There are plenty of things to do in Times Square, but RiseNY feels completely different from the usual tourist stop.

There is something quietly magnetic about the work of Margarita Howis. Her paintings feel elegant and cinematic at first glance, but underneath the beauty is emotional tension.

Dinner and a show in NYC usually means sitting back and watching the performance unfold. But at The Murder Mystery Company’s new immersive dinner show at Carmine’s Times Square, guests become part of the story the second they walk through the door.

There are artists who chase grand subjects. And then there are artists like Ria Sim, who can make you emotional over a trash bin, a flowerbed, or a paper coffee cup sitting on the sidewalk.

Finding an indoor play space in NYC that feels calm, welcoming, and genuinely designed for both kids and parents is not always easy.

Step into Brookfield Place this season and you’ll feel it immediately: something has shifted. Light doesn’t just pass through the glass, it blooms.

In a city that rarely slows down, Sara Rojas and Luisa Ramirez wanted to create something intentional, a reason for people to pause, gather, and celebrate. That idea became Char-CUTE-rie NYC.

It didn’t start as a business plan. It started as a feeling. “My roommates and I had just moved to New York, and we were really just trying to build community for ourselves,” says founder Tyler Tep.

In a place engineered for constant motion, where millions pass through without looking twice, Jenna Morello has done something rare, she made Times Square pause.

In the fast-moving rhythm of cities like New York, it’s easy to pass a wall without really seeing it. Italian muralist Francesco Camillo Giorgino has built an international reputation by transforming those walls into thoughtful, immersive stories about cities, people, and the fragile relationship between urban life and nature.

For more than two decades, chef and educator Cricket Azima has helped children discover the joy of cooking through her organization, The Creative Kitchen.

Step into the world of Michael Schultheis, and you quickly realize you’re not just looking at paintings, you are entering a language. One where equations breathe, geometry feels intimate, and mathematics becomes a powerful tool for storytelling.

In a city full of pizza restaurants, Adoro Lei set out to do something completely different: turn pizza night into a celebration.

For three minutes each night before midnight, Times Square, one of the most chaotic, colorful intersections on earth, changes its rhythm.

At the Museum of the City of New York, visitors are about to experience New York City in a way few people ever have before. He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model introduces one of the most ambitious handmade architectural tributes to New York ever created, a sprawling, deeply personal recreation of the city built entirely by hand over more than two decades.

If you are looking for one of the most interactive museums in NYC for kids and families, SPYSCAPE Museum NYC in Midtown Manhattan turns visitors into spies for the day.

In a city that reinvents itself almost daily, artist Kazuya Morimoto quietly preserves the moments that slip through time. Through delicate watercolor paintings and finely detailed ink drawings, Morimoto documents the architecture, storefronts, and streets of historic New York neighborhoods, capturing not just buildings, but the emotional memory of a city constantly in motion.

If you’re searching for the best children’s theater in NYC, Pinkalicious The Musical continues to charm audiences with its colorful energy and meaningful message.

Gillie and Marc met on a photo shoot in Hong Kong. Seven days later, they ran away to Nepal. British–Australian artists Gillie and Marc don’t tell that story casually. It is the origin point, not just of their marriage, but of a three-decade artistic partnership that has reshaped public art, wildlife activism, and the meaning of creative devotion.

If you’ve walked through Bushwick lately and felt like the walls were speaking to you, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered the work of Hugo Mejia Guerra, a New York City mural artist who doesn’t just paint surfaces, he transforms them into conversations.