🍽️ 2026 Dining Out by The West Sider Every outdoor table, the NYT 100 in Manhattan and the Knicks bars, on one map. Heat lamp season starts now.

🍂 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.

At the high school that inspired Fame, students spend years learning to sing, dance, act and make art. On Tuesday, nearly 100 of them walked out to protest technology that does a decent impression of all four, minus the talent.

They don't want to live forever, just have high school without AI.

The students marched to Lincoln Center's plaza as part of a national walkout calling for a pause on AI development. Lincoln Center's plaza: the UWS version of storming the castle, in jazz shoes.

Among their grievances: AI-generated music in class materials and AI-made posters from their own parents' association. At an arts school.

One of our favorite things about NYC high school students is that when they disagree with the direction of civilization, they leave fourth period.

Some of the signs, from NYC schools and beyond:

"Everybody has a story. Do not let generative AI write yours," sophomore Alexandre Rollin-Dijkhuis told the Daily News.

The kids are worried about machines taking over. The adults are still making posters with them.

A century ago, A.A. Milne published “Winnie-the-Pooh” and a classic was born. This year Britain is celebrating the 100th birthday with special events at Ashdown Forest, the original Hundred Acre Wood, commemorative stamps, Lego sets and even an authorized sequel. In Britain, a Bear of Very Little Brain is now a matter of national importance.

Currently, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger and Kanga live at the New York Public Library in its Treasures exhibition. They came from the author’s U.S. publisher, E.P. Dutton & Co., which then donated them to the NYPL in 1987.

This spring during a royal visit by the king and queen to the United States, Queen Camilla gifted a one-of-a-kind Roo replica commissioned from the original toymaker so that Kanga would have her baby. It was a lovely gesture. In hindsight, it was also an opening bid.

Since then, the monarchy has extended an official invitation to the NYPL for Pooh and friends to visit Britain anytime, even proposing an exclusive room at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. Pooh currently lives in a glass case. It’s been 50 years since the children’s collection toured the U.K., and they have been sorely missed.

In 1998, a British MP spoke to Parliament about liberating Pooh and friends. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded by holding Pooh in white gloves and asking, "Hey Winnie, you got a green card?" Most stuffed animals don't survive childhood. These survived a world war, an ocean crossing and Rudy Giuliani with their stuffing intact.

More than a decade later, Prime Minister David Cameron made another diplomatic overture and was rebuffed. Which brings us to Poohgate 2026.

On Thursday Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal did a social media video saying, "Apparently an international incident has ensued. Because the government of the United Kingdom, through Queen Camilla, herself, has requested the return of Winnie-the-Pooh and friends." The comments exploded in territorial support. His ruling: "They are the property of New York and they are staying put." That's "you can see the kids every other weekend" energy.

One detail got lost in the outrage: nobody asked to keep him.

Britain's request was for a temporary loan, timed to avoid competing with library visitors during the NYPL’s planned closure of the exhibit for 12 days from Oct 19–30. There is a considerable difference between lending a bear and surrendering him to the Crown. One would think a library could appreciate the distinction.

Generosity is always easiest with someone else’s bear. So here's a thought. Let Christopher Robin's friends hop across the pond to see the king and queen. Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms. They'll find a spot. British children get to meet Pooh, and perhaps Britain sends a few treasures of its own to visit Patience and Fortitude on Fifth Avenue. An international incident resolved by the revolutionary concept of taking turns.

After all, Pooh wouldn’t be moving. He'd just be going on another adventure, a sleepover at the palace.

The Gristedes on Columbus Ave between 84th and 85th may be getting 13 stories of upstairs neighbors. Terra Developers paid $28 million for the building in August and wants to put 19 family-sized apartments up there, rising 145 feet. The northern half has some range. It was once a movie theater.

This isn’t Terra’s first UWS rodeo. Its portfolio lists Étage, six condos, one per floor, at 214 W 80th St, in what used to be a parking garage. Hope you weren’t parked there.

