NYC NOW - Rainy Memorial Day Weekend? Here’s What to Do in NYC

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Rain may be in the forecast for Memorial Day weekend, but New York City still has plenty to offer. WNYC arts and culture editor Matthew Schnipper joins us to share indoor arts and culture picks for the long weekend, from story time at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to free exhibits at MoMA PS1. Plus, we talk about New Yorkers fishing in city waters, a new immersive Radiohead experience, and the summer lineup for BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, including our guesses for a mysterious Aaliyah tribute show. Photo: Anna Rawls -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. Any plans for Memorial Day weekend? How about fishing in New York City? Well, as the weather warms up, there's a lot to get into, and we'll discuss that and more on today's edition of the Arts and Culture Check-in. But first, here's what's happening in our region. Mayor Zora Mundani is mandating over two dozen policy changes

to bolster New York City's sanctuary protections for immigrants. The change includes requiring city agencies to provide more training for workers on the protections. They also end the sharing of certain information with immigration and customs enforcement that isn't required under city, state, or federal law. The change is following audit of the city's sanctuary policies ordered by Mumdani back in February. The findings of an interagency committee were released on Friday, and it says as of March, more than 5,500 immigrants in the New York City area had been arrested by eye. since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Speaking of the White House, the Trump administration's plan to rebuild Penn Station won't include moving Madison Square Garden. Amtrak says a group of private firms will work together as a so-called master developer to oversee the reconstruction. That group includes Vernado, the real estate company that owns much of the land around Penn,

as well as Hallmark, a construction company that's currently working on the MTA's 2nd Avenue subway extension. The winning design would bring natural light into the station by building a new entrance at 8th Avenue. It'll also upgrade the exterior of Madison Square Garden with what they're calling

a classical look. Federal officials said they're expecting shovels in the ground by the end of 2027. New York City is making 1,000 tickets to FIFA's World Cup available to residents for 50 bucks each by lottery. City Hall says that includes free round-trip bus transportation to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford.

That's where eight of the tournament's games are scheduled to be played in June and July. Mayor Mumdani says the lottery covers five group stage matches and two knockout round matches. Entry opens Monday morning at 10 at R-EG-NYC-Ticks.com, and the lottery closes on May 30th at midnight. You must be at least 15 years old to apply. Officials say winners will be notified on June 3rd and can buy. up to two tickets each. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm definitely going to enter this lottery. It may indeed be my only chance to attend this year's World Cup.

Up next, we chat with WNYC's Matthew Schnipper for our biweekly Arts and Culture Checkin. Stay close. Welcome back to another edition of our biweekly arts and culture check-in. This is just a look at what's been coming across the arts and culture desk here at WNYC and our news site, Got Themist. And of course, here to walk us all through it, it's Matthew Schnipper. He's our newsroom's arts and culture editor. Hey, Matt.

Hi, Jeney. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing all right. Holiday weekend coming up. Any Memorial Day plans? Get rained on, unfortunately, so far.

I know. I saw that in the forecast. That's a bummer. I actually was talking to my wife about this week. I was like, oh, man, I'm just excited. Three-day weekend. Blah, blah, stoop sales. She was like, it's going to rain.

I was like, are you serious? This was like, you know, in one of these mega hot days, she's like, no, it's not going to be like that. She's like, it's just going to rain the whole weekend. Man, that's a bummer. I had plans. This is, what were your plans? Pool party barbecue action, you know, Long Island vibes. That's not happening for you, isn't it?

It's not. You can't go in a pool. You can't barbecue in the rain. No. I will keep my evening plans, though. What are those? Game four, Knicks versus Cab. Oh, you can do that in the rain.

Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Very excited about it. This is the Eastern Conference finals. The city is hype. I'm hype. Love the Knicks.

That's awesome. Yeah. Godspeed to them all. Yeah. But you have some stuff coming off your desk. Some plans for teens. Not a sports fan, I guess. That sounds bad.

It's okay. It's okay. You know, and I'll be looking for stuff to do with my toddler because I was just thought we'd be running around the park. I'm thinking about taking her uptown to the Met on Sunday. Two on Sunday they have story time, which I think is the cutest thing. So they have picture book readings and they kind of connect them to the art that's in the Met, which I think is really nice.

So I was thinking about going up there. Okay. It's for kids 12 months to six years old, but you can kind of do it on your own. Yeah. And the one thing I will note, Met, they ask you to pay 30 bucks, but it is pay what you want. If you're a New York City resident, they will take your no money. Yeah, I love that about them. Especially if, you know, you are strapped with a couple of kids trying to make it through and plan an event.

