🍂 The 2026 Autumn Guide has landed! Leaf walks, orchards, Oktoberfests, concerts in twilight, and weekend trips. We hope to surprise you.

🍎 It's Getting Crisp Farm Picking Guide! We checked all twenty farms. Addresses, drive times, who's cash-only, who needs a reservation, and the two farms that have no apples this year — which is the sort of thing you'd rather know before the Thruway.

It's official, the Global Citizen Festival is cancelled this weekend. We know Wolverine could withstand the potential 45 mile winds from a nor'easter, but master of ceremonies, Hugh Jackman, tens of thousands of attendees, and the Great Lawn wouldn't. Refunds are automatic, and all food that was purchased for the event is being donated to local non-profits.

Global Citizen called it off after consulting with the city and NYC Parks. It is the first cancellation of the annual event in fourteen years. In 2023 they played through Tropical Storm Ophelia and a third of the Great Lawn was destroyed. Bad press around the event resulted in Global Citizen's paying NYC $622,000 and earning them a letter from Council Member Gale Brewer every year since.

This week, she sent her letter asking for the Mayor to move the concert to Randall's Island. Global Citizen said, "We will be back in Central Park next year." Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

Dashers are getting a long overdue payday. In 2023, an investigation was started after a delivery worker, Rosendo Tacam, was locked out of DoorDash after a bad review, he had about $450 in earnings that the company took away from him.

New York's worker and consumer protection agency led an investigation which demonstrated the repeated violation of worker's wages being withheld or never paid out, and having their accounts deactivated without cause.

DoorDash will be paying $131.5 million to settle the case. About 12% of that will be paid to NYC as penalties, and the rest, approximately $115 million will go to workers. The highest payout will be around $5,000. Additionally, the settlement clarified that on-call delivery workers must be paid for their time between waiting for jobs.

Responding in a typically Goliath way, DoorDash said that this amount of money represents less than 1% of what Dashers locally earned, about $1 billion since 2023. The prior largest settlement for wages was $39 million from Starbucks.

Brad Lander, who originally wrote the city code for delivery worker wages, has said he will take up the issue at the State level in January. Our hero!

The Halloween Pumpkin Flotilla is cancelled. Cause of death: popularity.

For thirty years flotilla enthusiasts would carve a pumpkin and the Central Park Conservancy sealed a light inside it and then connected several together in rows. At dusk, an adult dressed as a pirate or a witch, or another costumed character, climbed into a kayak and towed the pumpkins across the Harlem Meer while thousands of people stood on the shore and watched.

This Halloween tradition originally started at the Pool in the early nineties as the Pumpkin Sail and moved to the Meer in 1993, when the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center opened. Funny enough, they changed the name from Pumpkin Sail to Pumpkin Flotilla, because enough people read Sail as Sale and turned up expecting to buy a pumpkin.

Its popularity kept growing and the park officials felt that with the thousands who typically attended, it was too big to continue safely this year. Most traditions die of neglect, this one died of a crowd.

The meandering Bridle Path in Central Park was designed for horseback riders by the original architects of the park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Today the 4.2 miles of equestrian pathway is more likely to be worn under the tread of sneakers and not steel covered hooves.

One of the most famous areas of the Bridle Path is where Buddy the Elf and his half brother, Michael Hobbs, are ambushed by a gang of snowballers by Pinebank Arch. Currently the arch has been undergoing a complete restoration as one of four original cast-iron bridges in the park. During this restoration, Central Park Conservancy identified the cul-de-sac just past the arch as an area that should be connected to the rest of the circulation pathways nearby.

Connecting the bulbous dead-end will cost an estimated $1-$1.5 million. All of the funds have been raised privately. Part of the project will improve the views of the historic bridge and park vistas, and add boulders and rustic benches for seating, and new plantings around the archway.

Currently, the Pinebank Arch restoration should finish this Autumn according to the Conservancy. Last week, Community Board 7 approved the proposal to move forward with the Bridle Path improvements in Spring 2027.

One of the only places we found that still offers horseback riding in Central Park is via Miller's Horse Company. We wonder if anyone has brought their stabled horse outside of Manhattan into Central Park to enjoy the Bridle Path?

