What To Do in NYC This Spring

On beautiful spring days in New York, it can feel like the whole city is a gift, wrapped up in dappled light and cherry blossoms, just waiting especially for you. From stealing quiet sunrise time with your coffee and the tulips before the crowds arrive in Bryant Park, to capturing Manhattanhenge, the late spring phenomenon when the setting sun aligns perfectly with the street grid, making the canyons shimmer (this year, the best time to see it will be between 8 and 8:20 p.m. on May 30th; 42nd Street is a great vantage point), springtime in New York is full of magical moments, large and small. Here are a few that we’re most looking forward to this year.

Museum Must-Sees

Spring and fall always herald a new lineup of exhibitions at New York museums. Some of the headliners this season include Monet to Morisot: The Real and Imagined in European Art at The Brooklyn Museum, Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time at MoMA, Van Gogh’s Cypresses and Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929, both at the Metropolitan and Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty at the Costume Institute. For lovers of pop culture and street art, Banksy in New York Defaced lobs some of the artist’s most iconic and recognizable work at 378 Broadway and Hip Hop: Conscious, Unconscious commemorates the 50th anniversary of the genre at Fotografiska. While there’s no special exhibition at the Museum of Ice Cream, a spring trip to NYC definitely merits a visit… and a celebratory cone.

Street Food Samplers

New Yorkers love their street food and spring and summer weekends are high season for everything from epic food festivals that take up multiple city blocks to lone ranger carts selling steaming elote and icy peeled mangoes. Smorgasburg, also known as the “Woodstock of eating,” has optimized the street food experience with three separate events each weekend: Fridays at the World Trade Center, Saturdays in Williamsburg, and Sundays in Prospect Park. The Queens Night Market, Saturday evenings from 5 p.m. to midnight, pairs treats from all over the world — arepas to zareshk polo (a classic Persian dish of barberry rice and saffron chicken) — with live music and a picnic-y atmosphere. Japan Fes, which runs all summer and into the fall throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, features 750 vendors serving beloved Japanese classics and hard-to-find delicacies.

A Feast for the Senses at The Knick

There is no better place in New York to experience the rites of spring than The Knickerbocker. This spring, our Lavish Love special helps you celebrate the season with a bottle of prosecco in your room, the gift of a Diptyque Tubéreuse candle, a trio of Diptyque Do Son self-care products (hand cream, hair mist and body mist), and a luxurious Knickerbocker bathrobe. We’ve also created a Mother’s Day in NYC special that includes a complimentary breakfast for two each day of your stay at Charlie Palmer and a complimentary room upgrade, as well as other fantastic special offers for your spring stay in NYC. The always spectacular views from the St. Cloud rooftop become technicolor in spring, made even more vivid when coupled with our spring menu —featuring crisp wines and refreshing cocktails and highlighting our special partnership with the Billion Oyster Project for oyster reef restoration in New York Harbor.

Photo courtesy of Madison Square Park Conservancy, Yasunori Matsui

Public Art Everywhere

From Central Park’s Balto statue to Robert Indiana’s erstwhile LOVE, to Fearless Girl, New York has always been a city that’s adored its public art. Already this year, there have been some notable additions to the city’s collection of artful Instagram backgrounds. Tribeca got its own version of Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, the famous “bean” sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park; and the Big Button sculpture that has stood in the Garment District since 1996 got a makeover from black to taxi cab yellow. In Madison Square Park, Shahzia Sikander’s 18-foot, golden Havah…To Breathe, Air, Life, will preside until June 4 and can be animated with AR via smart phone. At Grand Central Madison’s LIRR terminal, Yayoi Kusama’s A Message of Love Directly From My Heart Unto the Universe is a wall of color between 46th and 47th Streets, while four Kiki Smith mosaics evoke themes of nature, folklore, mythology and iconography.

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

Sounds of the City

After a long pandemic, it seems we can officially declare that live music is back, baby, and the Spring/Summer ’23 concert festival season is shaping up to be a doozy. The Governor’s Ball Musical Festival, June 9-11, is changing venues from Citi Field to Flushing Meadows Corona Park this year and has an all-star lineup that includes Lizzo, Odesza, Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T. Lil Nas X, Haim, Diplo and so many others. SummerStage will feature nearly 80 free and benefit shows in Central Park and around all five boroughs, including a celebration of 50 years of Hip Hop, and shows by The Indigo Girls, The Metropolitan Opera, Noel Gallagher’s High-Flying Birds, Regina Spektor and Kool and the Gang. Little Island, at Hudson River Park, also has free live music programming, no tickets or reservation required, all summer long, starting June 7th. Closer to home at The Knickerbocker, our Jazz Nights at Charlie Palmer feature the music of either Fleur Seule or the Michelle Collier Trio every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening, while our rooftop grooves on weekends to Live Music at St. Cloud.

Start Planning Your Spring Vacation in NYC