Go there and happily give them $0. They have a very nice endowment. Yeah. So that's something for the little ones. And we had some teen-specific programming happening at the Met as well, though, right? We did. Yeah, this past week was a really cool program called Teens Take the Met, exclamation point. Teens take the Met.

Which I think is really nice. So they do an annual four-hour just. teenage extravaganza. And we had a reporter and a photographer and check this out. Nice. And I was really excited about this story, honestly. You know, the story opens.

The Met Stairs, you may know, is an iconic location for gossip girl fans. And a reporter found a teen who was just like, I can't believe I'm here in the steps of the Met. The gossip girl steps, you know. It was so sweet. This, there was, the thing I was most excited about what I heard about this event was that the Temple of Dender, which is a rebuilt Egyptian temple,

is kind of beautiful space in the Met. They had a silent disco. So all the kids were dancing around with headphones. I love a silent disco. Yeah, I was really excited about that. You know, it's been a while since I was a teenager. And when I thought about this, I was like, wow, these kids are going to be at the Met and they're going to be all like doing bad stuff. And like, you know, they're going to be all like.

And when this piece came back, it was really sweet. The kids were super excited. There were kids in a chorus. There was an enormous orchestra kids played in. They were making tote bags. They were sitting and sketching the art. You know, there's some beautiful photos. We have kids sketching both some artifacts and some sculptures.

They were making up some of their own captions, I guess, for different pieces of art to make into a zine. One of them was just like, he's just like me for real. And it felt incredibly earnest. And, you know, in my mind, I'm like, okay, teenagers, like in New York City, I think about the movie kids. Yeah. But it was a nice reminder, I think, you know, in my head, you know, in my own teenage years, I think were very much like, oh, I got to get out of here, whatever. And it was like, these were kids who wanted to be kids. I wonder, were any of the teens dressed up at all?

No. I would have been that teen. No, these kids were, I mean, some of them were dressing up actually. There was like 75 different things they could do. And some of them were dressing up in costumes. Some of them did have their on there, knew they changed into their teens, take them at T-shirts, which was cute. But no, this looked like a very casual event. Yeah, I was always doing the most when I was a teen.

Were you? Yes. I mean, your girl was shopping at Dillard's. I would take my grandpa's Dillard's card and have a ball. That's fun. Two-piece suits, please. You would have enjoyed this, I feel like, the Temple of Denderson, Disco. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. When I was a kid, you know, I was born in the city and I grew up outside of it. I left when I was like three or four And I was kind of always at arm's length You know, and I think for me And I got interested in underground culture I'd come into the city

I remember when I was in high school We came into the city to go to the tenement museum For a tour And I ran away during the I think we went to dinner And I like left because I knew we were close To a record store This record store called Sound and Fury

That I think was on Orchard Street And so I just kind of slipped out And they were so mad You know they were like you were not allowed to leave But I was just like Oh the city kind of beheld all of this underground cool culture. You know, I would make my dad bring me to St. Mark's Place, and I would stress about kind of what I was going to wear and how would I, like, let the punks know that I looked cool.

It was like, well, I looked like I was 12. I didn't look cool. But I think I wonder if one of the things that I missed was the kind of, you know, just mainstream cultural institutions the city has because I was so I wanted to find the subcultural ones that maybe I missed my own Teen Takes the Met kind of experience. Yeah. So even though I was just experiencing it, you know, vicariously, it was really nice to see how the story. These teens seem to have had a great time. Any other indoor events that we can take advantage of? Yeah, I think MoMA PS1, which is actually an extension of MoMA in Long Island City, if you've not been.

This is a great museum. And right now they have this pretty amazing show called Greater New York. It's sort of like a New York specific version of the Whitney Biennial, which we reported on a month or two ago. It's a survey of just artists who are living and working only in the city. So it happens only every five years. And this one has 53 artists. They range from somebody in their early 20s to their 80s. And they work in all mediums.

And this admission is free for New Yorkers at PS1, which is cool. Later this summer, there is an event. as part of Greater New York, which is a live interpretation of this incredible documentary called Hands on a Hard Body, where basically a car dealership was giving away a truck. And whoever could keep their hand on the truck for the longest would win the truck. You would get a break every once in a while, whatever. But there's an incredible documentary called Hands on a Hard Body, which an artist is now remaking as part of Greater New York later in the summer. You can go ahead and spoil it for me. How long did someone leave?

Oh, a long time. I would recommend watching hands on a hard body. I don't, I'm fully, you know, I've read that they're going to redo this as a sort of play. I don't quite understand what it's going to look like. I'm curious and I'm definitely excited to go. Just holding your, Janay just held her hand out straight. People were thinking about the shoes. They're going to wear all kinds of stuff.