Until then, ‘Son of Nutcracker’ to anyone who has a dog off-leash on the Bridle Path as it is strictly forbidden at all times.

Arrived: 🍂 Central Park Fall Foliage Tracker — Central Park, everywhere all at once. The Conservancy's map of what leaves are peeping and where. We now track leaves the way we track flights.

Opened: 👁️ Wink Pediatric Eye Care — 424 West End Ave (80th–81st). A pediatric eye practice in a former fertility clinic. Same families, give or take five years.

Opened: 🥋 Manhattan Karate NYC — 251 W 81st St (Broadway–West End). Sensei Nerik and Vladyslav Burdeinyi took the room Harmony by Karate left behind. Karate begets karate. First class free.

Opened: 🍗 Good Bird Organic Chicken — 474 Columbus Ave (at 83rd). Organic kosher chicken sharing a room with Polanco Social, from the Modern Bread and Bagel people. Two restaurants, one lease, zero Saturdays open.

Closed: 🥗 Sweetgreen — 311 Amsterdam Ave (at 75th). Gone after eleven years. An August inspection found 39 violation points and live roaches. The Columbus Ave location is fine. Salad was supposed to be the safe order.

Update: 🚏 Those silver poles on 96th — W 96th St (Amsterdam–Columbus). They will hold signs reading Bus Lane Only. The bus lanes went in December 2024. The signs arrive next month. Twenty-two months to tell you what the lane already was.

Coming: ⛳ Golf V2 — 1865 Broadway (at 61st). Four simulator bays and a putting green, opening Nov 2. The founder looks for neighborhoods with disposable income, families and schools. He found us.

Coming: 💅 Sundays — 211 W 84th St (at Broadway). They make their own non-toxic polish, which tells you something about everyone else's. Twenty percent off the first visit. Long Island City got one before we did.

Coming: 💆 Spa Boutique — 667 Columbus Ave (at 92nd). Late fall, in the old Pet Market space. The original stays open two blocks north. Two blocks is apparently a commute.

On the Move: 🏝️ Mike Pinsky — One island for another. The Yankees' assistant director of baseball operations is on Survivor 51, which premiered Wednesday. GM Brian Cashman said, "We're all basically going to get our popcorn out and watch this thing play out." He's used to people getting cut.

🌬️ Saturday is rain and wind, about eight hours of it, high near 60, gusts past 40. The wind advisory runs until 6am Sunday and the coastal flood warning until Sunday evening. Sunday is more of the same with less wind, high near 62. Indoors is not the fallback this weekend. It is the plan.

🛍️ Bloomingdale yard sale: POSTPONED, now Saturday Oct 3. The West 104th Street Block Association called it off rather than run a yard sale into a nor'easter, and the raffle worth thousands moves with it. Steven Zirinsky, president of the association said, "But weather is weather, whether you like it or not."

🌍 ClimateFest, American Museum of Natural History, 200 Central Park West, Saturday 11am to 4pm. Live demonstrations, activities for every age, and the sixth annual BIPOC Climate Justice Summit running alongside it. Five hours indoors at the museum is also a weather strategy. Included with museum admission.

🎵 Bilingual Broadway EN VIVO, David Rubenstein Atrium, 1887 Broadway, Saturday at 11am. Young performers do theater's greatest songs en Español. Free, indoors and eleven in the morning, which is the correct time to hear a show tune on a wet Saturday. FREE, first come first served.

💎 Jewels, David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Saturday at 2pm and 7:30pm, Sunday at 3pm. Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds, three ballets with no plot to follow and nothing to read beforehand. Closing weekend, so this is it until it comes back around. Starts at $54.

🎞️ Saturday Afternoon Movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey, St. Agnes Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, Saturday at 2pm, once only. This month's matinee theme is science fiction, which for this one is underselling it. 139 minutes, a big dark room, and nobody next to you checking their phone. FREE.

🖥️ One-on-One Computer Help with Digital Grandparents, St. Agnes Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, Saturday 2pm to 4pm, Computer Lab on the third floor. Bring the thing that has been bothering you since March. Somebody sits down with you and does not sigh. FREE, no registration, 18 and over.

