The People's LES

Artist Talk + Workshop | Loisaida through Cyanotypes with Maylyn ‘Zero’ Iglesia
2026-05-17 13:30 - 16:30 UTC | Swiss Institute, 38 St Marks Pl, New York, NY, 10003
Organized by Swiss Institute + Maylyn ‘Zero’ Iglesia
Join Maylyn ‘Zero’ Iglesias for a free artist talk and cyanotype workshop at Swiss Institute on Sunday, May 17 from 1:30–4:30PM!
We will begin by exploring Zero’s place-based photography practice, use of alternative photographic processes, and connection to Loisaida and its Nuyorican culture. This will be followed by a hands-on workshop where we will learn about the process of preparing cyanotype paper, and then develop cyanotypes of our own using transparent photo negatives of Zero’s work of the neighborhood and local found materials.
All materials are provided, though participants are welcome to bring objects, drawings, and the like that they might wish to use in their making.
The workshop portion will take place outside, on the Swiss Institute rooftop. Should there be rain, this program will be rescheduled. Rain date is May 30th.
RSVP required and spots are limited!

Greek Jewish Festival
2026-05-17 12:00 - 18:00 UTC | 280 Broome Street, New York, NY 10002, 280 Broome Street, New York, 10002
Organized by Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum
Join the Greek Jewish Festival as we celebrate the unique Romaniote and Sephardic heritage of the Jews of Greece! Experience a feast for the senses including authentic kosher Greek foods and homemade Greek pastries, traditional dance performances with live Greek and Sephardic music, an outdoor marketplace full of vendors, arts and educational activities for kids, and much more!

Radical History Walking Tour
2026-05-16 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York), 2026-05-10 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York), 2026-05-09 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York), 2026-05-03 15:00 - 17:00 UTC | Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, 155 Avenue C, New York, NY, 10009
Organized by the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space
SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS, 3:00-5:00PM | $25/person | No reservations needed!
Meet @ The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space – 155 Ave C, 9th & 10th St
Tours need three people to run – and almost always do.
Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space organic historian Bill Weinberg reveals the stories behind squats, gardens, riots, uprisings and more. From the Civil War Draft Riots of the 1860s — to the Young Lords, Black Panthers, hippies, Yippies and Up Against the Wall Motherf*ckers of the 1960s — to the Tompkins Square anarchists of the ’80s — to the tree-hugging urban enviros of the ’90s to the neighborhood Earthies keeping the legacy alive today. Unlike other neighborhood tours, we broaden beyond individual anecdotes to paint a strong historical, academic, and cultural big picture of the Lower East Side.

Five things you will learn on the Lower East Side Radical History Tour that you probably didn’t know:
1. The radical politics of the songwriter who penned the “Wizard of Oz” soundtrack.
2. What building in the East Village links the Gershwin brothers, the Black Panthers and Iggy Pop.
3. What park in the East Village was the secret birthplace of both the Hare Krishna movement and Occupy Wall Street.
4. How New York City’s recycling program began as an initiative of East Village community activists.
5. Why the same area of the city has been variously known as Burnt Mill Point, Drydock, Little Germany, Klein Deutschland, the Lower East Side, Loisaida, the East Village and Alphabet City.

Walking Tour: Building on the LES
2026-05-16 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | 103 Orchard Street, 103 Orchard Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by The Tenement Museum
Join a Museum educator as they guide you on an outdoor walking tour of the Lower East Side to reveal the unique stories that buildings can tell. Over the neighborhood’s history, many different communities have lived, worked and played here––and just as many communities have had ideas about what the neighborhood’s buildings should look like. On this tour, explore the changes in buildings before, during and after the era of tenements, and how the Lower East Side’s architecture mirrors debates across the city and country.
Among others, stops on this tour include:

The 1950s utopian, Modernist Seward Park Housing Cooperative, an experiment in co-owned housing
An 1830s row house, one of the oldest structures in the neighborhood
Angel Orensanz Center, a 19th Century synagogue repurposed as an art and performance space

Ticket Link: https://www.tenement.org/tour/w2-building-on-the-les/?tour_date=2026-05-16

LES Yearbook & Harvey Epstein Present: The Peoples Park Celebration
2026-05-16 12:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Lillian Wald Houses, 3rd & 4th Streets at Avenue D
Organized by LES Yearbook & Office of Council Member Harvey Epstein
LES Yearbook & Harvey Epstein Present: The People’s Park Celebration — a community gathering featuring a resource fair, creative art activities, and music. Join us for an afternoon of connection, creativity, and neighborhood joy!
This event takes place at Lillian Wald Houses. More info about the new park: https://www.archpaper.com/2026/03/davies-toews-nycha-lillian-wald/