But yeah, I'm stoked for this. So that's going to be on June 27th this summer. That's going to be cool. I'm really excited for that. Yeah. I'm excited too. You know, a story I read that came off of your desk really had me excited because I didn't even think about this going fishing in New York City. New York City, surrounded by water.

Yeah, it is. But I just, I don't know. I never thought about it. I guess because I never considered, oh, you can catch fish here. I feel like you can catch everything but a fish. I mean, it's sort of funny. And this is the, a writer kind of came to me and said, you know, I saw some people fishing, not even in the, in the river. of the city, but actually in Prospect Park. And he said, I keep seeing people fishing in

Prospect Park. What is the deal with fishing in the city? We know there are people kind of fish a little bit further out. Over by JFK, actually, is supposed to be a good place for fishing. But sort of in the middle of the city, like, you know, in Prospect Park, in Chinatown, he was like, you know, he kind of started clocking the people fishing. And he said he had grown up in the suburbs. To him, fishing meant, you know, Brad Pitt and a river runs through He was like, what is the deal with this? And he looked it up and, you know, you can actually, you know, there are, there's a New York City Parks fishing page and they will tell you what to do, you know, non-stainless steel hooks are fine, but, you know, no lead sinkers, you know, you can get a freshwater permit for $25. You know, there are rules about how many fish you can eat in the city, which actually, from, that are, that you fished in the city. We actually even got loosened this, this year. I believe you can eat like two city caught fish. I don't mean for environmental purposes, I think, for actual health purposes. They're like, this probably isn't good for you, but it's a little less bad now.

Well, that's a whole other story that you need to pass on. So, you know, I think he just was like, let me go find out what's going on. He's like, I'm going to go talk to some fishermen. And so he spent a day, a couple days actually looking, he wasn't really able to find that many people. And the story that he ended up writing, which ended up becoming not what he had proposed, which was, you know, you go out, seeking fish and what you find is solace within yourself, I guess. And it was a nice piece because he sort of said, I want to figure out what's up with this thing. Why are people going and doing this? They're trying to find a way to kind of slow down within the city. And he talked

to a few people, but mostly he just found himself observing the city in a new way, you know, and then ate a slice of pizza. And so it was kind of a fun story. which was like, what do you find when you're looking for fishing? It's like, well, not fish, but a little bit of like, you know, the experience of casting the line. And some peace. Metaphorically. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a nice story. I used to love fishing. I grew up fishing all the time. Every Saturday, you go over to grandfather's house and it's 4.30 in the morning. You pack up a couple sandwiches and head out and go fishing all morning. Did you catch anything? Yes. Really?

Yeah. I'm serious. So tell me more about this. Like, what would you go? Ray once. You got a stingray. Yeah. What did you do with it?

You put it back. Yeah. Did you guys eat the fish? Your grandfather, though? Always. What's your favorite thing that you found? Catfish. Oh, great.

I'm from the South. Yeah. You know. But catfish, we got catfish is going down. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Would you fish in the city? In New York?

Yeah. No, I'm too afraid of catching a dead man. Can't do it. All right. Noted. Yeah. I feel like the gear would look cool on you, though. Some wager of the vast.

Oh, my God. All right. Maybe I'll put on the clothing. Maybe I can get dressed. Like, hey, where you headed? Work. I had to find a little piece within myself, you know? Yeah.

A little bit of cosplay, never heard anybody. Yeah, but that's a cool story. Check it out at our new site, Gothamas. Now, Matt, I know listeners may have caught on to this by now, but you're a big radiohead fan, right? Yeah. And, you know, I'm a fan. I saw Radiohead for the first time when I was in high school, actually, in 2000. gosh, in 2000, I suppose.

And so, you know, we sent a writer out to check out this radiohead experience that's happening in the Navy Yard right now. It's called Motion Picture House. And we were just kind of curious what it was because it's up for quite a while. It's a immersive radiohead experience, I saw an old school poster about this. Did you? Yeah. That's nice. Like a wheat-pasted poster?

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds. I was like, oh, people still do that. They do. do. This was a newfangled thing, though, I kind of, you know, that our writer ultimately compared to the, these sorts of Van Gogh, interactive Daisy's art thing. I don't think in a complimentary sense, though. You can buy tickets for it. And it's on this weekend. I saw actually, I checked there are still tickets available. Are you going? I am not going because it's quite expensive. It's about $75, though on Wednesdays there are student discounts. Are you a student? No. Want a fake? No, I don't think. I think I am too old.