🎭 Mozart's Così fan tutte, The Metropolitan Opera, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Saturday at 8pm. Phelim McDermott sets it in a 1950s Coney Island amusement park, sideshow performers and all. The plot is two men disguising themselves to test whether their fiancées will stay faithful, which goes how you would expect. Funnier than most things billed as comedies. Starts at $33, fee included.

🎭 Puccini's La Bohème, The Metropolitan Opera, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Sunday at 3pm. Zeffirelli's staging, a Met fixture for 45 years, with a second act so crowded the stage looks like an actual street. If you have never been to an opera, this is the one that converts people. Starts at $33, fee included.

🎤 John Oliver and Seth Meyers, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, Sunday at 7:30pm, doors at 6:30pm. Each does a 45 to 50 minute set, then they come back out together to take questions from the room. Looser than either of them gets to be on television. Starts at $127.70, and there were still good seats as of this writing.

🎙️ Matt Goldich, with Vannessa Jackson, Ismael Loutfi and Ryan Beck, West Side Comedy Club, 201 W 75th St, Sunday at 7:30pm. A longtime Late Night with Seth Meyers writer with two Daytime Emmys, working out material in a room that holds a fraction of his usual audience. From $12.50, plus a two-item minimum. 16 and over.

🎭 In Concert: Shuffle Along, Rose Theater, Broadway at 60th, Sunday at 7:30pm and Monday at 7:30pm. The 2016 Broadway cast reunites for a concert staging, which is the singing without the sets. PWYW, which for a cast this size is nearly a clerical error.

🎬 NYFF Trivia Night, Amphitheater, 144 W 65th St, Sunday at 8pm. Win tickets to sold-out screenings, which right now is the only way anyone is getting into them. You do not need to have seen the films to have opinions about them. FREE.

This week: seven parking spots.

The city wants to put seven curbside EV chargers on the west side: 200 W 106th, 13 W 106th, 102 W 95th, 222 W 83rd, 215 W 76th, 229 W 74th and 2 W 73rd. Each one takes a parking spot and gives it to whoever plugs in.

It went to CB7, where the chair called it an improper use of public space and another member called it a no-brainer. Both of them were describing a parking spot.

What is concerning to us is that the city has not published how long a car is allowed to occupy a charging space. Plug in, walk away, and there is no rule saying when you have to come back. 🤦‍♀️

Comment closes Wednesday.

Last week's poll results — "Two months away. Be honest:"

To the two percent who had no idea we were gone: we see you. We are working on it.

🐦 Birding: Fall Migration, W 116th St and Riverside Drive, Riverside Park, Sunday 1pm to 2:30pm. A family walk with the NYC Bird Alliance. Some binoculars on hand, bring your own if you have them. The parks department will post an update two hours ahead if it will be cancelled for weather. FREE.

💃 THREAD: A Dance Performance by Kinesis Project, Locomotive Lawn, Riverside Park South, Saturday and Sunday 5:30pm to 6:30pm. A new large-scale work that moves along the pathways instead of staying put. FREE, unreserved seating, cancels in heavy rain.

🚂 Locomotive Open House, Locomotive Lawn, Riverside Park South, Saturday 10am to 1pm. Conservancy staff on the renovated locomotive and the West Side's rail history. FREE.

🌳 New Dendrology, Arsenal Gallery, 830 Fifth Ave at 64th, third floor, weekdays 9am to 5pm. Eleven artists on trees, including a street-tree tarot deck and commitment ceremonies officiated between people and trees. FREE.

🐕 Camille Henrot: Dogs, Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park at 60th and Fifth, up now through Aug 29, 2027. A pack of large-scale dog sculptures in bronze, stone, steel and concrete, at the park entrance. Worth the cross-park walk for this. The artist Henrot is a West Sider, and the Public Art Fund's curator says each one mirrors the shapes, sizes and temperaments of the dogs she meets around her Upper West Side neighborhood. Somewhere in there is your dog. FREE.

