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

🍎 It's Getting Crisp Farm Picking Guide! Apple picking and more farm fun! Addresses, drive times, who's cash-only, who needs a reservation, and the two farms that have no apples this year.

The Upper West Side has exactly one official Great Tree, the American elm at Central Park West and 77th. It earned the title in 1985. West 75th Street would like a word. Its oldest tree, a London planetree called The Mayor, is taller than the surrounding rooftops, and we think it should be nominated.

The Mayor is one of 114 trees on West 75th, from Central Park West to Riverside. Now 91 of these arboreal giants have a name, a backstory, and a QR code that tells you how to care for them as part of the Talking Trees of West 75th project.

The visionary and architect is Jim Lyles, vice president of the Manhattan 75 Block Association, who's loved talking trees since the grumpy apple trees in The Wizard of Oz. His original plan was laminated fact cards in the tree beds. Then Bethany Crystal, the association's president and one of the block's "two resident AI wizards," told him, "But we can actually make them talk!" She and Aaron Vince, association secretary, took it from there. Jim wrote the scripts from Columbus to Broadway himself and gave AI the facts for the other three blocks.

West 75th has a few trees you won't find on most Manhattan sidewalks. Some of the rarest are Doug and Dawn, at 149 and 151, which are aptly named since they're dawn redwoods, a species scientists knew only from fossils until a living stand turned up in China in the 1940s. They're also conifers that drop all their needles every fall, which looks alarming and is completely normal. Another, Anne at 118, is a Kentucky coffeetree, named because early settlers roasted its seeds as a coffee substitute. Please don't. They're poisonous raw.

A local favorite, Bette, is a littleleaf linden at 102 W 75th named for Bette Midler, who lived at 102 in the early '70s. "Our Bette is snarky and feisty," Jim told The West Sider. There are twenty-seven tree species on 75th Street, while most blocks have a pear and a planetree and call it a day.

And in a brilliant community-building move, every tree is up for adoption. For $100 a year, you get naming rights and your own story on its page. For $1,000, you fund its care for as long as it stands. Every name is "subject to review before it goes live," so somebody has already thought about what you were going to type. Two are spoken for so far.

On Sunday, Council Member Brewer cuts the ribbon on this whimsical and educational labor of trees at a block party with a scavenger hunt, chalk and food. Details in Park Notes.

"People are more likely to care FOR something once they care ABOUT it," Jim wrote. Bette agrees, probably loudly.

A new exhibit opening next week at the American Folk Art Museum posits that young women artists were ahead of their time in capturing America’s changing landscape from colonies to independence during the 18th and 19th centuries. Their works were filed under "decorative arts" and forgotten. Women being erased from art history, imagine that.

In celebration of the country's 250th, Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American "Schoolgirl" Art opens Friday, Oct 9th, with nearly 100 rarely shown pieces because of their fragility and environmental sensitivities. The museum calls it "one of the most significant explorations of early American girls' artistic achievement ever assembled."

Long before Thomas Cole's Hudson River School, women documented historical building styles, landscapes, farm estates, agricultural scenes, and symbols of liberty, national identity and religion in their arts and crafts.

Highlights include:

🎣 A Boston "Fishing Lady" needlework picture (1747–50), as ambitious as American embroidery got in the 1700s. A courtship scene by the water. Some things never change.

🪶 The Lemmon-Phillips Filigree (1735), Mary Lemmon's coat of arms in quillwork. Quillwork is rolled paper. Your kid's macaroni art has some catching up to do.

Put this on your list. The American Folk Art Museum is always FREE.

The Pacific is running a fever. It takes 2 degrees Celsius above normal to call an El Niño "super," and the water is already 3 degrees over, with the peak still months away.

For us, that usually means a warm, wet winter. Usually. The 1997–98 super El Niño left Central Park 5.5 inches of snow all season. The 2015–16 one dropped 27.5 inches in a single January storm, the biggest in city history. Keep the boots where you can find them.

A warm winter is great news, unless your radiator is decorative. Heat season started yesterday and runs through May 31. These are the rules:

Last year the Upper West Side filed 6,305 heat and hot water complaints, the third straight yearly increase, per the city's 311 data. Almost 30% of those complaints were closed because they were duplicates.