The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space: Preserving Lower East Side Squatting & Environmental Activism History
2026-05-16 12:00 - 15:00 UTC | Tompkins Square Library, 331 E 10th Street, New York, NY, 10003
Organized by Tompkins Square Library (NYPL) with the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS)
Please join us for an inside look at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS), including a slide talk at the Tompkins Square Library, followed by a visit to MoRUS, where a guided tour will be provided.
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM: The program begins with an introduction to MoRUS, led by Bill Di Paola (MoRUS Director & Founder) and Marie Cantor (Archive Director). Learn about the museum’s past, present, and future. The talk will include photographs and much more and will conclude with a Q&A session. MoRUS event calendars will also be available.
2:00 PM to 3:00 PM: Particpants are invited to attend a tour of MoRUS, located just two blocks from the Tompkins Square Library at 155 Loisaida Avenue (aka Avenue C).

Walking Tour: The Jewish Gangsters of Lower Manhattan
2026-05-16 11:30 - 13:30 UTC | Ottendorfer Library, 135 2nd Avenue, New York, NY, 10003
Organized by Museum at Eldridge Street
Pickpockets, extortionists, armed robbers, bootleggers, gamblers, and hitmen cropped up not only in the Five Points neighborhood but also in the growing Jewish Lower East Side. Join us as we take to the streets and learn the story of organized crime in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in New York City, from robbed and torched pushcarts to illegal whiskey and drugs!
Highlights:

Learn about the famous gangsters on the Lower East Side including Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Arnold Rothstein
Meet the lesser known personalities like “Dopey” Benny Fein, “Big” Jack Zelig, “Lepke” Buchalter, and the notorious Samuel “Red” Levine
Walk the streets with an expert guide and visit where these Jewish Gangsters lived and conducted their business

Join a Museum at Eldridge Street expert guide on Saturday, May 16th at 11:30am.
We will meet in front of the Ottendorfer Library at 135 2nd Avenue between St. Marks Place and 9th Street. Tickets must be purchased in advance of arrival.
Tours will run about two hours in length, although this may vary.
Ticket Price (Includes Museum Admission):
Adults $25
Seniors, Students $20
Children 5 and Under FREE
Cool Culture Pass / SNAP Benefits $5
REGISTER HERE
This Museum at Eldridge Street Walking Tour is only available to small groups (30 people max). This tour is available to both individual ticket holders and families. Please show your Walking Tour order confirmation at the Museum after your tour for free admission.

About the Museum at Eldridge Street:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is housed in the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a magnificent National Historic Landmark that has been meticulously restored. Opened in 1887, the synagogue is the first great house of worship built in America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Today, it is the only remaining marker of the great wave of Jewish migration to the Lower East Side that is open to a broad public who wishes to visit Jewish New York. Exhibits, tours, public programs, and education initiatives tell the story of Jewish immigrant life, explore architecture and historic preservation, inspire reflection on cultural continuity, and foster collaboration and exchange between people of all faiths, heritages, and interests.

Image Credit: Bugsy Siegel center with lawyers Jerry Giesler (left) and Byron Hanna (right), Everett Collection Inc.

Walking Tour: Foods of the LES
2026-05-15 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | 103 Orchard Street, 103 Orchard Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by The Tenement Museum
Get a taste of tenement history! Explore over 150 years of Lower East Side history through the stories of immigrant and migrant communities and the unique food cultures that defined life in the neighborhood. Together with a Museum Educator, examine ways in which tenement residents both preserved and adapted the food traditions of their homelands, and how generations of street vendors, restaurateurs, home cooks, and grocers sustained communities while shaping wider ideas of American cuisine and identity.
Visit 8 unique stops and try small tastings from local Lower East Side vendors! Tastings include:

Cafe Katja (pretzels & beer)
Pickle Guys (new pickle, garlic stuffed olive, pickled pineapple)
Essex Olive and Spice (olive oils & balsamic vinaigrettes)
Lower East Side Ice Cream Factory (ice cream)

Alongside tastings, tour a modern public market with a surprisingly deep history in the neighborhood and learn about everything from Kleindeutschland, NYC’s first non-English speaking community, to how public schools in the Lower East Side became the front line in the battle to “Americanize” immigrant cuisine.
*Currently, discounts are only available to Museum members.
Ticket Link: https://www.tenement.org/tour/f1-foods-of-the-les/?tour_date=2026-05-15

Community Quilt
2026-05-15 12:00 - 18:00 UTC | Relative Arts, 367 E 10th Street, New York, NY, 10009
Organized by Relative Arts with Catalyst
Join us at Relative Arts (367 E 10th St NY NY 10009) for Lower East Side History Month and take part in a collective quilt-making project. On May 15th anytime from 12–6pm, participants are invited to drop by and design a quilt square that will become part of a larger quilt installation led by Emily Johnson/Catalyst, with Korina Emmerich from Relative Arts hosting the event as Materials Caretaker and Exhibitions Steward.

