NYC Digest - 2026-09-28

Good Monday after a washed-out weekend. Eight events, seven of them free — and three of them free at 7pm tonight: a Broadway star singing outdoors in Battery Park City, the Met and the Public on Verdi’s Macbeth at Cooper Union, and the Book Festival’s closing panel on revolutionary publishing. A free ragtime hour at Bryant Park lands at 12:30 if you’re out midday.

Weather (carried from yesterday’s NWS Central Park read — not re-fetched this morning): showers taper by early afternoon, high 64; Tuesday finally clears, 71° and partly sunny. Both outdoor picks below are midday/evening, so they should be dry.

Harlem & Uptown

• Lines of Survival: Living, Adapting, Imagining Tomorrow — free, on through Nov 1, daily 8am–4pm, The Africa Center, 1280 Fifth Ave at 109th St, no registration — still on and unchanged: five climate-fellowship photo essays (Soweto’s waste collectors, Lake Eyasi’s fishermen, Kenya’s drought, Kisumu’s floods, Togo’s coastal erosion). Still the closest thing to “walk over, indoors, costs nothing” this week.

Live Music

• Broadway Nights Off: Betsy Wolfe at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park — tonight 7pm, Wagner Park, Battery Park City, free and open to the public (free ticket via Eventbrite) — Broadway’s Monday dark-night series: Tony nominee Betsy Wolfe (Waitress, & Juliet, Falsettos) sings outdoors with music director Vadim Feichtner and guest Adam Kantor (The Band’s Visit), staged by Tony winner Jeff Mahshie. The series moves indoors Oct 5 for Joe Iconis’ Musical Hootenanny — also free.
• Piano in the Park: Terry Waldo — today 12:30–2:30pm, Upper Terrace, Bryant Park, free — the Parks series’ ragtime/stride slot, and today’s player is Terry Waldo, a genuine specialist in classic ragtime. No ticket, no reservation, walk-up.
• Del Maguey Single Village Music Series: Girl Ultra at National Sawdust — Tue 9/29, 7–10pm, National Sawdust, 80 N 6th St, Williamsburg, free with RSVP (RSVP here) — a mezcal company’s free concert series in a small Brooklyn room: Girl Ultra, Mexico City R&B/neo-soul, with complimentary cocktails. RSVP is required and the room is intimate.

Talks & Books

• Shakespeare and Verdi’s Macbeth: Discussion and Performance — tonight 7–8pm, The Great Hall, Cooper Union, 7 E 7th St, free, registration required (first-come, first-served) — Met director Louisa Proske and the Public’s Shakespeare Scholar in Residence James Shapiro compare the play and the opera, with live selections from the Met’s new Macbeth sung by Felicia Moore and Quinn Kelsey, and Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp reading from Shakespeare. An hour of top-tier opera and theater for nothing.
• Brooklyn Book Festival — Bookends, final day: Publishing Revolutionary Books — tonight 7pm, Verso Books, 207 32nd St, free — the festival’s nine-day Bookends program ends today (Festival Day was Sunday), with Haymarket, Street Noise and Verso publishers (Liz Frances, Lana Pochiro, Anne Rumberger) on whether books can still do political work.
• EGOBIBL — a launch event for Queens’s newest literary journal — tonight 7pm, The World’s Borough Bookshop, 34-06 73rd St, Jackson Heights, free — the second of tonight’s Bookends closers, and the Queens-side one.

Art

• Paper Cuts: Independent Publishing in the United States, 2000–2025 — on view through Dec 12, Center for Book Arts, 28 W 27th St, 3rd floor, free (weekdays 11am–6pm, donation suggested) — 600+ zines and small-press objects gathered over a decade by curator Christopher Kardambikis, with reading tables curated by queer, Black-led and DIY print publishers. A free, quiet exhibition for anyone who misses real zine culture.

Festivals & Markets

• Oktoberfest: Munich on the East River at Franklin Point — resumes Thu 10/1 and Fri 10/2 (both 5–10pm), Sat 10/3 (12–4:45pm and 5:15–10pm), Sun 10/4 (12–8pm), 12 Franklin St, Greenpoint, $15 rooftop Biergarten / $25 general seating ($35 Saturdays) — Zum Schneider’s waterfront Wiesn: four Bavarian Festbiers on tap, pork shank and Obazda, and live oompah from Mösl Franzi & the JaJaJas. Dark tonight (Mon), so treat this as a weekend plan, not a Monday one.