NYC NOW - NYC Spring Staycations, Cherry Blossoms and a 24-Hour Dance Party

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

Spring is here, and there's plenty to do without leaving the city. Arts & Culture Editor Matthew Schnipper chats with us about staycation alternatives to pricey travel destinations, the New Directors/New Films Festival at MoMA and Lincoln Center, and what it's like to show up to a 24-hour Brooklyn techno party in corduroys at 8am. -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail]

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre. Cherry blossoms, staycations, and new films from new directors. That and more ahead on this edition of the Arts and Culture Check-in. But before we get into that, here's what's happening in our region. New York City Mayor Zohraamam Dani says most of the city's free seats for two-year-olds this fall will run for the full working day and extend the whole year. That's unlike the city's existing preschool programs that end by three in the afternoon and aren't open in the summer.

Mamdani made the announcement in Brownsville. That's one of the five school districts where the city will launch the first seats for the 2K program. Holding down a 9 to 5 and managing pickup and drop off at a traditional 3 p.m. time can be unmanageable. We see parents who are forced to either miss important work obligations, reduce work hours, or shell out. for secondary child care. The mayor says a majority of the programs will run 10 hours a day, from 8 in the morning to 6 in the evening.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is urging Mark Zuckerberg to help stop immigration scams from proliferating on META's platforms. The DA's office says scammers on Facebook and WhatsApp are pretending to be attorneys who provide immigration services in exchange for money.

In some cases, they use fake profiles with the same names and logos as real organizations. Bragg says he sent a letter to Mehta this week, but his office hasn't heard back. Meta did not immediately comment. If you're like me, you're looking forward to some warmer weather after a long and brutal winter.

But another seasonal foe is around the corner, unfortunately. That's peak rat season. Caroline Braggden is a pest control expert with the New York City Department of Health. She says the record-breaking winter temperatures likely quelled rat populations over the last couple months. The spring is typically a time of high reproduction, and as the weather gets warmer,

you may also see more juvenile rats or young rats. Here are some of the most common ways to repel rats, frequent inspections, pest-proofing doors, and vents, as well as making sure all food and garbage is sealed at all times. We got to take a quick break, But when we return, WNYC's Matt Schnipper joins me for another edition of the Arts and Culture Check-in. There's a lot to get into as True Spring begins to set in. Stay close.

Welcome to another edition of our Arts and Culture Check-in. A look at what's been coming across the Arts and Culture desk here at WNYC and our news site, Gothamist. Here to walk us through it is Matthew Schnipper. He's our newsroom's Arts and Culture editor. Hey, Matt. Hi, Matt. What's going on? Just getting excited to chop it up with you.

Oh, yeah. Springtime. Spring, bling. Chiching. So, Matt, quickly, have you traveled recently or? I went to Vermont in February. Does that count? I guess that's recent.

I mean, I did have to get on a plane, so. How was your TSA experience? This was pre-nonsense, so it was not terrible. It seems like this has been going on a long time. Yeah. You're right. Yeah, it was okay. It was cold.

in Vermont, I would say that was more of the thing. Recently, you know, people have been going through hell, those who are traveling. You know, you've seen it on social media and the news. The lines for TSA are so unpredictable right now because of staffing shortages from the shutdown. And, you know, of course, if you are trying to take a road trip or go anywhere by car, guess is so high right now. Four bucks. I saw four bucks. You got to be Bill Gates to take a drive?

Yeah, pretty much. I don't think so. But Melinda Gates. She's doing well too. But, you know, a good option is a staycation. I think so. You live in New York City. People spend a lot of money to come here to the place that you just already are.

Yeah. So, easy. Why go where they are? Yeah. So you all had a story on your desk talking about staycations. Yeah. Yes, Hannah Frischberg, a reporter on my team, who is a lifelong New Yorker, went through and recommended a few places that you can go. Alternates to hotspot destinations, such as Las Vegas.