This year, the Mayor's office said the city will investigate every complaint with a name attached, and "multiple complaints from a single building will not be considered duplicates (multiple complaints from one apartment will be considered duplicate)."

First, try your super, landlord or managing agent. If that goes nowhere, file with 311, nothing says cozy like a complaint number.

On Monday, the City Council does something it rarely does. The full Council meets as a "Committee of the Whole," a format saved for high-priority issues, with every subcommittee represented and every member invited.

The topic is AI. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta are set to testify under oath. On the table: bills that would bar businesses from deploying AI without third-party testing, require a "kill switch" on every AI system used in the city, and set up a whistleblower reward program funded by fines on AI companies.

Finally, someone's asking where the off switch is.

🤖 City Council Hearing: Examining the Risks Posed by Artificial Intelligence, Council Chambers, City Hall, Monday 11am. FREE, in person or virtual. Want the mic? Walk in to testify, or sign up in advance for virtual. Written testimony goes to [email protected] up to 72 hours after.

Reopened: 🛗 The elevators at 72nd Street — Broadway at 72nd St (1/2/3). Back after 13 months. The stairs would like it noted that they never once broke.

Opened: 🤠 Velvet Cowboy — 509 Amsterdam Ave (84th–85th). A Western bar dressed as a 1970s desert motel, and everything on the food menu is $5. Somebody check what year it is.

Opened: 🍙 Kine Musubi — 128 W 72nd St (Columbus–Amsterdam). Hawaiian Spam musubi with house teriyaki over jasmine rice, $6 to $8 a piece, plus shrimp katsu and vegan versions. Spam, finally getting the respect Hawaii always gave it.

Opened: 🍺 Talea Beer Co. — 441 Amsterdam Ave (at 81st). The taproom opened Sept 25 in the old St. James Gate, with beer, wine, cocktails, coffee and Detroit-style sourdough pizza. The taps are back on.

Opened: 💈 Topman Barbershop — 2592 Broadway (97th–98th). Cuts, shaves and waxing, open since Aug 22. Their third location. The beards are winning.

Coming: 🎃 Spirit Halloween — 1889 Broadway (62nd–63rd). Moving into a former Duane Reade. Opening date: the company couldn't say. Our guess, sometime in early October.

Coming: 🍽️ Café des Artistes — 1 W 67th St (Central Park West–Columbus). Famous for Howard Chandler Christy's wood-nymph murals, it closed in 2009 after 90-plus years. It reopens early next year, and the new owners would love your story or special memory from its first 90 years: [email protected]. Got engaged there? Divorced since? They'll still take the photo.

Coming: 🏋️ An adult fitness area — Riverside Park South at W 71st St. Construction starts this month and is projected to wrap in October 2027, funded in part by participatory budgeting money. Parks hasn't said what gets fenced off yet. Proof the idea map works.

Temporarily closed: 🍔 7th Street Burger — 424 Amsterdam Ave (80th–81st). Shut for a gas issue. They're not flipping on a hot plate. Prayers for Con Ed.

☀️ Weather: Friday is 84 and sticky, with a shower possible late in the afternoon. Saturday is the keeper: 70, partly sunny and dry. Sunday is 65 and mostly cloudy, with rain or drizzle possible in the afternoon. Bring the umbrella to the St. Francis blessings.

🕺 You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976, and Beyond, New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, opens Friday and runs through Apr 4, 2027. PWYW Fridays 5pm to 8pm. The city was broke in the '70s and made great art anyway. A lesson in there somewhere.

🖼️ What Is / What If? Group Art Exhibit Reception, Bernie Wohl Center, 647 Columbus Ave at 91st, Friday 7pm to 9pm. FREE, all ages, RSVP on Eventbrite. Goddard Riverside Community Arts opens a group show by artists with ties to New York, the Dominican Republic, Korea and Ukraine.

💘 Rivet Dating Show, West Side Comedy Club, 201 W 75th St, Friday 10pm (doors 9:30pm). $28.10. Two strangers go on a date on stage, comedian Dara Jemmott hosts, and the audience votes on whether it's a match. Cheaper than the apps, and at least someone's laughing.

