
Identify with Kafka at the Morgan
Who exemplifies cold, dreary winter days better than Franz Kafka? You don’t even have to get tuberculosis to feel like you know what the misunderstood author’s life was like; you can just go to the new exhibition on Kafka at The Morgan Library and Museum. It’ll even have the original manuscript of “The Metamorphosis” on display.
You can also check out a treasure trove of letters, diary entries and drawings that comprise the relatively small Kafka oeuvre. Tickets are $25, though the Morgan is free from 5 to 8 p.m. on Fridays – you just have to reserve a time. The Franz Kafka exhibition is on through April 13.
Issa Abrahim’s “Here Comes the Son” at a previous year’s Outsider Art Fair.
Scott Lynch for Gothamist
Hang out inside the Outsider Art Fair
If there’s a whole fair to bring it to the masses, can it be outsider art? We’ll leave questions of taxonomy to the side for now – all you need to know is that from Feb. 27 through March 2, the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea will host the New York edition of the Outsider Art Fair. It will showcase “self-taught art, art brut and outsider art from around the world.” One-day passes are a mere $35, though if you want to commit to a hardcore weekend of outsider art, $65 for the full run of show is a decent deal.
Skating sessions at Roebling Rink can be reserved online for $10 an hour.
Courtesy of Brooklyn Bridge Park
Ice skate until your ankles collapse
You thought you’d get through a list of “things to do during winter in NYC” without seeing “ice skating?” You were sorely mistaken! There are the famous places, like Bryant Park, Central Park’s Wollman Rink, and the newly opened Emily Warren Roebling Rink in Dumbo, but you can also find plenty of (cheaper) off-the-beaten-path locations around the city. You could try Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island, the World Ice Arena at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park or the Abe Stark Rink at Coney Island.
See the reconstructed Notre Dame de Paris
Thanks to the magic of artificial intelligence, you don’t even have to book a flight to experience the newly reconstructed Notre Dame Cathedral. See, AI is good! Nothing bad about it! St. John the Divine is putting on an exhibition to take visitors on a tour of the world-famous cathedral, which suffered severe fire damage in 2019 and reopened earlier this month. With the help of digital augmented reality tablets, visitors can travel back in time to see what the original construction might have looked like before going on a journey to the present. Timed tickets to the exhibition cost $25 for adults and $10 for children.
Explore Gen X magazines at MoCA
Head to MoCA and check out the exhibition on Asian American zines from the 1980s and 1990s. Notable magazines like “Giant Robot,” “Jade,” “AsianWeek,” and more are part of the exhibition, which is on view until March 30, and the best part is that admission is free. The museum also offers free tours on certain Saturdays at 11:30 a.m., so if you want guidance you can plan your visit around that.
Hang out by a fireplace
What says “cozy winter in New York City with a hint of melancholy and longing and unfulfilled artistic dreams” better than a nice fireplace in a cozy bar? The good news is there are plenty of them! There’s Achilles’ Heel in Greenpoint, classic vibes at McSorley’s, Galerie Bar in Tribeca, and the institution that is Union Hall, along with so many more!
Explore and drink at an indoor vertical farm
Near Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn is farm.one, a unique space that grows microgreens, brews beer, and offers classes and events all year round. Casual visitors can stop by during public hours to check out the farm or grab a drink at the Brew Lab, which offers a wide variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. If you want to get a little wild, you can book a botanical tasting tour – $35 gets you a tour of the facilities and tastings of rare herbs, edible flowers and microgreens. You may even walk away with fresh salad greens in the dead of New York winter.
Maren Hassinger, Ulysses Jenkins, Senga Nengudi, and Franklin Parker in “Flying,” in 1982.
Photograph by Adam Avila, printed 2019. Courtesy of Senga Nengudi, Sprüth Magers and Thomas Erben Gallery.
Examine the connection between Black artists and ancient Egypt at the Met
Through Feb. 17, you can explore the Met’s fascinating exhibition on how contemporary (or, at least, since 1876) Black artists have engaged with Egypt and the millennia of culture it produced. As always, the Met is pay-what-you-wish for New York residents, and once you’re in, you can check out the myriad other exhibitions at the city’s most famous museum.
See the Smithsonian Design Triennial
“Making Home” is the theme of this year’s Smithsonian Triennial at Cooper Hewitt. It features 25 site-specific installations commissioned for the show, all of which are designed to highlight how designs can affect both the physical realities and metaphysical conceptions of “home.” Tickets are $22 a person, and the exhibition runs through August.
“The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” opens to the public on Feb. 15.
Courtesy New York Botanical Garden
Enjoy the Orchid Show
“Flowers” probably isn’t the first thing you think of when pondering New York City in the winter, but that’s all the more reason to head uptown to the Bronx. The New York Botanical Garden’s annual orchid celebration has a theme of “Mexican Modernism” this year. And what’s not to like about this? “bright arrangements of orchids in settings inspired by the bold, multicolored designs of Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán.” As of right now (mid-December), you can only sign up for ticket alerts, but admission to the garden runs from $35 to $39. The Orchid Show is open from Feb. 15 through April 27.