Sin City, you may have heard of it. Yeah. Yeah, honestly, I don't actually want to go there, but if you do. I'm not a gambling woman. No, I'm not a gambling woman either. You know, we do now have a casino in New York City. So you can head out to Resorts World's Casino, which is not so far from JFK. It's closely Aqueduct Raceway.

You can spend all of your money without having to also buy a plane ticket. No need to go all the way to Nevada. I will say, though, like I have been at the casino for the buffet and to wait for friends. However, I didn't know this about the casino, and I'm not sure if that's a thing here, but you can sit at a slap machine and give free drinks. Yes, they will give you drinks forever. That's the coolest part. That is the coolest part. I mean, you are paying for it somehow. Somehow, sure.

It's like when you get free shipping, you know, I'm doing air quotes here. It's like you paid for that. Right, right. Okay. What else? This is, I'm revealing myself to be cheap here, I feel like. We, my friend, we. Thank you for solidarity. Okay, so we were thinking like where people want to go. They want to go to Iceland. A lot of people I know have been going to Iceland. Really? You have very trendy, sparkling blue lagoons. Don't do that. Go to Coney Island.

Ah, that's cheaper. Way cheaper. Much cheaper. Water is water, you know? I don't agree with that part, but... Yeah, okay, that's fair. But it's fun to go down to Coney Island. I don't know if you spend a lot of time down there, but it's very, you know, it's real, it's bustling. New York City is on an island, you know? You don't have to go to Iceland.

Man, this conversation, I know we are early into it, but I am... Riveted? I am pumped for the real spring to hit, for the summer months. Like, this is great. What else can I plan for my staycation? There are pyramids in Egypt. Egypt, which we don't recommend you flying to when you could just go to kebab cafe. Ooh, okay.

In Astoria. Go get some Egyptian food. Hang out with chef Ali Saeed. He is great, funny, sharp, and the food is fantastic. What should I try there? Bone marrow. Eat it. Okay.

I don't eat meat. Okay. Well, that's, I wouldn't say you shouldn't go to it here, actually. Okay. If you're not a vegetarian, go there. If you are a vegetarian, you're allowed to go to Egypt then. That's fine. Let me one moment while I book my ticket.

All right. So, turns out I can't afford to go to Egypt right now. All right. So you have to start eating meat. Cababs, Cabob Cafe is in Astoria. Go check that out. Okay. Well, maybe I can travel with my mind.

Maybe so. And, you know, the new directors, new films, festival is happening right now until April 19th. What's going on? Yeah, this is a long-running film. Festival. It's the 50-5th year. It is a partnership between the Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center. And, you know, it does kind of what it says on the tin. They bring in new filmmakers. Some of the filmmakers that they have shown films from early on in their careers, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Wonkar-Wye. So this year, they have got a lot of names who you wouldn't

know, just like you wouldn't have known those names 20, 30 years ago. Yeah. But there's a whole array of movies happening starting right now. Okay. Want to talk about a couple of the movies? Yeah. I did get a chance to see one that I was actually pretty excited about. I was curious, maybe skeptical, to see not Charlie X, CX's acting debut. But I would say the kind of first kind of big and real role that she's escaped into.

This movie is called Eruptcia. Forgive my Polish pronunciation. It's a movie made by an American director named Pete O's who is actually relocated to Poland. And it's kind of for those of you are familiar with the mumblecore movement. It is not so different than that. Essentially, Charlie is a British woman

who goes to Poland with her boyfriend. Turns out she's been there a few times before and has a friend that she likes to party with. She does not tell that to her boyfriend. And she sort of escapes into the Polish nightlife. And while he kind of figures out what the hell is going on, with my girl. Yeah. And, you know, the person playing her boyfriend looks a lot like her husband here.

You know, I watched this with my wife and another comina. My colleagues watched this and everybody's have the same question. Is that Charlie X's his husband? And no, it is another bald man. And I want to say on behalf of all of us, we are not the same. Yeah, you don't look like him. No, he's taller. Thank you. No, I don't look like him. Okay. Okay. So call out you, dear listener, if you check out the new directors, new films festival, and you go out to see anything, let us know what you think. Hit us up at NYC now at WNYC.org. All right. So, as I mentioned, Matt, I'm so excited for this true spring to hit us soon and, you know, the summer months. You know, the one thing I'm always super excited about is the cherry blossoms blooming around

the city and we're seeing some right now, right? Absolutely. I mean, I'm starting to see some in my neighborhood, which is really fantastic. It's just, it places a smile on your face. You can't help it. Absolutely. You know, in Central Park, there's cherry blossoms all around. There's Cherry Hill near the Bethesda Terrace.