Using guided prompts, contributors will reflect on questions like:
“What do you want for your well-being?
What do you want for the well-being of your chosen friends and family?
What do you want for your neighborhood, town, city, reserve, Nation, world?
“What are our non-negotiable care actions?”
“How do we disrupt the misuse of these terms: great, free, he, she, illegal, migrant, border?”
“How do we defend land in the city?”

This is an open invitation to gather, create, and contribute to a living archive of collective thought. No experience or materials needed, just bring your voice.

Walking Tour: Jewish Lower East Side
2026-05-15 11:30 - 13:30 UTC | 12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002, 12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Museum at Eldridge Street
Stroll through the neighborhood’s 100-year-old history!
A century ago, the Lower East Side saw unparalleled growth as waves of immigrants settled, prayed, played, worked, shopped, and attended school in this neighborhood as they built their new lives in a new land. Today, there are signs of the past hidden within the modern streets. See how many of these historic places have been transformed, repurposed, or restored.
Highlights:

Visit the Museum at Eldridge Street and see a fully restored magnificent 1887 synagogue
Stop at Straus Square and learn about its history and its significance during the heyday of Jewish immigration
Visit The Forward building and learn the role of this important Jewish newspaper and its Yiddish advice column A Bintel Brief
Stop by Seward Park, the first municipally built free playground in the United States and designed especially for the neighborhood’s children, the first generation to grow up in such crowded conditions

Join a Museum at Eldridge Street expert guide on Friday, May 15th at 11:30am as we walk in the footsteps of these immigrants and tell their stories.
Ticket Price (Includes Museum Admission):
Adults $25
Seniors / Students $20
Children 5 and Under FREE
Cool Culture Pass / SNAP Benefits $5
REGISTER HERE
This Museum at Eldridge Street Walking Tour is only available to small groups (25 people max). This tour is available to both individual ticket holders and families.

Image Credit: “A Group of Peddlers (The Ghetto),” color postcard, William A. Rosenthall Judaica Collection Postcards.

Tigers on a Tightrope: Around the World in 50 years!
2026-05-14 19:30 - 20:30 UTC | Downtown Art, 70 E 4th Street, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Organized by Bond Street Theatre
Join us for an immersive hour celebrating 50 years of Bond Street Theatre’s global impact through a vibrant mix of stories, images, and video. As part of Lower East Side History Month, this event highlights the company’s deep roots in New York City alongside its remarkable theatre projects in Afghanistan, Myanmar, India – 60 countries around the world – showcasing how art bridges cultures. It is a heartfelt tribute to a half-century of humanitarian theatre and the enduring spirit of creative adventure.
Free! RSVP: info@bondst.org

Film Screening: Take Over + Whose Neighborhood is it Anyway? w/ Peter Kinoy
2026-05-14 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, 155 Avenue C, New York, NY, 10009
Organized by the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space
MoRUS will be screening films about squatting in the Lower East Side. After each showing, there will be a discussion and Q&A with special guests! More info to come!
DOORS at 6pm every THURSDAY April 23rd till May 28th 2026
Location: 155 Loisaida Ave NY NY 10009
FILM SCHEDULE:
4.23…El Corazon de Loisaida + Viva Loisaida w/ Special Guests
4.30…Your House is Mine + Survival Without Rent w/ Elana Heiserman, Katie Meyers, and Caroline McCaughey
5.7…Squat or Rot + How to Squash a Squat w/ Franck Lazare and Special Guest
5.14…Take Over + Whose Neighborhood is it Anyway? w/ Peter Kinoy
5.21…Squatters: A NYC Documentary w/ Catalina Santamaria
5.28…Tompkins Square Riot Footage w/ Clayton Patterson

"Our Stories, Our Space" Reception
2026-05-14 13:30 - 14:30 UTC | Manny Cantor Center, 197 Broadway, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Manny Cantor Center
Educational Alliance invites you to experience the vibrant creativity and cultural contributions of older New Yorkers during the 5th Annual CelebratEArts Festival, a month-long arts festival held in May in honor of Older Americans Month.
This milestone year continues the celebration of creativity, expression, and connection through the arts. Our theme, The Power of Belonging, invites reflection on lived experience, creative process, and the stories that connect us.
The festival brings together five Educational Alliance sites, including the 14th Street Y, Co-Op Village NORC, Sirovich Center for Balanced Living, Weinberg Center for Balanced Living, and Project ORE. Throughout the month, you can enjoy a diverse array of gallery exhibitions, performances, ceramic and craft sales, and intergenerational programs.
CelebratEArts provides a dynamic platform for older adults to share their art, express themselves, and connect with community.