Practice harmonic singing (even if you don’t have experience)
NYC Sacred Harp (get it?) meets up every Wednesday night at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Greenwich Village, and everyone is welcome – even if you have no singing experience. The group sings from “The Sacred Harp,” a book available for purchase or to borrow, and you can expect plenty of help and support from the non-denominational community of singers. Sacred Harp also holds monthly singing sessions the second Sunday of each month at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Carrol Gardens. For the most up-to-date info on when singings will happen, NYC Sacred Harp recommends joining its Facebook group.
“Hoisting the statue Brooklyn,” by Daniel Chester French, 1964. Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives.
Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum
Celebrate the Brooklyn Museum’s Bicentennial
Can you believe the Brooklyn Museum opened in 1825? That was before Andrew Jackson was president, for crying out loud! “Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200” opens Feb. 28 and celebrates an incredible two centuries of culture in the borough. It’s set up in three stages, beginning with early art created in 17th century Brooklyn, and going all the way through today. Admission for adults is $20, but it’s free on the first Saturday of each month from 5 to 11 p.m.
See Broadway shows at 2-for-1 prices
One of the nice things about New York institutions in January and February is that they know no one wants to go outside and do “stuff.” So they lure you into their spiderwebs with promotions like Broadway Week, when you can get two tickets for the price of one to the hottest shows in town. Broadway Week takes place from Jan. 21 through Feb. 9, which is way more than a week – yet again, more bang for your buck! You have to check back on Jan. 7 for the full lineup of available shows, but it’s your best chance to see Broadway on a budget.
Drink and smash, don’t drink to get smashed (or do both)
What if you could crush a tequila shot, then smash the shot glass against a wall? At Break Bar, you can. That’s the whole point, in fact. For a mere $25, you can get a four-glass flight of beer. You don’t even have to drink, because Break Bar sells empty bottles to smash, too! All you have to do is take your empty bottle or shot glass or whatever to a special throwing range, and hurl it against the wall. Surely every New Yorker could use this at least once during the winter, right?
See contemporary Latin art at El Museo del Barrio
El Museo del Barrio on Fifth Avenue, just 20 blocks north of The Met, is yet another one of New York’s excellent but often overlooked museums. Right now, you can see the Trienal, a sweeping survey of Latin contemporary art from the United States, Puerto Rico and beyond that runs through Feb. 9. And, at $9, general admission is a steal. As a bonus activity to kick off January, you can go to Museo’s Three Kings Day Parade on Jan. 6 starting at 11 a.m. It’s free!
An open run in Inwood Park.
Courtesy of New York Road Runners
Get moving and find a community with New York Road Runners open runs
You thought you could get out of this list without a fitness option for the New Year Resolvers? You were badly mistaken. Anyone in the city looking to get out into the cold to start (or continue) a running habit with a great community should consider the New York Road Runners’ open runs, which take place all over the city, from the Bronx to Staten Island.
Looking for some wholesome fun? Try feather bowling.
Go feather bowling at Randolph Beer
There are plenty of games that involve getting some kind of thrown object close to a target. But feather bowling is cooler than those because the target is a feather, and the thrown objects are meant to look like wheels of cheese. Randolph Beer in Dumbo has the city’s only feather bowling courts, since, you know, it’s feather bowling and not, like, darts or pool. Anyone can pick it up quickly, and with a total cost for an hour on the court coming out to a little more than $51, that’s less than $13 per person for a group of four.
Explore the Banksy Museum
After “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” did you ever think there would be a Banksy Museum? Well, here we are, heading into 2025, and things have never been better. It’s open every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and boasts the largest collection of art from the world’s most elusive street artist. As you might have guessed … since, you know, a street artist’s whole thing is making art on the street … these are reproductions. But $30 still gets you admission to the most comprehensive display of work from one of the most influential artists of our time.
Eat like a king/queen/head of the local soviet at New York City Restaurant Week
Like Broadway Week, Restaurant Week is an attempt to pull you out of your apartment and into the cold, dark streets with the promise of a cheap(er) meal at a top-notch restaurant. This year’s winter Restaurant Week is – like Broadway Week … hmm, it’s almost as though it’s not a coincidence – Jan. 21 through Feb. 9. Also like Broadway Week, general reservations open on Jan. 7, so keep your eyes peeled. Until then, think about all the great food options in the city and cross your fingers that a dream restaurant you’ve wanted to try will offer a good prix fixe menu.
Well-Being Concert with Sean Jones
Courtesy Carnegie Hall
Find inner peace at Carnegie Hall’s Well-Being Concerts
“Carnegie Hall” doesn’t often get pulled in word association games with “affordable,” but that’s because most people playing word association games have never been to the Well-Being Concerts. World-class music meets mindfulness at these encounters, which are designed to help attendees tap into the calming, restorative power of music. There’s one a month from January to March; jazz trumpeter Sean Jones for $15, a cross-cultural collaboration for $40 and a string ensemble for $24.
Take your secrets to a (real, but also metaphorical) grave
What could be more authentically “wintertime” than walking, alone, to the city’s most famous cemetery; scrawling your deepest, darkest secret onto a piece of paper; then depositing it into a grave designed exactly for that purpose? That’s the proposition of the ongoing art installation called “Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery,” a 25-year ongoing project that’s exactly what it sounds like: All the secrets people choose to throw away, deposited into a grave. Plus, you can take in the bracing air of the cemetery after you’ve finished, contemplating all your regrets and the things left undone, unsaid.