It's like they reliably have got them. I learned about Yoshino cherries, which are kind of arcing over the path. There's the Pilgrim Hill on the Upper East Side, and those are kind of early, so I think those are out right now. and the Central Park Conservancy, they have a tracker that will let you know the best time to go where. Nice. Which, you know, is an incredible use of technology, in my opinion. That's what it should be used for.

Cherry blossoms are nothing. Yeah. That's it. But we also need allergy medicine. So, you know, if that's an issue for you like it is for me, do go outside prepared. I'm popping a pill every morning. Yeah. Are you heading to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden yourself?

Not right now. at some point. Well, head to Brooklyn Botan Garden. If you want the Cherry Blossom Festival there is quite lovely, but the trees are beautiful. Yeah. Any advice as far as beating the crowds? No. There's none.

There are crowds. Yeah. I mean, don't go on the weekend, you know, but do you have a job? Like, I don't know. Call in sick. Yeah, call in sick. That's a good advice. Yeah, exactly.

No, there are crowds. This is New York City. I'm sorry. Yeah. All right. So I don't mean. to fast forward here, but, you know, spring, summer, they're just back to back, right? And I know.

One, it is next to two. Yeah. But I know you've been keeping up with Miram Dani's cultural references. And someone asked him about drama with a summer house. Yeah, I had to learn about summer house, unfortunately. Are you a summer house fan? No. Have you learned about the summer house drama?

No, but you're about to teach me. I don't think I can teach you about this. Wes, another guy, dating someone else. whatever. I know someone is listening to this and going, like, cursing my name for, like, being, like, thinking it's not that serious. But I only know Sierra from traitors. That's important television to me. So I do know that Sierra got played by her friend, who I think is now dating her ex. So I think I do actually know what's going on. Okay. T. Anyway, so a street interviewer, Adam Glim, he asked Mom Donnie for his take. What's your advice to Sierra? You know, she's basically heartbroken that her ex is with a fellow friend. And Mom Donnie, the most Mom Donnie thing I've ever could imagine, he was like, That's rough.

I guess the first thing I would say to her is thank you for saving people's lives. He's like, Sierra, she's a nurse. I'd like to say thank you for your service. I was like, which is just amazing. You know, I was like, thank you. And then he asked about the other guy, Wes. I believe that's who was asking about. He said,

Brother, I don't know who that is. Brother, I don't know who that is, you know. Definitely. All right. So another thing that makes me think of summer, the U.S. Open, man. Yes. Like, I have to admit, I'm into it because of the honey deuce. Oh, really?

Yeah. It's a New York City staple. Have you gone? I have. I went last summer, you know. And speaking of being bald like I was recently, I got deeply burned, you know. I'm on top of my head. No.

I'm so sorry to hear that. You know, it's fine. That's my takeaway from the U.S. Open. Okay. Don't be bald. Okay. Anyway, yeah, I had a great time of the U.S. Open last summer. Yeah.

It was my first time going, and it was great. Oh, so I've gone, I want to say every year for the past four years. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I'm jealous. Yeah. You should be. So we noticed this year, you know, there are, there's a ball crew.

That's the ball boys and ball girls, ball men. ball men, ball women, who are kind of, you've always seen them. They're always standing like little statues at the back of the court and running, picking up the balls and passing fresh balls to the players. Very impressive. An amazing thing. And, you know, I've actually always wondered how do they get that job? And the answer is they apply for it on the Internet, which is apparently a thing you can do. I did not know.

Wow. So applications are actually currently open. They have about 100 spots because they have a number of people coming back from last year. but you can apply now to be on the court at the U.S. Open. Okay. Is there a physical as well as, you know, an application? Because the stamina. Yes.