It's a historic district, so Landmarks must approve the design. Community Board 7's preservation committee gave the design a conditional thumbs-up. As one member put it, "We are only here to consider the appropriateness of the design." Sunlight was not on the agenda. Landmarks judges how a building looks, not what it blocks. The cornice gets a hearing. Your window doesn't.

Nearby residents would like it to be. "It's going to be a dark apartment 24/7," one neighbor told ILTUWS. A petition grew from 127 to 288 signatures in three days. On the UWS, that's a march.

Even Gristedes is apartment hunting. The supermarket is exploring temporary digs during construction. Welcome to the market.

The full community board votes Wednesday, Nov 4, at 6:30pm, at Ethical Culture (2 W 64th St) and on Zoom. Have an opinion? Of course you do. Email the preservation committee.

In 1936, the northern building was cut down to three stories. Ninety years later, it's getting a sequel.

🏃 Free seats at the Marathon finish line. The city and New York Road Runners are giving away 350 grandstand seats for Sunday, Nov 1, up to two per winner. Seats usually start at $55. You have to be 18 to enter. Enter here by Monday at 11:59pm. You sit, they run 26.2 miles. Seems fair.

🐭 The mouse that went next door. Gale Brewer's staff trapped a mouse in her district office Monday night, carried it, in a glass jar, to its neighbor, the Wild Bird Fund, "for their use as appropriate." "Nobody wanted to take the mouse home," Brewer said. What happened to it? "I don't even want to say."

💡 A teenager did the homework. Parks guessed. Emma, a Beacon High School student, went to Community Board 7 with a simple ask: put lights on Neville Colman Field, in Riverside Park at 107th. She’d done her research. Of the 18 full-size fields in the 100s, none of them have lights. Parks called the field "a tremendous candidate," then estimated the cost at $5 million, a number it admits it pulled "out of the air." Riverside Park's first lit field, at Riverside Park South near 64th, opens in about a month. Somebody should give Emma an internship at Parks. She's already doing the job.

Closed: 🌾 The Great Lawn — Central Park. Closed for the season as of Monday, two weeks ahead of its usual November shutdown. The Conservancy needs the head start to restore the ballfields, the last phase of a project that started in 2024. The lawn reopens in spring 2027. Fold the blanket. See you in the spring.

Update: ⛸️ Wollman Rink — Central Park. Change of plans. Wollman pushed its opening from today to Wed Oct 28, and Community Days ("everyone welcome") moved to Sat Oct 31 and Sun Nov 1. Still FREE, but you need to reserve a time. The rink hasn't said why. If you already bought the hot cocoa, drink it anyway.

Update: 🐴 Horse-drawn carriages — Central Park. The City Council passed Romanch's Law 40 to 7 on Thursday, with Brewer and Abreu as co-sponsors. It goes to Mayor Mamdani, who has said he plans to sign it, and it becomes law in 30 days even if he doesn't. The drivers' union says see you in court. Council Member Vickie Paladino floated a compromise: "old-timey-looking electric cars." After about 150 years, the last ride is June 1, 2028. That's 19 months to do the one thing you swore was only for tourists.

Closed: 🥡 Empire Szechuan Kyoto — 193 Columbus Ave (68th–69th). The Health Department shut it after Monday's inspection logged 64 violation points, including mice, live roaches and flies. It's been on Columbus since 1980, and it can reopen once it passes a reinspection. The sign on the door cites "scheduled equipment upgrades and deep cleaning."

Closed: ☕ Blu Café — 120 Riverside Blvd (at 66th). Closed for renovations. It opened in 2012 as a real estate office and café in one. The owner, Blu Real Estate, didn't say when it reopens. Your latte is now off-market.

Update: 🪧 Cecile Richards Way — Central Park West at W 83rd St. The southwest corner was co-named last weekend for the former Planned Parenthood president, who died in January 2025 at 67. CB7 approved it in May, backed by more than 300 letters of support. Elie Wiesel Way is one block north. Central Park West is running out of plain corners.

Opened: 🎭 Broadway Cheap Seats — Online. A free site that tracks rush, lottery and standing-room lines for 31 Broadway shows, built from more than 2,700 reports from people who stood in them. It tells you when to show up and your odds of getting in. Lincoln Center Theater isn't on it, so the Beaumont line stays a mystery.