🛍️ Bloomingdale Yard Sale, W 104th St between West End and Riverside, Saturday 10am to 5pm. FREE to browse. Rained out last week, back on this week. More than 60 stalls, a silent auction, a book sale, a bake sale, live music and a 50/50 raffle. Last year's winner went home with $3,649. Someone's going to buy a lamp they don't need, and it might as well be you.

🎪 Columbus Ave Fair, Columbus Ave between 66th and 72nd, Sunday 10am to 4pm. Council Member Brewer's office is tabling between 70th and 71st, so go say hello. On the 71st–72nd block, Makers Manifest runs 10am to 6pm, FREE entry.

⛪ St. Francis Day and the Blessing of the Earth, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Ave at 112th, Sunday 10:30am to noon, pet blessings outside right after. FREE, no passes. For decades, animals paraded up the nave, and one year the lineup included a camel. This year the procession is retired. Pets are still welcome inside with their people. They just have to sit with everyone else.

💃 Celebración Latina Block Party, W 89th St between Columbus and Amsterdam, outside Ballet Hispánico, Sunday noon to 4pm. FREE. Performances by Ballet Hispánico's company and students, free dance classes, food trucks, and a bounce house.

🎟️ NYFF Trivia Night, Amphitheater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W 65th St, Sunday 3pm (again Tuesday at 8pm). FREE. The prizes are tickets to sold-out screenings. Yes, we told you last week. It's still the best way into NYFF.

Every year City Council districts let residents vote on how to spend a slice of the city budget. In Council Member Brewer's District 6, over 4,000 people voted last cycle and picked new bathrooms at PS 84, a Riverside Park wall repair, tree guards, and cooling upgrades at two schools.

The 2026-2027 participatory budget cycle is starting. The first phase is to submit potential project ideas to be voted on. Pin your idea on the idea map through November. It has to be physical: parks, schools, libraries, streets. Repaving counts. More bus service, sadly, doesn't.

Finally, somewhere to put all those complaints.

Last week's poll: "Seven parking spots become seven charging stations. Should the city do it?"

Nineteen percent voted to keep the parking spot. They're still circling the block.

Saturday is City of Forest Day, the city's yearly celebration of its urban forest, with 150+ events in every borough, from Forest for All NYC and NYC Parks. The point: those trees are the city's lungs, and New Yorkers are the ones keeping them breathing.

🚇 Have a Nice Day! Welcome Home!, 96th St and Broadway subway plaza, Saturday 9am to noon and 12:30pm to 3:30pm. The West 90s Neighborhood Association talks trees with commuters, then visits building managers with trees in distress. FREE.

🦛 The Marvelous Trees of Hippo Playground, outside the Hippo Playhouse, W 91st St and Riverside Drive, Riverside Park, Saturday 10am to 1pm. Meet the playground's trees with Riverside Park Conservancy and Council Member Brewer's office. Arts and crafts for the kids. FREE.

🍁 Wonder in the Woods, Davis Center at the Harlem Meer, Central Park at 110th, Saturday, drop in 10am to noon. A self-guided scavenger hunt through the North Woods, about 30 minutes. FREE.

🌱 West 71st Street Tree Care, 211 W 71st St at Broadway, Saturday noon to 2pm. Mulch the tree beds, come and go as you like, kids welcome. Heavy rain moves it to Sunday, same time. FREE.

🔢 Trees Count at Riverside Park, W 110th St and Riverside Drive, Riverside Park, Saturday 2pm to 4pm. Learn the city's tree census app, then keep counting on your own. FREE, registration required.

🌳 Meet the Talking Trees of West 75th Street, W 75th St between Columbus and Amsterdam, Sunday 11am to 2pm, ribbon cutting at noon. The block party for the Scoop's talking trees. FREE, RSVP not required but encouraged.

🎬 Central Park Conservancy Film Festival, the lawn between Cherry Hill and Sheep Meadow, Central Park (enter at W 69th St), Tuesday Oct 6 through Friday Oct 9, gates 5:30pm, film at dusk. One film a night: Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff, Time and Water, Blink and LION. Bring a blanket and a sweater. It's October. FREE, no tickets.