To go back and forth and chase the ball. It's impressive. It's sort of, it's kind of like you're taking the driver's test, you know, where there's the written test and they put you behind the wheel. So you have to apply. And your application, you need to write a little about, you know, what's your personal relationship like with tennis? Why do you want to do this? But then you have to answer some quiz questions. A test?

There is a test. You know, they're pretty basic. Oh, that's so sad. Count me out. There's some pretty basic questions. You know, Player A is serving and the game score is 30 to 15. Player A serves a double fault. What is the game score?

Are you asking me? I'm not applying. I'm not applying. Well, they have a number of questions like that. I go for the vibes, man. So go for the vibes. You know what, Matt? You try to hit me with a question.

Lucky for me, my producer, has a couple of the questions here for me, and I'm going to ask you. All right. Let's see. What is the maximum number of sets that can be played in a men's grand slam match? I want to say six? Oh. Oh, it's five. All right.

Well. All right. How many grand slam tournaments are played each year? You know, it's funny. I'm looking at the opera. We've got two, three, four, five. If there were no choices, I would have said like 12. Oh.

Like 12, right? Yeah, it's 12. It's four. It's four. Four. All right. Okay. All right.

Well, I guess I'll see you at the U.S. O'Brien. Yeah, totally. Where I'll be buying tickets. Right. Hey, also, ball girl, ball boy. Shout out to everyone who has had that position. They always look so fly. Oh, my God.

Ralph Warren. Like, amazing. Yeah. I actually have an eBay. alert for Ralph Lauren U.S. Open clothes. Just, you know, hoping. They show up, the new ones, but the kind of the older ones, that hasn't hit, really. For a couple of years, I've been just waiting.

I'm hoping at some point somebody's going to put their 90s gear up, but it doesn't happen. All right. You know, Matt, it's never too late to try some new things in life. You know, it's true. We were looking, hey, what's going on this weekend? And we've, you know, I saw occasionally the club nowadays in Ridgewood Queens does, 24-hour parties. Now, this is great because you can show up anytime. Name a time. Yeah. It will be open. Yeah. 3.22 a.m. p.m. open. noon, midnight, open. You want to go there or there. So you went.

No, I didn't go to that one. That's this weekend. You can go see Byroll the Great Play this weekend. Okay. Okay. But I was like other people should go to that. I, you know, I went recently, though. There was a 24-hour party near my house, this kind of roving part. party called Merge. A couple of months ago, I found out it was happening and this guy named DJ Nobu was headlining, which meant he started at 8 a.m. And I was like, you know, I am awake at 8 a.m. This is a couple blocks from my house. I'm going to go. Start your day with DJ Nobu. You know, so it was Sunday morning and I went and I, you know, I was wearing corduroys. Like I was just like, I was like, I look. And these are people, everybody has been up all night. A couple people came in early. Like I was not the only person who was arriving. at that time, but, you know, for the several hundred people that were there, I would say there's, you know, five or ten.

Yes, that was very accurate. And the music was good. You know, DJ Nobu was a techno DJ and this was a very straight ahead set. It sounded kind of like what you were doing for about two hours. And I was very hot. The woman at Cochak was like, you should take your sweatshirt off. It's pretty hot, which I appreciated. But I still was wearing corduroyze by stupid merriles.

Embrace your dead swag. Thank you. I was actually embracing myself at this emotionally, at least, because I was stoked. I was out, you know? Like, I was out. It was 8.30 a.m. And then I went to breakfast for my brother, last 40th birthday. Nice.

Like, it was great. So I think the more that you can kind of find yourself in a place that you might not always be, I think the better. All right. You know, staycation. Yeah, definitely. That's a good time. Wow, you set us up with a lot. Thank you.

I'm excited. It's a big city, you know. That's WNYC's Arts and Culture editor Matthew Schnipper. Thanks a lot, Matt. Thanks, Janay, catch around the dance floor. Yep. See you there. See you there.

Thanks for listening to NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next time.