OUR STORIES, OUR SPACE
Manny Cantor Center, Jewish Communal Fund Gallery (Lobby)
& Rubenstein Gallery (M Level)
Monday – Friday | 6:30 AM – 9:00 PM
Saturday – Sunday | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
An exhibition highlighting artwork created by members of the Weinberg Center and Co-op Village NORC. The collection features a wide range of artistic expression, including origami, watercolor, acrylic, drawing, Chinese beading, handbuilding, knitting, collage, ink blot, poetry, art therapy, AI music, and more. Created by artists aging in place, these works reflect lived experience, ongoing creativity, and the spaces we shape—and are shaped by—through art and community.
MCC GALLERY RECEPTION
Thursday, May 14 | 1:30 – 2:30 PM
Manny Cantor Center, Rubenstein Gallery (M Level)
Join us for the Our Stories, Our Space Gallery Reception, where you can engage with the artists, explore their work, and enjoy light refreshments. Celebrate the creativity, lived experience, and artistic expression reflected in each piece.

What Makes a NYC Landmark?
2026-05-13 18:30 - 20:30 UTC | Henry Street Settlement, 269 Henry Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Lower East Side Preservation Initiative
May 13 – LESPI’s Community Meeting: “What Makes a NYC Landmark?”
How does the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) decide what to landmark, what not to landmark, and how to prioritize their work? How much should a building’s historic architecture versus cultural history weigh in the decision? Should a landmark look like a landmark to be a landmark?
Join Margaret Herman, Director of Research at the LPC, Preservation Consultant Simeon Bankoff, and LESPI for a lively yet friendly, illustrated discussion of this important topic.
Do you have a favorite historic building you’d like to see landmarked? Email a photo to us at info@LESPI-nyc.org and we’ll try to include it in the discussion.
When: Wednesday, May 13, 6:30-8:30PM
Where: Henry Street Settlement, 269 Henry Street
Free, reservation required, limited seating, sign up HERE.
Margaret Herman, Ph.D. is an architectural historian who serves as the LPC’s Director of Research, leading geographic and thematic surveys, overseeing special projects, and managing the designation process for numerous landmarks and historic districts. Prior to joining LPC, Margaret held various university teaching positions, where her academic research focused on early 20th century American architectural and urban planning history.
Simeon Bankoff is a longtime preservation activist in New York City. He has helped lead campaigns to designate and preserve historic buildings in all 5 boroughs for over 30 years. Mr. Bankoff served as the Executive Director of the Historic Districts Council for over 20 years and currently works with organizations throughout the city on community preservation campaigns.

Cultural History of the Lower East Side – Curated Walking Tour with James Fuentes
2026-05-12 11:00 - 13:00 UTC | Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Abrons Arts Center
To celebrate Henry Street Settlement’s partnership with Independent – now newly situated at Pier 36 on the Lower East Side – we are pleased to present a free walking tour, curated and led by gallerist James Fuentes. Taking place two days ahead of the inaugural Gala Preview, the tour explores the cultural history of the Lower East Side (LES) and brings into focus the neighborhood that connects Henry Street’s long-standing community mission and support of the arts, Independent’s new home, and the artists and dealers who continue to shape its cultural life.
The tour will trace several defining moments within the art historical framework of LES, spanning nearly a century. Beginning at Abrons Arts Center, which has been Henry Street’s home for artistic expression, experimentation, and activism for over a century, the tour will lead guests through the rich history of our neighborhood – celebrating the fact that one of New York City’s most vital immigration portals has long served as fertile ground for some of the most important art movements of the past hundred years.
Tour highlights will include:
~Kick off at Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center, the only contemporary art center in NYC part of a social services agency
~Meet Lee Quiñones as he discusses his iconic mural Howard the Duck and the Lions Den – a touchstone that connects Lee’s work to Keith Haring and the broader hip-hop and graffiti movement of the 1980s
~Visits to the flourishing Lower East Side gallery community
~Ending at the site of Claes Oldenburg’s The Store on E. 2nd Street, the landmark Happening of the late 1960s, closing the loop with one of the most significant avant-garde events of the last century.