🧩 Saturday Puzzle Time, Riverside Library, 127 Amsterdam Ave, Saturday 11am to 3pm. Four hours of jigsaws with lo-fi playing in the background. First come, first served. FREE.

📦 Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day of Play: Neighbors at Play, Children's Museum of Manhattan, 212 W 83rd St, Saturday at 10:30am and 2pm. Turn cardboard into a neighborhood. Drop-in.

🤸 Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day of Play: Little Movers, Big Movements, Children's Museum of Manhattan, Saturday at 11:15am and 2:45pm. Play stations built for big body movement. Drop-in.

📖 Story Hour!, 102nd Street Field House, Riverside Park, Saturday 3pm to 4pm. Rotating books, guest readers, and a roof. This Saturday that is the selling point. FREE, and registration is strongly encouraged.

🕯️ Miniature Harvest Huts with artist Ye'ela Wilschanski, Children's Museum of Manhattan, Sunday at 10:30am and 2pm. Build a sukkah from clay and twigs and put a tea light in the middle so it glows. Drop-in.

🎬 Movie Monday: DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, Riverside Library, 127 Amsterdam Ave, Monday 3:15pm to 5pm. FREE, no registration.

🍯 Birthday Cards for Pooh!, St. Agnes Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, Children's Room, Tuesday 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Winnie-the-Pooh was published on October 14, 1926, so the bear turns one hundred next month. Come after school, make him a card, and take home a copy of the book, donated by Penguin Random House, first come first served. All ages, no registration. FREE.

🐝 Silly Old Bear! Winnie-the-Pooh at 100, McGraw Rotunda, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Ave at 42nd, through Nov 30. A.A. Milne invented the stories at bedtime for his son Christopher Robin, and modeled the characters in part on the boy's stuffed toys. A hundred years later there is a curator of rare books whose job this fall is Pooh. First-edition E.H. Shepard illustrations from the library's own holdings. Worth the trip downtown. FREE.

Reminder: All Children's Museum of Manhattan programs are included with museum admission, which starts at $17.

🎙️ Kyle MacLachlan, Fictional Selves, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th, Monday at 7pm. Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Fallout. In conversation with Ethan Hawke. Starts at $20 without the book, $47 with, plus a $5 service fee.

🎬 Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, Tuesday at 8:30pm, and Wednesday at 6:15pm at the Film Center. In 1972 William Greaves filmed the artists and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. Fifty years later his son finished it. $35, members $30.

🎙️ Eric Idle, Idle in Provence, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Symphony Space, Tuesday at 7pm. Idle on the ruin he bought in Provence, where he wrote the songs and hosted George Harrison and Robin Williams. With Adam Gopnik. Starts at $45 with the book, plus a $5 service fee.

🎭 NT Live: The Misanthrope, Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space, Tuesday at 1pm and 7:30pm, Thursday at 1pm and 7:30pm. Sandra Oh in Martin Crimp's reworking of Molière. Starts at $25, plus a $2 service fee.

💃 Martha Graham: The Mother of Psychological Dance gallery tour, Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, Wednesday 11am to 12pm. FREE.

🎞️ Hollywood Renegade: Elaine May, Mikey and Nicky, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th, Thursday at 6pm. Fiftieth-anniversary screening of May's 1976 film with Cassavetes and Falk, then a conversation with Todd Berliner and Ira Sachs. FREE.

✂️ Free Talk: Making the Cut, Amphitheater, 144 W 65th St, Thursday at 6pm. Film editors on the least visible part of the job. FREE, tickets at the box office an hour before.

🎸 Ray LaMontagne: Trouble 20th Anniversary Tour, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, Thursday at 7:30pm, doors at 6:30pm. With The Weather Station. The whole run was supposed to play here last October and is arriving a year late. Starts at $75.70. The Friday show has no standard inventory left; resale starts at $89.44.

🎞️ Paper Tiger, NYFF64, Walter Reade Theater, Friday Oct 2 at 1:15pm. James Gray's 1986 Queens and Brooklyn thriller with Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson. 115 minutes. Advance tickets are gone, so standby is the way in: line up before showtime at the venue, regular prices, one ticket per person.

