New York in October: what is actually worth your evening
The city puts on more in October than in any other month. Most of it is not for you.
October is the month New York stops apologising for the summer. The galleries open their real shows, the auction houses fill the previews, the season starts at Lincoln Center, and the weather is the best it will be all year. It is also the month it is easiest to spend four evenings doing things you did not enjoy.
The rule
One fixed thing a week, booked in advance. Everything else stays open. The people you came to see will suggest something on Tuesday for Wednesday, and a diary with no room in it is how you end up having flown four thousand miles to look at your phone in a theatre.
Worth booking ahead
- An auction preview. Free, empty at six, and the best forty minutes of art you will get.
- One evening at Lincoln Center or BAM. Book the thing you have heard of; it is fine.
- A gallery opening in Chelsea on a Thursday. Go at 18:15, leave at 19:00.
Not worth it
Anything ticketed and outdoors after the first week of the month, anything described as an immersive experience, and any restaurant that opened in the last eight weeks. All three will still be there in March, and two of them will not.
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