Walking Tour: Reclaiming Black Spaces
2026-05-10 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | 103 Orchard Street, 103 Orchard Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by The Tenement Museum
Explore stories of how Black New Yorkers shaped Lower Manhattan as they made homes, businesses, and communities there over the centuries. On this tour, you’ll discuss how Black New Yorkers experiences were shaped by migration, how communities created a sense of home, and how people resisted the racism they faced. From the story of Sebastiaen de Britto, one of the first Black residents of the area in the 1640s, to Studio We, a musician’s collective in the 1970s, we’ll also look at how stories are preserved or erased over generations.
Among others, stops on this tour include:

The former downtown New York office of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), who fought for Civil Rights in the 1960s
The firehouse that was desegregated by Wesley Williams in 1919, who became the FDNY’s first Black lieutenant
M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden, named in memory of the second 18th-century African American burial ground, located on nearby Chrystie Street

Ticket Link: https://www.tenement.org/tour/w3-reclaiming-black-spaces/?tour_date=2026-05-10

Walking Tour: Mamas with Chutzpah
2026-05-10 11:30 - 13:30 UTC | 12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002, 12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Museum at Eldridge Street
Celebrate Mother’s Day with the Museum at Eldridge Street!
Discover the women who both witnessed and shaped social, artistic, financial, and political change on the Lower East Side from the late 19th to the early 20th century.
Follow in the footsteps of activists Emma Goldman and Clara Lemlich as they pushed for radical reforms at the height of the Progressive Era. In addition to anonymous social commentators, such as the contributors to The Jewish Daily Forward’s Yiddish advice column A Bintel Brief, and the women who worked below the elevated train on Allen Street, you will learn about wigmaker and mikvah (ritual bath) owner Gittel Natelson, groundbreaking artist Louise Nevelson, and Kosher delicatessen queen Sarah Gellis—the first female member of the Eldridge Street Synagogue where the Museum at Eldridge Street now resides.
Highlights:

Visit the Women’s Balcony of the Eldridge Street Synagogue and discuss Sarah Gellis
Learn about the former Mikvah on Allen Street and businesswoman Gittel Natelson
Discuss the Allen Street Prostitutes/Handkerchief Girls
Head to Straus Square to learn about Clara Lemlich and Emma Goldman
Visit The Forward Building and discuss the Yiddish advice column A Bintel Brief
See The Educational Alliance and learn about Louise Nevelson

Join a Museum at Eldridge Street expert guide on Sunday, May 10th at 11:30am and learn about these hardworking Lower East Side immigrant women.
Ticket Price (Includes Museum Admission):
Adults $25
Seniors / Students $20
Children 5 and Under FREE
Cool Culture Pass / SNAP Benefits $5
REGISTER HERE
This Museum at Eldridge Street Walking Tour is only available to small groups (30 people max). This tour is available to both individual ticket holders and families.

About the Museum at Eldridge Street:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is housed in the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a magnificent National Historic Landmark that has been meticulously restored. Opened in 1887, the synagogue is the first great house of worship built in America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Today, it is the only remaining marker of the great wave of Jewish migration to the Lower East Side that is open to a broad public who wishes to visit Jewish New York. Exhibits, tours, public programs, and education initiatives tell the story of Jewish immigrant life, explore architecture and historic preservation, inspire reflection on cultural continuity, and foster collaboration and exchange between people of all faiths, heritages, and interests.

Image Credit: Immigrant Women on the Lower East Side, “The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902, Scott D. Seligman.”

Open Arts LES: Chalk Lower East Side Trivia! + Duo Chuño and Jamile Trio
2026-05-09 13:30 - 16:30 UTC | Loisaida Open Streets Community Coalition, Avenue B
Organized by FABnyc with Loisaida Open Streets Community Coalition
Duo Chuño performs Latin songs with self-customized percussion, Jamile Trio plays Brazilian Jazz. Come by and chalk some colorful LES trivia as well — we’ll provide the chalk and the trivia!