Coming: 🍬 Halloween at the Garden — Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St, Flushing. Sat Oct 31, noon to 5pm: a costume trick-or-treat trail, crafts, performances and a harvest beer and cider bar. $10, kids $8. Take the 7 to the end of the line, then walk eight blocks south. Worth the trip if your kids have already trick-or-treated every lobby on Riverside Drive.

Coming: ✨ Holiday Under the Stars — The Shops at Columbus Circle, 10 Columbus Circle. The color-changing stars in the Great Room are back Mon Nov 9 through Jan 3, with a light show every half hour from 5pm to midnight. New this year: a personalization station on weekends for gifts bought at the Shops, family holiday story times on Saturdays and a kids' scavenger hunt. The light shows are FREE. Finish the candy corn first.

Coming: 🖼️ Art Week NYC — Citywide, Nov 11–14. The first one: 80 galleries and 32 museums and nonprofits in Chelsea, the Upper East Side, the Lower East Side and Tribeca. On the UWS, there's exactly one participant, the American Folk Art Museum, which is always free and still showing "Locating Girlhood." Chelsea gets 80 galleries. We get one museum, and it's free.

Coming: 🎅 SantaCon — Citywide, Sat Dec 12. It's back, 9am to 9pm, under a new company, North Pole NYC, after its former president was charged with wire fraud in April (he has pleaded not guilty). Wristbands are $15 to $30, 21 and up. The route goes to ticket holders the week of. No UWS stops have been announced. The west side can only hope.

Coming: 🍩 Dunkin' — 33 West End Ave (at 61st). Signs are up in the old Greenland Pet Shop. No opening date yet. From puppies to Munchkins.

Coming: ☕ Picky Barista — 2321 Broadway (at 84th). Signs are up on the corner where the old Variazioni was, before that Aldo, and before that a Coach store. The family-owned shop, run by Dragan and Sofija Bulic, hasn't set a date. Bags, shoes, clothes, now coffee. The corner has range.

Coming: 🍦 Cold Stone Creamery — 2303 Broadway (83rd–84th). Taking the old Kolorbar storefront, with no opening date yet. The UWS's last Cold Stone shared a space with a Tim Hortons at 162 W 72nd St and closed years ago. Picky Barista is coming to the corner at 84th, too. Coffee first, then ice cream. The block has thought this through.

There's no early voting Monday, Nov 2. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov 3, 6am to 9pm.

Not registered? Today is the last day to register or to request a mail ballot.

Your early voting site and your Election Day site are often not the same place. Look up both before you leave the house. Voting by mail? You can drop your ballot at any early voting site through Nov 1, or at your Election Day site until 9pm on Nov 3. Questions go to the Board of Elections at 866-VOTE-NYC.

No ballot advice here. Just directions.

💀 Halloween Crypt Crawl, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Ave, Sat at 10:30am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm. An hour in the cathedral's crypt, with the dead who are buried there and the Celtic roots of Halloween. Ages 12 and up, and there are stairs. $36.30, and sold out [FULL], but it's worth calling or checking back for returns. If not, the next crypt tours are Sat Nov 21 and Sat Dec 19. The residents aren't going anywhere.

🐕 Unleashed: Pets of the Performing Arts, Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, 11am. A staff tour of the library's show about famous stage animals. First come, first served. FREE.

🎼 New Short Musicals Debut, Library for the Performing Arts, 11am to 5pm. A full day of brand-new 20-minute musicals. Register for a ticket. FREE.

🎭 Lincoln in the Bardo, Metropolitan Opera, Sat 1pm; Mon and Thu 7:30pm. Missy Mazzoli's opera of George Saunders's novel, set in the place between death and whatever's next. Starts at $71 Saturday, $54 Monday, $61 Thursday. Saturday's Balcony is sold out.

👽 Saturday Afternoon Movie: Alien, St. Agnes Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, 2pm. In space, no one can hear you scream. In the library, please keep it down. FREE.