📖 Family Storytime, St. Agnes Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, Friday 10:30am to 11am. Stories, songs and rhymes for ages 5 and under, plus a grown-up. FREE, registration required.

🧸 Community Playdate, Bloomingdale Library, 150 W 100th St, Friday 11am to noon. Drop-in for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and the grown-ups who are tired. FREE.

📚 Free Book Friday: Teen Edition, Bloomingdale Library, Friday 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Teens pick a book and keep it. FREE.

🧩 Puzzles & Play, Bloomingdale Library, Saturday 10am to 2pm. Four hours of puzzles and play, all ages. FREE.

🧶 Peruvian Inspired Weaving, Children's Museum of Manhattan, 212 W 83rd St, Saturday at 11:15am. Weaving with foam paper strips, so nobody gets a needle. Included with museum admission.

🎒 NYPL After School, Bloomingdale Library, Monday 3pm to 6pm. Drop-in for school-age kids. FREE.

🧛 Movie Monday: Hotel Transylvania 3, Riverside Library, 127 Amsterdam Ave, Monday 3:15pm to 5pm. A Halloween warm-up. FREE.

♟️ Girls' Chess and Math Workshop, Bloomingdale Library, Monday 4pm to 6pm. For school-age girls. FREE.

🎮 Game On!, Bloomingdale Library, Monday 4pm to 5pm. A teen gaming hour, at the library, with permission. FREE.

🌼 Little Learners: Adventures with Flor!, Bloomingdale Library, Tuesday 11:15am to noon. In English and Spanish, for toddlers. FREE, first come, first served.

🍯 Birthday Card for Winnie-the-Pooh & Book Giveaway, Bloomingdale Library, Tuesday 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Pooh turns 100. Kids make the card, then take home a book. FREE, register in person.

💬 Comic Creator Chat with Abby Denson & Samuel Sattin, St. Agnes Library, Community Program Room, Wednesday 3:30pm to 5pm. Two comic writers on their books for tweens and teens. FREE, register online.

🧱 LEGO Builders, Bloomingdale Library, Thursday 3pm to 4pm. Drop-in building hour for kids. FREE.

🔖 Banned Books Week Bookmarks, Bloomingdale Library, Thursday 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Teens make bookmarks for the books someone tried to take away. FREE.

🚫 Banned Book Storytime, St. Agnes Library, Children's Room, Friday Oct 9, 10:30am to 11am. Pitched at 5 and under, open to all. FREE, no registration.

✂️ Take & Make Craft, Bloomingdale Library, Friday Oct 9, 3pm to 4pm. A grab-and-go craft kit for kids. FREE, while kits last.

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

🎬 Science on Screen: The Truman Show, Uptown Film Center at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th, Monday at 7pm. Columbia Business School's Michael Morris introduces it. Jim Carrey finds out his whole life is a TV show. Twenty-eight years later, the rest of us post ours for free. $7, $5 seniors, kids and students with ID.

🎭 Verdi's Macbeth, The Metropolitan Opera, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Monday at 7:30pm. The Met opens its season with Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen in a new staging. Bring tissues or popcorn, depending on how you take Shakespeare. Starts at $33.

🎞️ The Debut, NYFF64, Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, Wednesday at 8:30pm. Jesse Eisenberg directs Julianne Moore as a housewife who lands a part in a local musical. Sold out; standby at the box office is the way in, $35.

🌍 Last week for Gaia, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Ave at 112th, through Thursday, open 9:30am to 5pm. Luke Jerram's giant floating Earth is moving on. Say goodbye to the planet while it's still at eye level. $15 to sightsee, $12 seniors and students, free if you're there to pray or meditate.

🎞️ The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, NYFF64, Alice Tully Hall, Thursday at 12:45pm. John Turturro as an aging Bronx pickpocket. Hold your wallet anyway. $35, and this matinee still has seats. Wednesday's is sold out.

🎞️ The Man I Love, NYFF64, Alice Tully Hall, Thursday at 6pm. Ira Sachs directs Rami Malek as a cabaret star living with AIDS in 1980s New York. $35, but every showing is sold out, so standby at the box office is the way in.