Ecological City: Procession for Climate Solutions
2026-05-09 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | NY
Organized by Earth Celebrations

Earth Celebrations’ ECOLOGICAL CITY – Procession for Climate Solutions – SATURDAY MAY 9, 2026 – 11am-5pm @ Lower East Side, NYC

ECOLOGICAL CITY – Procession for Climate Solutions is an urban ecological pilgrimage and an art and climate action. Ecological City features a spectacular procession of visual art, giant puppets, costumes and 21 site performances celebrating climate solution initiatives throughout the community gardens, neighborhood and East River Park waterfront of the Lower East Side.
SATURDAY MAY 9 – 11AM-5PM (raindate May 10 )
SPECTACULAR PROCESSION – Visual Art, Giant Puppets & Costumes
21 SITE PERFORMANCES – GARDENS to WATERFRONT
Music, Dance, Theater & Poetry
BECOME A CLIMATE SOLUTION – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED to wear our spectacular climate costumes, help with puppets and other marshal roles.
Costumes, Puppets, Marshals – 8am Call Time Volunteers join us – 10am
START LOCATION @ 638 E. 6th Street (btw Aves B & C)
10AM- Volunteer Check in Table – Entry
VOLUNTEER – SIGN UP FOR A ROLE – Message us through Eventbrite
MORE INFORMATION – https://www.earthcelebrations.com
PARTNERS – ECOLOGICAL CITY Earth Celebrations in partnership with – LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens – representing 48 Lower East Side Gardens), NYC Community Garden District, Elizabeth Street Garden, Green Map, Loisaida Inc. Center, Lower East Side Girls Club, Lower East Side Ecology, Solar One, Waterfront Alliance, East River Park Coalition, East River Alliance, Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, Goles, University Settlement (PS63), Henry Street Settlement (Jacob Riis Cornerstone & Boys and Girls Republic), Clemente Center, The Children’s Workshop School (PS361M), The Earth School (PS364), East Side Community School, Sixth Street Community Center, Arts Loisaida, Theater for the New City, East Village Community Coalition, Educational Alliance, Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, Gaia Institute, Grace Exhibition Space, FABnyc, New York Cares, BMCC-Cuny, Hunter College, New School, and New York University. Numerous groups and residents throughout the neighborhood are invited to join.
This program is made possible with support from Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, City Parks Foundation, W Trust, Joseph Robert Foundation, Bluestein Family Foundation, private foundations, and individuals. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Earth Celebrations’ Ecological City: Cultural & Climate Solutions Action Project applies the arts to build community, diverse sector collaboration and action on climate solution and ecological sustainability initiatives throughout the community gardens, neighborhood and waterfront on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Through cultural strategies Ecological City reconnects people to each other and the natural world within their neighborhood and builds emotional connection, engagement and action on climate solutions, an urban sustainable ecosystem and the importance of local efforts to city and global climate challenges.
Gardeners, artists, residents, youth and over 50 community partner organizations collaborate through 5 months of creative engagement workshops developing visual art and performances exploring local sustainability sites and their climate solutions. Visual art and performance projects are presented in the culminating Ecological City: Procession for Climate Solutions on Saturday May 9, 2026 featuring visual art, giant puppets, costumes and with 21 sustainability site performances affirming a shared vision for a sustainable future.

Everyday Chinatown: Objects and the Stories They Hold - A Storytelling & Art Exhibition
2026-05-08 15:00 - 18:00, 2026-05-07 15:00 - 18:00 UTC | Think!Chinatown, 1 Pike Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Think!Chinatown
“Everyday Chinatown: Objects and the Stories They Hold” is the latest Storytelling & Art Exhibition by Think!Chinatown.
On Display at Think!Chinatown’s Studio (1 Pike St, NYC) from February 12, 2026, until May 2026, on select Thursdays and Fridays from 3-6pm, please check website for gallery hours before visiting and for exhibit and event-related programming: https://www.thinkchinatown.org/everyday-exhibition
Curated by Yin Kong and Aaron Reiss, this exhibition highlights everyday objects found in homes across Chinatown. Little things you might have seen hung up in your aunt’s kitchen, tucked away in a cabinet in your childhood, or a staple in your home today. While these items may seem mundane at first glance, they tie together collective identities and experiences. Chinatown is an embassy of sorts for these items. Not a place where these objects are from but a place where these objects pass through after arriving from elsewhere. If you know these objects, you probably have a story about them. These objects are part of so many Chinatown homes, and the stories tied to them in turn tie us together — home to home.
First led by Aaron Reiss, then Rochelle Kwan and Alice Liu, Think!Chinatown recorded at senior centers in Hamilton Madison House, Greater Chinatown Community Association, in Chinatown shops, the StoryCorps’ Story Booth in nearby Foley Square, and even over the phone during the pandemic. Stories were recorded in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, with a whole team of volunteers supporting translations and editing. Artwork by Hui Ma, Xin Mei Liu, John Lee, Lilly Lam, and Nessa Nguyen bringing these everyday stories to life.
So bring your headphones, come by the studio and listen in!