🎤 Todd Barry and friends, New York Comedy Club, 236 W 78th St, 6:15pm. Barry headlines the early show with Marina Franklin, Talent Harris Jr. and Adam Gilbert. $26.50 with fees, plus a $20 minimum tab.

🪄 Justin Willman: One for the Ages, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, 7pm. The magician's tour stops at the Beacon. From $75.70.

🎞️ Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Film at Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W 65th St, Sat and Sun at 1:15pm, 3:45pm, 6:15pm and 8:45pm (open captions Sat 3:45pm and Sun 1:15pm). In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves recorded about two dozen Harlem Renaissance figures, including photographer James Van Der Zee and painter Aaron Douglas, talking at a party at Duke Ellington's home, and his son finished the film 54 years later. 100 minutes. $19, or $14 at the 1:15pm shows, plus a $2 fee.

🎬 Fatherland, Film at Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th St, now playing, daily at 12:30pm, 2:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm and 8:30pm (Sat 7pm and 9pm). Paweł Pawlikowski's Cannes winner puts Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler in a car as Erika and Thomas Mann, driving across Germany in 1949. $19.

🌀 PLAZA, Josie Robertson Plaza, Lincoln Center, Sat and Sun at 5pm, about an hour. Andrew Schneider turns the plaza, the crowd and the strangers next to you into the artwork, and you hear it through your own phone and headphones. Forgot yours? Staff hand out free earbuds. It's the closing weekend. Walk up, or register ahead. All ages. FREE. People-watching, now with a program.

🎭 World Opera Day. Mark Schubin, in his 54th year at the Met, wrote a four-page essay asking whether the UWS is "the world's greatest opera neighborhood." It starts with an opera libretto at the Library for the Performing Arts and works its way to Edgar Allan Poe's farm. Read it, then argue about it over brunch. FREE.

♻️ E-Waste Recycling Day, outside the Marlene Meyerson JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave, 10am to 2pm. Laptops, TVs, phones, printers under 100 pounds and the drawer of mystery chargers. DVDs, tapes and most batteries stay home. FREE.

🌽 Upper Broadway Harvest Fair, Broadway from 96th to 106th, 10am to 6pm, rain or shine. Ten blocks of street fair. FREE to walk.

🐈 Silent Clowns: The Cat and the Canary, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, 2:30pm. Universal's 1927 haunted-house whodunit, with live piano by Makia Matsumura. $12, plus a $2 fee.

🐕 Trick or Treat, Sit, Stay. No need to trek to the East Village for costumed canines. The UWS has its own Paw Patrol. On Sunday, from 3 to 6pm, Columbus Avenue Open Street (68th–77th streets) becomes Doggy Trick-or-Treat Night, now in its fifth year. Thirty-three businesses will hand out treats, with a handy map for dogs determined to hit every stop. FREE admission, plus free treat bags while supplies last.

The main stage (73rd–74th streets) hosts live music at 3pm, drag queens at 4, a "pawrade" of adoptable dogs at 4:30 and a talent show at 5, where contestants are recruited from the crowd and compensated entirely in treats. The event benefits Animal Lighthouse Rescue, which helps find homes for rescued dogs from Puerto Rico.

Organizers scrapped the costume contest last year to keep things inclusive. Roughly 1,000 dogs attended in 2024.

A thousand dogs. No losers. Everyone gets a biscuit.

🎬 NT Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Symphony Space, 6pm. Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner scheme their way through Christopher Hampton's play, filmed at the National Theatre. Three hours. $25, plus a $2 fee.

Last week, 95% of you voted to bring back the No. 2 pencil. The pencil would now like to discuss penmanship.

Cursive is making a comeback. New Jersey just made it mandatory again for third through fifth graders. California brought it back in 2024. Ontario made it optional in 2006 and required it again from Grade 3 in 2023. Albany has two cursive bills sitting in committee. In NYC, it's up to each school. The DOE encouraged it in 2017 but never made it required.

One of those bills belongs to Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz. Last week, his son, Council Member Eric Dinowitz, was pushing to bring back paper state tests. The Dinowitzes have thoughts about pencils.