Come on now. Anybody can go back to school. I guess so. It would be a really, really going back to school kind of thing. Put on a head. You can I see this idea? I appreciate the confidence in me there. I'm always going to build you up, Matt. Yeah. Thank you. Even when I'm hating, I'm radiohead. No, I think what was interesting about this, and I do think as artists look for new streams of revenue, finding an interesting way to bring people into their world and saying, okay, so this is

mostly an animated film and then there are artifacts, kind of sculptures and other things that they've used in videos and they have old merch. So it's kind of like their own kind of gallery tribute to themselves and then also a new, a new short film with Radiohead scoring. And I recognize, hey, it's hard to, you know, streaming isn't paying anything, you know, tours are expensive to do. But getting, you know, people to come in and see this for $75. it felt like that's a really, it's a high ask. So I think if you're a mega fan, go. You're going to enjoy it.

You're not going to regret having gone. But I think if you are on the fence or you kind of liked Kidae a while back and it's been a bit since you put it on, I don't know, maybe you could go check out Greater New York at PS1 instead. Well, if you're trying to see some other nostalgic faves live, Brick Celebrate Brooklyn, dropped its lineup. And I'm excited about this, Matt. Any shows you're looking forward to?

You know, it's actually a pretty cool lineup. Most of the shows are free. I think there's two that are not. I think Patty LaBelle, I believe, is not free. And Slater Kinney and Liz Phair is not free. And it's funny, I was like, I was looking through the list, the lineup. And I was like, oh my God, Wayne Wonder. Is this my time to finally see?

You guys, the audience cannot see Janay. Do you want me to sing it? Sing it. No, let. Getting go, no holding back. Carmonize with me. Because you are my lady. You got to do it a wine.

You got to do it to wine. You know, it's such a classic song. Yeah, yeah. You know, and this is about to be the season where you hear it out of everyone's car for, you know, the next six months. But you can hear it in person on 620. I'll be out there. You think so? Yeah, I think so.

Maybe we should go together. So anyway, but that's June 20th. The next thing that I thought was actually really cool is, Janay, do you know what St. James Joy is? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So I actually live a couple blocks away from where they do St. James Joy. Okay.

So St. James Joy is two days, I believe, a father and son that have set up, started doing dance parties during COVID on St. James in Clinton Hill. And they still do this block party. It's great during Halloween. But they have since actually started becoming playing parties outside of just their stoop. Yeah. So it's cool. They're playing at Celebrate Brooklyn on 7-Eleven. And the vibe of these parties is like is Sesame Street also was a disco, I guess, you know? That's a good way to put it. You know, it's just great. Like, it is really infectious. It's a very kind of like house music, Stevie Wonder, like just warmth. So it's cool that they're going to be playing in such a big stage.

But the way my heart smiled when I did see them on the lineup, because I was not aware that they were at this level of doing things like Celebrate Brooklyn, you know? Like, what? It's going to be lit. It's cool. I think that's really nice. I think, like, if you want to go and just feel like you're in a Brooklyn summer, this is what it's, this is the event to go to. For sure. And the other thing that I was really curious about, and they have not announced what it is going to be, but they're doing it.

Aaliyah tribute, a one in a million tribute. Man, I'm getting emotional now just thinking about it. Yeah, I'm a huge Aaliyah fan. You know, I'm the right age for that. You're rocking the boat? Oh, my gosh. You know, it's funny. One of the most expensive records I have is, like, is just, is her album, which I bought on vinyl when it came out, you know.

Nice. But now it's like, oh, it's a rare record. I'm like, oh, God, I'm old. But, like, yeah, I love a Leah. I was crushed when she died. But they're doing this tribute, but they haven't announced what it is. Or who? So who do you think it should be?

Oh, that's a great question. In my mind, it's like I only just think of like ways that you can mess this up, you know? It's just like the stakes are very high with a tribute like that, you know? Yeah. Oh, man. Like who was going to do it. I'm going to tell you who they're going to bring out. Who?

Wait, you know? No. Oh. I don't know this to be true. For real. Okay. But like this is just off the top. Speculation.

Yeah. I think they're going to call Kiki Palmer. Oh, interesting. Why? What makes you think that? Because she wants to be a singer so badly. Sorry, Kiki. Love you, girl.

I love Kiki bomber. I'm excited for I love boosters. Coco Jones. Kiki or Coco. It'll be just the bar is high. Maybe they haven't even booked it. I don't know, but just do her justice. Bar is high.

Oh, no. What if they did a hologram? Oh, no. What if they did a hologram? No holograms. We don't, no one wants this. No one. Nobody wants this.