Film Screening: Squat or Rot + How to Squash a Squat w/ Franck Lazare and Special Guest
2026-05-07 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, 155 Avenue C, New York, NY, 10009
Organized by the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space
MoRUS will be screening films about taking over abandoned buildings, fixing them up, and turning them into communal housing in the Lower East Side. After each showing, there will be a discussion and Q&A with special guests! More info to come!
DOORS at 6pm every THURSDAY April 23rd till May 28th 2026
Location: 155 Loisaida Ave NY NY 10009
FILM SCHEDULE:
4.23…El Corazon de Loisaida + Viva Loisaida w/ Special Guests
4.30…Your House is Mine + Survival Without Rent w/ Elana Heiserman, Katie Meyers, and Caroline McCaughey
5.7…Squat or Rot + How to Squash a Squat w/ Franck Lazare and Special Guest
5.14…Take Over + Whose Neighborhood is it Anyway? w/ Peter Kinoy
5.21…Squatters: A NYC Documentary w/ Catalina Santamaria
5.28…Tompkins Square Riot Footage w/ Clayton Patterson

Book Talk: The Bowery - A Pictorial History
2026-05-07 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Ottendorfer Library, 135 2nd Avenue, New York, NY, 10003
Organized by Bowery Alliance of Neighbors with Ottendorfer Library
An Illustrated talk with author David Mulkins
Native American trail, Dutch farm road, free Black homesteads, and Washington’s march route during the
British evacuation, Bowery became the main street of immigrants & the working class. NYC’s 1st entertainment
district, it has seminal links to tap dance, vaudeville, Yiddish theater, Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Harry
Houdini, and modern tattooing. It later became an iconic skid row, but reemerged and helped foster Abstract
Expressionism, Beat literature, Free Jazz, and punk rock.
Special guests: Ramona Baker (ragtime pianist)
For Adults 18+

Open Arts LES: Sonido Costeño
2026-05-07 17:00 - 19:00 UTC | E 4th Street Open Street, 70 E 4th St, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Open Arts LES is back on 4th Street. Stop by for Latin music and salsa with our neighborhood favorite, Sonido Costeño!
Sonido Costeño (SC) is a modern day Latin band in New York City. Their high energy music is a creative fusion of latin music and salsa along with other world music and their fabulous concerts transform their club audiences into dance hall performances. Sonido Costeño’s “staying power” is seen by the ensemble’s growing loyal fan base from not only the New York City area (Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens) but also the tri-state area and abroad. Sonido Costeño was founded in the Lower East Side during the Nuyorican Poets Movement. Sonido Costeno’s founder, Juan Ma Morales, was also the musical director for the plays and musicals of Nuyorican poet Bimbo Rivas.
Juan Ma Morales is a Cornell Graduate and Julliard alumni. Morales leads the band as vocalist and plays guitar as well as the Puerto Rican cuatro (the island’s national instrument). Las Gaviotas (The Seagulls) and Senora (My Lady), two of Morales’ original songs, have won the Billboard Songwriting award. Under Juan Ma’s dynamic leadership, Sonido Costeño play diverse salsa rhythms, enticing “salseros” and non-salsa dancers alike to move onto the dance floor. The band’s dance repertoire includes: Son Cubano, Nueva Trova, Boleros & Ballads, Cha Cha Cha, Mambo, Guaguanco, Latin Jazz, and the band is known to play a Merengue and Bachata or two. Their unique sound appeals to broad and diverse audiences from all generations.
Sonido Costeño’s solid reputation to deliver the best quality entertainment has lead them to perform at many of New York’s best cultural institutions such as The Brooklyn Museum and El Museo del Barrio. They have been included in other reputable festivals during summer events such as Celebrate Brooklyn, The Highline, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Harlem Meers in Central Park and River Bank in Washington Heights in Manhattan. They excel in entertaining at community events such as Bronx Library Center, senior centers, weddings and private parties. Their stellar performances, however, are best enjoyed at NYC’s finest clubs, restaurants and casino’s such as: Havana Central, Subrosa, Sounds of Brazil (SOB), Gonzales y Gonzalez, Empire City Yonkers Raceway and The World Resorts Casino where you can also dance to their enticing sounds.