The pitch usually comes with brain science. In a 2020 Norwegian study, researchers put EEG caps on 12 kids and 12 adults and had them write in cursive or type. Writing by hand lit up more of the brain. Iowa researchers reviewed 26 studies this year and found that teaching cursive makes kids better at cursive and may help their spelling. The keyboard isn't winning on the merits. It's winning by default.

Ask an occupational therapist and the list gets longer. These are the common arguments for cursive, though the research hasn't caught up to all of them:

But the best case for cursive doesn't need brain waves. It's being able to read it. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust told NPR that in one of her Harvard seminars, "two-thirds of the students in the class couldn't read cursive." That was Harvard. A generation is growing up unable to read the birthday card. The fix may be quick: Victoria Van Hyning, then at the Library of Congress, said kids "as young as 5 or 6" who never learned cursive "quickly start reading handwritten documents." A little practice for a lifetime of Grandma's letters. We'll take that deal.

The Constitution has been transcribed. Grandma's recipe card has not.

Last issue's poll: "Should NYC kids take the state tests on paper or on a screen?"

Not one vote for the screen. You voted on a screen.

🐦 Birding Bob's bird walks, Central Park, Sat and Sun 7:30am and 9:30am from the Boathouse (74th and East Drive); Mon 8:30am at Strawberry Fields (72nd and CPW); Thu 8:30am from the Boathouse. The last weekday walks of the fall migration. $10 cash, $20 on Sunday, and the 7:30am walk rolls into the 9:30am. Just show up.

🦅 Birding: Fall Migration, Riverside Park, W 116th St and Riverside Drive, Sat 1pm. Urban Park Rangers point out who's passing through on the way south. FREE.

🐾 Riverside Park Pup Halloween Parade, Riverside Park, Sat noon to 3pm. Dogs in costume walk from Dinosaur Playground at 97th to Ellington's Cafe at 105th. Rain date Sunday. FREE. Yes, that's two dog events in one weekend. Pace your poodle.

📸 Fall Foliage Photo Walk, Central Park, meet at W 100th and Central Park West near the Pool, Sat 10am. Bring a camera and shoes you don't love. Registration required. FREE.

🕸️ Skip the fake cobwebs outside. The stretchy stuff can trap birds and other small animals. Audubon suggests keeping it indoors, or using thick rope with big gaps and checking it twice a day.

🦇 PS 9 Halloween Hop, 100 W 84th St (at Columbus), in two wristband sessions, 11am to 2pm or 1 to 4pm. Games, crafts and costumes for kids, and for the parents who dress up anyway. The school says it's "open to all, including friends and families from the community." $50 per child 3 and up, or $60 at the door. Adults get in FREE. Matching costumes are between you and your kid.

🎃 PS 166 Falloween, W 89th St (Amsterdam–Columbus) and Playground 89, noon to 5pm. The PTA shuts down the block for carnival games, bounce houses, face painting, a food hall, a fifth-grade bake sale and the school's haunted house. Open to the whole neighborhood. Tickets run $2 to $45, and wristbands cost $10 more on the day. One warning, straight from the PTA: "We will not be selling water!" Sugar provided. Water, BYO.

🎬 PS 87 Harvest Fest: Haunted Hollywood, the Big Yard, 77th St and Amsterdam, 1 to 4pm. A haunted maze, games, food and a costume swap for a suggested donation of a few dollars. Tickets are $20. Three school fairs, one Saturday. Pace the candy.

🎻 Lincoln Center Open House, Lincoln Center campus, Sat and Sun from 11am. The fifth annual one, where the kids get to be the artists. Saturday is light: a giant puppet tree wanders Josie Robertson and Hearst plazas at 12:15pm and 4:15pm. Sunday is the main event, 11am to 6pm. Costume try-ons, puppet making and an art station run all day in David Geffen Hall. At 11am, there's a Broadway storytime at Lincoln Center Theater (ages 3 to 8) and a dance workshop with New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet (12 and under). The Met runs Magic Flute storytelling sessions all day (ages 4 and up), Come & Sing has a drop-in family choir at 1pm in the Rubenstein Atrium, and Jazz at Lincoln Center plays jazz, gospel and soul at 3pm. Drop in, no registration. FREE. Bring a kid, leave with a performer.