🎤 New York Hysterical: Stand-up Comedy, Robert H. Smith Auditorium, New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Friday Oct 2, 6pm to 7pm. NYC stand-ups hosted by Tom Delgado, a comedian who also gives history tours, which is a combination this venue appears to have willed into existence. Pay-as-you-wish runs 5pm to 8pm, so the exhibitions are open on either side of the hour. PWYW, no registration, seating first come first served.

🎶 Tom Jones: Come Gather Round Tour, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, Tuesday and Wednesday at 8pm. Standard admission is sold out both nights. Resale starts at $228.85 Tuesday and $283.14 Wednesday.

🇻🇪 Let's give Gustavo a West Sider welcome by donating to the cause closest to his heart right now. He's asking people to give to the UNDP's Venezuela earthquake fund, which is nearly $300,000 of the way to a million. Any amount works.

Let's help him hit a million!

🌲 National Public Lands Day, General Grant National Memorial, Riverside Park, Saturday 10am to 12:30pm. The country's largest single-day volunteer event for public lands, held every year on the fourth Saturday of September. Landscape work and litter cleanup with the National Park Service, and volunteers get a tour of the memorial from park staff. All ages, minors with an adult. FREE.

Whether the rain postpones this one is anybody's guess. Nothing has been posted either way, and you can still reserve a spot.

Be the neighbor you think you are.

🎼 Dudamel Conducts Mahler and Tania León, Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall, Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 2pm, Tuesday at 7:30pm. Mahler's Fifth with a world premiere by Tania León drawing on sounds from across the Americas. Saturday starts at $199.

🎷 John Coltrane Centennial Celebration, Dizzy's Club, Broadway at 60th, Saturday at 7pm and 9pm, Sunday at 5pm and 7:30pm. Six nights curated by Geoffrey Keezer, working through Crescent, the Hartman sessions, Blue Train and Expression. $24.

🎻 The Orchestra Now: Fate: Love and Death, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th, Sunday at 4pm. Zachary Schwartzman conducts the Forza overture, Mahler's Totenfeier, the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod, and Francesca da Rimini. FREE.

🇧🇷 Água de Moringa and Mariana Baltar, David Rubenstein Atrium, 1887 Broadway, Saturday at 7:30pm. Arcos do Choro, celebrating Brazil's choro tradition and the lyricist Aldir Blanc. FREE, first come first served.

🎺 Spilata's Birthday Bash Celebration, David Rubenstein Atrium, 1887 Broadway, Thursday Oct 1 at 7:30pm. Bessie Award-winning jazz vocalist's Atrium debut, run as a birthday party. FREE, first come first served.

Alternate side parking is suspended Saturday and Sunday for Sukkot. Meters still run. Neither day is a major legal holiday, so only street cleaning stops.

Now the part where the MTA explains why your usual plan will not work.

Sunday, West 64th between Central Park West and Broadway closes 10am to 6pm for the Ethical Society Fair.

And a small piece of good news on 81st Street. Brewer's office says the noisy phase of the subway elevator work at Central Park West is finished. The excavation and demolition are done and the job has moved inside the station.

On Wednesday evening, when I walked into the park at 82nd there was Gustavo Dudamel, hanging out in a golf cart with a few other people. Just chilling and chatting. My joy at being close enough to say hi was overruled by my shyness to never talk to celebrities in the streets, never have.

The Public Theater's Public Forum at the Delacorte opened with a live “mixtape” of five songs that Lin-Manuel Miranda would welcome Dudamel with, they then chatted on stage. The free tickets worked, and I intend to be insufferable about it.

The first piece on the mix tape was 1975 salsa classic “Un Verano en Nueva York” by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, and it ended with an alternate version of “New York, New York” in Spanish, after which Dudamel said it was the “first time I hear New York, New York, understanding the words.”

My favorite moment was when Dudamel made Miranda an offer: if Lin will conduct, Gustavo will sing. I’m hoping that they make this happen. So excited for what’s to come with our new neighbor. ~M

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Forward responsibly. Or irresponsibly. We're not picky.

The storm took a festival and a yard sale. Popularity took the flotilla. We still have a bear turning one hundred and a maestro in a golf cart. Fair trade.

— The West Sider