Walking Tour: Jewish Lower East Side
2026-05-06 14:30 - 16:30 UTC | 12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002, 12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by Museum at Eldridge Street
Stroll through the neighborhood’s 100-year-old history!
A century ago, the Lower East Side saw unparalleled growth as waves of immigrants settled, prayed, played, worked, shopped, and attended school in this neighborhood as they built their new lives in a new land. Today, there are signs of the past hidden within the modern streets. See how many of these historic places have been transformed, repurposed, or restored.
Highlights:

Visit the Museum at Eldridge Street and see a fully restored magnificent 1887 synagogue
Stop at Straus Square and learn about its history and its significance during the heyday of Jewish immigration
Visit The Forward building and learn the role of this important Jewish newspaper and its Yiddish advice column A Bintel Brief
Stop by Seward Park, the first municipally-built free playground in the United States and designed especially for the neighborhood’s children, the first generation to grow up in such crowded conditions

Join a Museum at Eldridge Street expert guide on Wednesday, May 6th at 2:30pm as we walk in the footsteps of these immigrants and tell their stories.
Ticket Price (Includes Museum Admission):
Adults $25
Seniors / Students $20
Children 5 and Under FREE
Cool Culture Pass / SNAP Benefits $5
REGISTER HERE
This Museum at Eldridge Street Walking Tour is only available to small groups (25 people max). This tour is available to both individual ticket holders and families.

About the Museum at Eldridge Street:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is housed in the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a magnificent National Historic Landmark that has been meticulously restored. Opened in 1887, the synagogue is the first great house of worship built in America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Today, it is the only remaining marker of the great wave of Jewish migration to the Lower East Side that is open to a broad public who wishes to visit Jewish New York. Exhibits, tours, public programs, and education initiatives tell the story of Jewish immigrant life, explore architecture and historic preservation, inspire reflection on cultural continuity, and foster collaboration and exchange between people of all faiths, heritages, and interests.

Image Credit: “A Group of Peddlers (The Ghetto),” color postcard, William A. Rosenthall Judaica Collection Postcards.

Walking Tour: Outside the Home
2026-05-04 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | 103 Orchard Street, 103 Orchard Street, New York, NY, 10002
Organized by The Tenement Museum
Public and neighborhood spaces have always been part of New Yorkers daily lives, offering community beyond the walls of home. On this walking tour, we’ll look at how Lower East Siders shaped and were shaped by their neighborhood over the 19th and early 20th Centuries. From stores to parks, movie theaters to schools, discover how these spaces became important centers for navigating identity, advocacy, and cultural exchange.
This tour discusses the people and stories behind public spaces and landmarks on the Lower East Side. Among others, stops on this tour include:

The Daily Forward Building, where Jewish socialists championed for workers’ rights in the early 1900s
Seward Park, the first municipal playground in the United States
Jarmulowsky Bank Building, where many immigrants entrusted their savings

Ticket Link: https://www.tenement.org/tour/w1-outside-the-home/?tour_date=2026-05-04

Author Event: Daniel Root's "The East Village Then and Now"
2026-05-03 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Book Club Bar, 197 E 3rd Street, New York, NY, 10009
Organized by Book Club Bar
When photographer Daniel Root moved to the East Village in the early 1980s, this constantly changing neighborhood was in one of its periods of greatest ferment. Multiple immigrant groups maintained enclaves there—including Ukrainians, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Dominicans, and Poles—even as drug dealers plied their trade in abandoned buildings and young artists flooded in looking for cheap rents, followed close behind by real estate speculators. Through his lens, Root captured a young Madonna filming Desperately Seeking Susan on St. Mark’s Place; the storefront galleries of the East Village art scene; Life Cafe, where Jonathan Larson would write—and set—Rent; retirees playing chess in Tompkins Square Park; junkies fleeing the police. Forty years later, Root—still an East Village resident—has returned to the very same places where he took those pictures, to document how the scene has changed.
Root’s “then and now” photographs, presented together in this volume along with his wry commentary, document the transformation of a legendary New York neighborhood for better and worse—higher rents, yes, but lower crime; displacement, but also the persistence of community and creativity. A foreword by renowned artist Peter McGough and noted Beat historian Bill Morgan shed further light on the history of the East Village. This will be an essential volume for all downtown denizens, past, present, and future.
Daniel Root is a fine art photographer and a principal in the visual arts firm The Root Group. His popular predawn photographs of Manhattan water holes were collected in the book New York Bars at Dawn (Abbeville). You can find his daily photos, a practice he’s now maintained for a decade, on Instagram at @danielrootphotography. Root has lived in the East Village since the early 1980s.
Daniel will be in conversation with Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, musician/Lakeside Lounge.
