A free, mostly-outdoors Sunday: Ralph Ellison’s jazz series is back in Hamilton Heights 2–5pm, the Creative Time sandcastle competition is on the Rockaway sand 1–4pm, Bed-Stuy’s Art Is Alive opens a week of free dance and drum classes, and tonight there’s the year’s last Crafternoon on the LIC waterfront plus $20 stand-up in Greenpoint. The rest of the week still holds BYO Book (Mon), ShoutHouse at Nublu (Tue) and The Space Lady in a hidden East Village garden (Wed).

Live Music

  • Jazz in the Park at Ralph Ellison — TODAY Sun 9/13, 2–5pm, Ralph Ellison Plaza, Riverside Dr & W 150th St (Hamilton Heights): free — “Berta Indeed presents ‘Let the Music Play’,” a rotating cast of local musicians and vocalists; part of the Summer on the Hudson series, which runs every Sunday through 10/25, so it’s the standing uptown jazz option rather than a one-off.
  • ShoutHouse ft. J. Hoard + Amanda Barise — Tue 9/15, 7pm–midnight, Nublu 151 (Loisaida Ave, East Village): $22, 21+ — nine-piece genre-fluid band running hip-hop, jazz and orchestral arrangements into each other with flute up front.
  • The Space Lady with Nina Ryser Performance — Wed 9/16, 5:30–7:30pm, 6BC Botanical Garden (East Village): free, no ticket — one of the great street performers of the ’80s–’90s in a hidden community garden, presented by Mississippi Records and 360 Record Shop.

Art & Public Art

  • Creative Time Sandcastle Competition — on today Sun 9/13, 1–4pm, Rockaway Beach at Beach 108th St: free with RSVP — artists (Rachel Rossin, Gabriela Ruiz, Anthony Akinbola, Chiffon Thomas & Victoria Martinez, Canal St. Research Association, Marianna Simnett & Eliza Douglas, Dean Millien) build on the sand through the afternoon, judged at 4pm by a panel including Anne Pasternak, Pedro Reyes and Julio Torres; first edition since 2013. A ticketed benefit bash follows 5–7pm at The Rockaway Hotel.
  • 10th Annual Art Is Alive Festival — opens TODAY, runs through Sat 9/19 at 506 MacDonough St, Bed-Stuy: free (donations welcome) — opening night is Pilates with Dyane Harvey-Salaam at 4pm, then 7pm dance/drum/wellness classes nightly (West African Tue, Haitian Wed, West African Thu, Senegalese Fri), building to the block party finale Sat noon–7pm with Asase Yaa’s 25th-anniversary dance theater and the Brooklyn United Marching Band.

Outdoor & Free

  • Crafternoon @ LIC Waterfront — TODAY Sun 9/13, 4:30pm, LIC Waterfront: free (sign-up on Luma) — the final Crafternoon of the year: bring whatever you’re working on or use the shared supplies (sketching, knitting, watercolor, collage, beading, mending), with an hour of sunset before the Monday crowd returns.

Film & Performance

  • Stuart Laws & His Funnier Friends — TONIGHT Sun 9/13, 6pm, Greenpoint Comedy Club, 66 Greenpoint Ave: $20, 21+, one-item minimum (tickets) — British comic Stuart Laws hosts Chloe Radcliffe (Is This Thing On?), Kate Sisk, Dan Davies and Art Cai, launching his new special “Three-Way”; cheap Sunday-night comedy.

Community

  • BYO Book @ LIC Waterfront — Mon 9/14, 6:30–8pm, LIC Waterfront: free (sign-up on Luma) — final outdoor reading meetup of the year; read side by side as the sun sets, then compare notes.
All gathered items - what was cut and why (13)

24 events auto-dropped by the timing filter (past dates) - logged in the Obsidian raw dump.