🎤 Elisapie, Festival of Firsts, David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Thursday at 7:30pm. The Canadian Inuk singer-songwriter makes her Lincoln Center debut with songs from Inuktitut, her fourth solo album: 10 classic rock and pop songs reimagined in her mother tongue. Your road-trip playlist, translated. FREE, first come, first served, or grab a Fast Track pass when it opens Monday at noon.

📖 Lavender Literary Society: Gay American History at 50!, New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Friday Oct 9, 6pm to 8pm. The American LGBTQ+ Museum marks 50 years of a landmark book. FREE, reserve a spot.

👕 Clothing collection at the 79th Street Greenmarket, Columbus Ave between 77th and 81st, behind the museum, Sunday 9am to noon. Bring the bag of clothes that's been riding around in your trunk since August. Buy some apples while you're there.

Be the neighbor you think you are.

🎸 Ray LaMontagne: Trouble 20th Anniversary Tour, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, Friday and Saturday 7:30pm. From $126.70, and Saturday is nearly gone. Twenty years of "Trouble," two nights at the Beacon.

🎷 Mark Turner Quartet: "Patternmaster", Smoke Jazz Club, 2751 Broadway, Friday 6:30pm, 8:30pm and 10pm, Saturday 6:30pm and 8:30pm. $25 to $65 depending on set and seat. A new ECM record, celebrated properly.

🎺 Jazz in the Park at Ralph Ellison, Ralph Ellison Plaza, Riverside Park, Sunday 2pm to 5pm. FREE. Local musicians and singers, as long as the drizzle holds off.

🎺 Charlotte Mayerson's Overlook Concerts, 116th Street Overlook, Riverside Park, Sunday 2pm to 3:30pm. FREE. The Brownstone Brass Quintet, with a river view.

🎻 Six String Symphony: The 52nd Street Project Benefit Concert, Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th, Sunday 2pm. $30. Proceeds go to the 52nd Street Project's youth theater programs.

🌹 The Blood of the Rose, Corpus Christi Church, 529 W 121st St, Sunday 5pm. $15 with code "Taller." Baroque music on a 1700s Latin American theme, from El Taller and Music Before 1800.

🌍 SurRound: The Earth Remembers, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Wednesday 7:30pm. From $75. Musica Sacra and Kent Tritle surround the audience with singers on the move, under Gaia.

💘 Revelry: The Lovestruck Balladeers, Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space, Wednesday 7:30pm. From $25. Love ballads, cabaret style.

🎼 CelEBBration: A Concert of Fred Ebb Award Winners, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Symphony Space, Thursday 7pm. From $34, $20 students. Musical theater songwriters sing their own work.

Daniel Boulud's new spot across Broadway from Geffen Hall isn't officially open yet, but it opened for Gustavo. For one night only, Brasserie Boulud hosted the NY Phil's opening-night party, after a concert two widows underwrote in honor of their late husbands. Mikhail Baryshnikov and Candace Bushnell were there. The Young People's Chorus closed the night with "You Will Be Found." The rest of us will have to wait for a reservation.

Alternate side parking is suspended Saturday and Sunday for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Meters still run.

This weekend: the downtown 1 skips 125th, 116th, 110th and 103rd, 5:45am Saturday to 8pm Sunday. Ride to 96th and double back. Nothing else is planned above 59th.

Late nights next week, Monday to Friday, 11:45pm to 5am:

Streets closed: W 104th between West End and Riverside on Saturday for the yard sale. On Sunday, Columbus Ave from 66th to 72nd, 10am to 4pm, and W 75th between Columbus and Amsterdam for the talking trees.

CPW water main: crews are on Central Park West from 83rd to 85th through the end of the year, part of a 2,700-foot replacement of 1870s pipe. Water shutoffs usually come with about four days' notice.

Bill, a family tradition and a compliment in one email? You're making the rest of the inbox look bad. Windy Hill is going straight into It's Getting Crisp. Got an orchard you'll defend to the death? Hit reply.

That's it for this week. The trees are talking, the heat is on (legally), and somewhere on West 104th a lamp is waiting for you. We'll be back next Friday.

— The West Sider

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