While a Broadway show or many of the top tourist attractions will set you back a pretty penny, there’s plenty of ways to experience culture in the Big Apple without paying a dime. You just need to know where to look.
Thanks to the internet, finding free things to do and see in the city is increasingly easy. Numerous sites have pages devoted to compiling lists of upcoming free events, allowing you to quickly figure out what to do with your unscheduled evening. Back in 1987, there was really just once such source: the 8-page newsletter Free Time started that year by NYC newcomer Natella Vaidman. The newsletter has since turned into a website, Club Free Time, listing dozens of free tours, concerts, readings, galleries, workshops and movie showings taking place every single day around the city. The only catch is you need to become a member to see the locations of the events listed. Membership is very reasonably priced ($2.95 for a month, $19.95 for a year), especially considering that members can often get free admission to things that otherwise have an entry fee—but if you’re really cheap/broke, you can usually find details by googling the event name or other identifying info.
If you’ve got a little time to plan ahead, or will be in New York for a while, it’s worth subscribing to Nonsense NYC. It’s a free email list that informs its members regarding, to quote, “independent art, weird events, strange happenings, unique parties, and senseless culture” taking place around the city in the upcoming week. You’ll discover a side of NYC that tourists rarely encounter, a side that doesn’t take itself as seriously but is twice as much fun. Not everything on the list is free, but a lot of it is, and you’ll find nothing here that costs more than $25.
There’s numerous other sites as well: the skint, with an exciting and lengthy daily list of events split roughly 50/50 between the free and the inexpensive, Nifty NYC with an extensive but tour-heavy daily list, NY Free Guide, with a more limited selection, and NYCGo’s free this week, with one event listed for each day. The more sites you look at the more overlap you’ll find, but there’s always something that the rest of the internet has overlooked.
But if you want a one-stop shop to what’s free in the city, your best bet is Timeout New York. Not only is it one of the best-looking of the sites linked in this article, but it’s one of the most comprehensive—you can look at the massive list of everything that’s free today or one of the more focused lists such as events and festivals or nightlife. (And speaking of nightlife, if you’re looking for a no-cover club with an open bar, Overtime NYC is a site worth checking out.)
If you like music and are here between June and August, Summerstage is a must. A project of the City Parks Foundation, Summerstage is a series of free open-air concerts in all five boroughs—over a hundred of them each year. The parks are a great place to find other free events, as well. The NYC Parks Event Calendar is crammed full of free or very inexpensive tours, workshops and exhibits in the city’s many parks. But if your love of music exceeds your love of the outdoors, check out MyFreeConcert, a continually-updated list of exactly that, with up to half a dozen performances every single night. And if that’s not enough, Brooklyn Vegan has even more.
And if you still haven’t found something you’re interested in, visit a museum! Many New York City museums have regularly occurring days where admission is free, while others are free all the time.
1 Comment
Thanks so much for the recommendation! We list a few tours, but the majority of our listings are concerts, parties, film screenings, listings and unique attractions. Definitely appreciate the shout-out, though.