🥑 Perfect Pairs Cooking Class, Children's Museum of Manhattan, 212 W 83rd St, Sat and Sun 10:30am and 11:30am. Kids 4 and up make nachos with guacamole and pico de gallo, then eat their homework. Sign up at check-in.

🧋 Boo! It's Boba, CMOM, Sat and Sun 2pm and 3:15pm. Kids roll their own tapioca pearls for pumpkin boba tea.

👻 Spooky Sounds, Mozart for Munchkins, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 W 86th St, Sat 4pm. A Halloween family concert with singing and dancing. Costumes encouraged. Adults $40, kids FREE. For once, the grown-ups are the expensive ones.

🏃 Marathon Kids Kickoff, Central Park, Sun 9am (a timed 1.42-mile race, ages 12 to 18) and 10:15am (an untimed 1K, ages 8 to 18). A week before the big one, kids get their own course and finisher medals. You can still register on NYRR, but spots are going fast. FREE.

🎃 Movie Monday: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Riverside Library, 127 Amsterdam Ave, Mon 3:15pm. It counts for both holidays. FREE.

♟️ Girls' Chess and Math Workshop, Bloomingdale Library, 150 W 100th St, Mon 4pm. Chess as a way into math, for girls 6 to 12. FREE.

🧹 Family Movie: Twitches, St. Agnes Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, Tue 3:30pm. Twin witches save Halloween. Rated PG. FREE.

☕ Teen Death Cafe, Riverside Library, Tue 4pm. A place for teens to talk about death, which is less grim than it sounds. Register online. FREE.

🛍️ Trick-or-Treat Tote Bags, CMOM, Tue to Fri 2:45pm. Decorate the bag before the candy goes in.

⚾ Robinson's Readers, Morningside Heights Library, 2900 Broadway (at 113th), Wed 3:30pm. A Jackie Robinson Museum educator leads a storytime about the man. FREE.

🎱 Halloween BINGO, Bloomingdale Library, Thu 4pm. Prizes for kids. First come, first served. FREE.

🍼 Baby Mozart, New York Philharmonic, Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio, David Geffen Hall, Thu and Fri 10:30am, for babies up to 15 months. Forty-five minutes of live music, songs and play with professional musicians, for an audience that can't clap yet. $60 for a baby and a caregiver. The toddler sessions are sold out.

🎈 Spooktacular MAD Halloween Party, Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, Fri 3pm to 6pm. Inflatable sculptures, a photo booth, mask making and pom-pom ghosts. $10, and kids 12 and under get in FREE.

🦇 Halloween Hang Out, St. Agnes Library, Fri 4pm. Treats, crafts and prizes for teens in costume. FREE.

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

🎭 AAPI Broadway Stories: The 5+ Vanguard, Library for the Performing Arts, 6pm. Lainie Sakakura and other Asian American and Pacific Islander Broadway veterans compare notes on then and now. Register for a ticket. FREE. The stories that never made it into the Playbill.

👮 20th Precinct Community Council, 120 W 82nd St, 7pm. The monthly meeting where neighbors bring their questions and complaints to the precinct. Bring yours. Everyone else will.

🎺 The Universal Language of Jazz, Library for the Performing Arts, 6pm. Wynton Marsalis and the Met's Peter Gelb on where jazz and opera meet. Register through NYPL. FREE. Two men who run very different houses, one conversation.

🍝 Tony Shalhoub and Josie Adams, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, 7pm. Shalhoub and his daughter talk food and family from their new book. Rachel Brosnahan, who played his daughter on Mrs. Maisel, asks the questions. One real daughter, one TV daughter, one cookbook. Starts at $43, signed book included. Livestream $22.

💃 Reconstructing Martha Graham, Library for the Performing Arts, 1pm. Three Graham dances were lost. Virginie Mécène rebuilt them, and she'll explain how. FREE.

