Things to do in New York this week

Where to go in New York: events, concerts and shows worth your night

New York has a show starting somewhere every fifteen minutes: forty Broadway houses, hundreds of music rooms across five boroughs, jazz clubs that have run since the 1930s and warehouse clubs in Brooklyn that open at midnight. Below is where to go in New York when you want a night out rather than a sightseeing list, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in New York: from the Garden to Brooklyn

Madison Square Garden (4 Pennsylvania Plaza, Midtown, msg.com) is the arena every touring act wants to sell out, directly above Penn Station. Mid-sized shows have moved to Brooklyn: Brooklyn Steel (319 Frost Street, Williamsburg) is an 1,800-capacity former steel plant with the best sound in the city for indie and electronic tours. For jazz, the Blue Note (131 West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village, bluenotejazz.com) and the Village Vanguard (178 7th Avenue South) both run two sets a night, every night. Lincoln Center (10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, lincolncenter.org) holds the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic and New York City Ballet on one plaza.

New York nightlife: Bushwick, the Lower East Side and Manhattan’s comedy rooms

The clubs are in Brooklyn now. Elsewhere (599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, elsewherebrooklyn.com) is a former warehouse with a main hall, two smaller rooms and a rooftop, running concerts early and DJs late, most nights of the week. The L train from Manhattan runs all night, so there is no last-train problem. Back in Manhattan, the Comedy Cellar (117 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, comedycellar.com) is the stand-up room where big names drop in unannounced; book a week ahead for weekend shows.

Theater in New York: Broadway and the rest

Broadway is the forty-one theaters around Times Square, most on the side streets between 41st and 54th Streets. Same-day discount tickets are sold from the TKTS booth in Times Square; the biggest hits sell weeks ahead at full price. Off-Broadway is where the plays start before they transfer, in smaller houses in Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Midtown; the Public Theater on Lafayette Street and BAM in Brooklyn are the two names to follow. The Metropolitan Opera’s season runs from late September to June, with rush tickets released on the day.

Museums and galleries in New York for a night out

The Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53rd Street) and the Whitney (99 Gansevoort Street) both stay open late on Fridays; the Met (1000 Fifth Avenue) and the Guggenheim on Saturday. Chelsea, between 18th and 28th Streets west of Tenth Avenue, is the gallery district, with openings on Thursday evenings. Most of the Brooklyn Museum’s programming happens on the first Saturday of the month, when it opens free until late.

New York festivals and events by season

• Spring: the Tribeca Festival in June, and the start of free outdoor concerts at SummerStage in Central Park.
• Summer: Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater, free with a ticket lottery; the Governors Ball on Randall’s Island in June; and Lincoln Center’s free Summer for the City season.
• Fall: the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center from late September, the new Broadway and opera seasons, and the Village Halloween Parade on October 31.
• Winter: the Rockefeller Center tree from late November, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, New Year’s Eve in Times Square, and Broadway’s January and February ticket offers.

Things to do in New York tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in New York tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.