This is like, it's like AI data centers. No one wants it. We're fine. Please don't. Right, exactly. Hold on to my voice. It's fine. Please don't.

You know, like, no, we do not need this. No holograms. Yeah. No holograms, please celebrate Brooklyn. So, Aaliyah, 8,8. that's happening. And listen, Celebrate Brooklyn, if you want to announce here on NYC now what you guys actually have planned for the Aaliyah tribute. Drop it here.

Send us a note. Come through. NYC now at WNYC.org. I know who I'm also, you didn't mention this name, but I am also very, very excited to see the Sheila E. Oh, yeah, that's going to be cool. A dynamic performer. She's so good. She is great.

I'm excited for you to be excited. Yeah. Yeah, I love Celebrity, Brooklyn. The amount of stuff I've seen there over the years kind of wild. I was just, like, going through it in my mind. It's like, I remember I saw Animal Collective with my cousin, I think, when I was like 25. And I was like, it blew my mind. I was just like, this is so psychedelic.

Yeah. Love New York City summer as, man. Yeah, man. It's good. I don't know, you know, getting a toddler involved in these things is something I'm still learning about, basically. You'll get there. I hope so. What else on your desk?

did you like, you know, these past couple weeks? You know, I wanted to shout out this interview that we did with a painter named Lisa Euscavage. And you can go see this show right now at David's Werner until June 26. It's an untitled painting show. And she's a legend. This is her 10th show at David's Warner. She's a legend, you know. And this show is getting great reviews.

And she typically draws young women and girls in her work. And what she has gotten into in this show is actually painting. So you have these figures painting or modeling for paintings, for paintings. And they all have this really, she always has this very striking kind of almost glowing use of color. This one is a little bit more muted, these kind of like aquamarines and yellows. But I was really like this interview because honestly, I really liked her. And I thought it was interesting, you know, because she has had a long career, Tiffany Hansen, who did the interview, one of our hosts here, she asked her kind of how does this connect back, you know, to the beginning of your career?

How do you kind of look at, you know, your trajectory over time? And I thought what was interesting, you know, she said, you know, in the show, there's scenes of people painting, people modeling, there's scenes of people looking at each other. It's kind of a meditation on what it is to be a creative person. I like calling myself Lisa 6.0, operating 6.0 because I'm in my 60s. She said, you'd asked earlier, how do I look back on myself? I feel this love for my earlier works. These images, they're my children. And I thought about, you know, she said earlier in the interview that she kind of thought that she was creating protagonists, not knowing that she was doing this, kind of early in her career, marking the themes and the literal figures that she would return to, you know, unknowingly later in her career.

And I thought how brilliant that she kind of took these characters and made them actually making the art and kind of put them to work for her as sort of avatars. for herself. And, you know, it reminded me, you know, as I am midway through my own career, thinking about where do you start and how do you kind of connect? Often people look back and say, in your 20s, oh, I did this and it was cringy or this or whatever else, and kind of having to say, okay, don't dismiss that work, but figure out how it might kind of have formed who you are and figure out are there ways that you can extend that story? And I think she's done a really amazing job of staying fresh and bringing new ideas while also connecting back to the ones that kind of started her. To me, that's unusual and difficult. I think often there is, especially

in a digital age, such a desire to make new, new, new, new, new, new, new, all the time. And I think she was able to kind of straddle the line by, yes, bringing something new while still saying, hey, this is a part of who I am, you know, many moons ago in a very different art world, you know, 40, you know, 35, 40 years ago. You saying she's doing something new. I kept hearing nude, but I know that she... Well, that is a part of actually some of it, yes. She, yes, there are often, you know, provocative figures, I think, in her work.

If you're not familiar with her work, you know, even just Google it, you know, go check her out. But Lisa Yuscavage is her name. And you've got about, you know, another six weeks or so to see this show at Twitter tape is Warner. I just think it's really inspiring. Her interview on Gothamist right now, you know, it's up. But yeah, get yourself to the show if you can. I will do that. I'm so upset.

I missed the last show that you recommended for me. Keith Herring's. Oh, gosh, yeah. I'm upset. I missed that one. You know, it's funny, that was up for those works were on display ahead of an auction. So I'll need to go figure out who spent the money. Who spent the money on buying Keith Herring hand-painted crib.

Yeah. Wasn't me. Wasn't me, but, man, that's a lucky baby. That's true. All right. That's WNYC's Arts and Culture editor Matthew Schnipper. Thanks again for joining me. Thanks, Jene.

And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. Have a lovely holiday weekend. See you next time. No letting go. No holding back.