🎙️ Live Podcast Taping: Locating Girlhood, American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, 6pm. A podcast records in the galleries of the museum's schoolgirl-art show. $15. Watch someone else start a podcast, so you don't have to.

🎬 Get Out in Concert, New York Philharmonic, Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall, Wed Oct 28 through Sat Oct 31, 7:30pm. Jordan Peele's film on the big screen while the orchestra plays Michael Abels's score live, with Anthony Parnther conducting and the DC6 Singers Collective. Wednesday's show ends with a talk between Abels and Parnther. Starts at $73 Wednesday, $71 Thursday, $73 Friday and $64 on Halloween. The Phil's email has a code, HALLODATE, for $50 seats. Whatever you do, don't let anyone stir their tea.

📖 Classics Book Club: Frankenstein, St. Agnes Library, 5:30pm. The original, just in time. FREE.

🤡 CWP Halloween Treat: The Man Who Laughs, the Sanctuary at St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 W 86th St, 7pm. A silent film about a disfigured 18th-century clown, with a live score by Ben Model. $15 to $40. The best-behaved horror crowd of the season: nobody talks.

🎻 Tom Gold Dance: Femme Fatale, Marlene Meyerson JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave, 7pm to 9pm. Tom Gold's company premieres a new piece, danced to live violin and piano. $44.

💀 Coco, Morningside Heights Library, 2900 Broadway, 11:30am. Pixar's Day of the Dead movie, on the big screen. FREE. Bring tissues. Yes, you.

🗡️ Medea, Metropolitan Opera, 7:30pm, season premiere. Sonya Yoncheva is Cherubini's sorceress and Michael Spyres the husband who should have known better. Starts at $35.

🌱 Garden with Riverside Park Conservancy, Riverside Park, 9am to 11am Mon, Wed and Thu, at a different spot each day: the Compost Compound at 95th (Mon), the Sweet Spot from 72nd to 96th (Wed) and the Canopy Club from 97th to 120th (Thu). Two hours of weeding, mulching and turning compost with the park's gardeners.

🥫 Pack food at WSCAH's 86th Street Market, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 W 86th St, Tue to Fri, 9am to 1pm. West Side Campaign Against Hunger's pantry runs here four days next week, and it needs hands.

🧵 Quilting with a Purpose, Morningside Heights Library, 2900 Broadway, Thu 2:30pm to 5:30pm. Sew quilts for families in need. Machine-sewing experience required.

🍎 Nominate a teacher for the FLAG Award for Teaching Excellence. Any full-time NYC public school teacher, 3-K through 12th grade, with at least five years in the classroom. Each borough's winner gets $25,000 to spend however they like, and their school gets $10,000 for an arts project the teacher designs. Students, former students, parents and colleagues can nominate. Relatives can't. Nominations close Nov 29, and the organizers say plenty of winners started with a single nomination. It might as well be yours.

🦃 Volunteer for Thanksgiving at Goddard Riverside. Registration is open for Nov 25 and 26: serving in-person dinners Thursday noon to 3pm, or delivering meals that morning to homebound neighbors on the UWS. Can't make it? Goddard also takes donated turkeys and bags of cookies. Sign up before your relatives make other plans for you.

Be the neighbor you think you are.

🎻 Free Juilliard recitals, every day, The Juilliard School, 155 W 65th St, and Juilliard Station, 130 W 66th St. Violin and piano recitals all weekend, and a spooky New Series Halloween concert Tuesday at 7:30pm. FREE.

🎷 The Cookers, Smoke, 2751 Broadway (at 106th), Sat 6:30pm, 8:30pm and 10pm. Billy Hart, George Cables, Cecil McBee and Eddie Henderson are in this septet, and their combined résumé is longer than most bar tabs. From $25.

🎻 Batiashvili, Capuçon and Thibaudet, New York Philharmonic, Wu Tsai Theater, Sat 7:30pm. Three soloists play piano trios by Shostakovich, Debussy and Dvořák. From $88, and very few seats left.

🥁 ¡VAYA! 100 Years of Latin New York, Wu Tsai Theater, Sun 5:30pm. A century of the city's Latin music, with room to dance. FREE.

🕯️ Mazal Bueno: A Portrait in Song of the Spanish Jews, Ansche Chesed, 251 W 100th St, Mon 7pm. Twenty-five songs in Ladino follow a Sephardic life from birth to Shabbat, sung by Julie Benko, Western Wind and Cantor Natasha Hirschhorn. It was created for NPR in 1992 to mark 500 years since Spain expelled its Jews. $26.50, or $21.50 to stream.

🎂 Mike LeDonne Big Band: 70th Birthday, Dizzy's Club, Broadway at 60th, Mon 7pm and 9pm. The pianist turns 70 with Steve Wilson, Vincent Herring and Eric Alexander in the band. Sold out, but Dizzy's keeps a walk-up standby list.

🎹 Broadway Close Up: William Finn, Merkin Hall, 129 W 67th St, Mon 7:30pm. Christian Borle, Liz Callaway, Mary Testa and others sing Falsettos and A New Brain for the late composer, with James Lapine as special guest. $70.

🎺 Jazz + Wednesdays, American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, Wed 1pm. A lunch-hour set in the galleries. Limited seating. FREE.

🎤 Topaz Jones, David Rubenstein Atrium, Wed 8pm. The rapper, producer and filmmaker plays a live set of hip-hop, funk and soul. FREE.

🎶 VOCES8: Lead Me Home, Merkin Hall, Thu 7:30pm. The British vocal octet sings Shenandoah, spirituals and Caroline Shaw. $50.

🎻 Orchestra in Miniature, David Rubenstein Atrium, Thu 7:30pm. Festival Orchestra players break into duets. FREE.

🪕 Gerardo Contino, David Rubenstein Atrium, Fri Oct 30, 7:30pm. The Cuban bandleader brings contemporary son. FREE.

🪐 The Planets, New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 W 86th St (enter on West End Ave), Fri Oct 30, 8pm. Holst's Planets, plus Walton's Viola Concerto with Matthew Lipman, and Matthew Oberstein guest conducting. Adults $27 in advance or $32, seniors and students $25, kids $22. Seven planets, one church, no telescope required.

The Philharmonic's European tour wrapped up Friday at Vienna's Musikverein, with Adams, Prokofiev's Fifth and a piece by Di Castri. It's Dudamel's first tour with the orchestra, and the orchestra's first in Europe in nearly a decade.

P.S. Dudamel's farewell at the Hollywood Bowl was a benefit for Venezuela after June's earthquakes, and Chris Martin showed up to sing "Santa Maria." Love seeing Chris Martin showing his superfandom, and watching Dudamel blush.

🅿️ Alternate side is enforced all week.

🚇 No uptown C on the UWS this weekend. Saturday and Sunday, uptown C trains skip every stop from 72nd to 116th. Take the A or the 1. MTA

🌙 Late nights are worse. Saturday and Sunday nights, the downtown 1 skips 125th, 116th, 110th and 103rd from about 11:45pm to 5am, and the uptown A skips 72nd through 116th overnight every night through Nov 13.

🌽 Broadway closes from 96th to 106th Sunday for the Harvest Fair. Expect bus detours.

🎃 Columbus Ave goes car-free Sunday, 68th to 77th, 11am to 8pm, for a Halloween Open Street.

🚉 Starting Monday, the downtown 1 skips 125th at all hours until early 2027. Board at 116th.

🚧 No parking on W 82nd St, Columbus to Central Park West, both sides, Mon 7am to Fri 4pm. Water main crews are digging test pits to find what's already under the street. This one comes from Council Member Gale Brewer's office.

🌃 Weeknights: the B stops at 8:30pm and the C at 9pm. After 9:30pm, the D doesn't run south of 59th, though it still serves Central Park West. (Last week we said the D vanished from Central Park West at night. It doesn't. Our mistake.)

That’s it for this week. Vote early, put the dog in a costume, and write Grandma a letter in cursive. She’ll write back. Good luck reading it.

— The West Sider

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