What’s Happening In NYC 2019

If you’ve ever been thinking about a staycation in New York City, there couldn’t be a better time than this spring and summer. NYCGO (the official guide to New York) calls 2019 a monumental year. More than 65 million visitors are expected to converge on the city but why let tourists have all the fun.

A whole new neighborhood, Hudson Yards, is coming to life on the far west side. It’s billed as the largest real estate development in United States history and the largest in New York City since Rockefeller Center. It will include 16 residential and commercial buildings by its completion in 2024. The first of its 100 shops, including a Neiman Marcus flagship, will open this month.

The most spectacular attraction will be a climbable sculpture called “Vessel.” The imposing steel structure by British designer Thomas Heatherwick is literally a stairway to the stars with 154 interlinked flights of stairs offering the kind of river and city views that will command astronomical price tags in neighboring apartments. Reservations to climb are now open, “Vessel” is already being called New York’s answer to the Eiffel Tower. It may also be a competitor to downtown’s soaring Calatrava-designed Oculus. Climbing all those stairs will no doubt work up appetites for the stellar collection of 25 restaurants by such celebrated chefs as Thomas Keller, David Chang, Costas Spiliadis and Michael Lomonaco. Anya Fernald will establish the first East coast outpost of the Belcampo Meat Co. Plus, the Mercado, a Spanish market from chef/humanitarian Josè Andrès in collaboration with Ferran and Albert Adrià will rival the Italian mega market Eataly. “I’ve dreamed of opening in New York since I first came here as a boy of 19,” Andrès says. 

The Shed, an eight-story exhibition and performance space designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro and the Rockwell Group has already booked plays and concerts. Why not reserve a room at the Equinox Hotel, a first from the fitness giant opening this summer, and take it all in at your leisure?

Another neighborhood waiting to be explored is the revitalized Seaport District NYC (formerly known as the South Street Seaport). The luxury theater known as i-Pic Fulton Market led the way followed by the first U.S. outpost of Milan’s Corso Como shopping and dining center. Pier 17’s Roof Top concert space opened this past summer. Acclaimed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten plans a casual restaurant similar to ABC kitchen for the pier. David Chang and Andrew Carmellini will also ride the range there. Vongerichten will also open a food hall and restaurant in the Tin Building sometime next year when its restoration is complete. The Tin Building was formerly home to the Fulton Fish Market where Vongerichten recalls shopping in his earlier days in New York.

The nearby hotel Mr. C Seaport Hotel and restaurant from the Cipriani family opened late last year.

But the most amusing hotel of all for a staycation may be the TWA hotel opening this May  at JFK where you could be a Mad Man for a day. Eero Saarinen’s 1962 landmark TWA Flight Center is poised for new life as a 512-room hotel with Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Paris Cafe and five other restaurants, eight bars, a roof top pool, and an airplane cocktail lounge. Mid-century modern Knoll furniture will complement the architecture.

Restaurant and hotel openings in other parts of town include an Edition Hotel in Times Square, a Time Out New York Market in Brooklyn’s Dumbo, a North End Food Hall in Washington Heights, an outpost of dell’anima in Gotham West Market.

In June the month-long World Pride Festival will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which ignited the LGBTQ rights movement.

Theater lovers no doubt will still flock to Hamilton but revivals of Kiss Me Kate and Oklahoma; adaptations of Tootsie and Moulin Rouge, as well as “Hilary and Clinton” starring Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow will also command attention. And audiences can count on Nathan Lane to incite raucous laughter in “Gary: A sequel to Titus Andronicus” beginning this month.

There’s never a shortage of dazzling artwork in New York from permanent collections to blockbuster exhibits. But noteworthy this spring will be the Statue of Liberty museum opening in May, an expansion of the Museum of Modern Art, and the largest Frida Kahlo exhibit in the U.S. in the last ten years through May at the Brooklyn Museum. In April, an exhibit of contemporary artworks inspired by the works of novelist, poet, singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen opens at the Jewish Museum. The Metropolitan Costume Institute’s camp fashion exhibit opens in May as does the four month long Whitney Biennial.

The New York Philharmonic has a full schedule of Mahler, Brahms, and Beethoven. This month, cello superstar Yo Yo Ma and pipa virtuoso Wu Man join the Philharmonic. A special spring gala in May will celebrate Patti LuPone’s 70th birthday with the star singing her Broadway favorites including “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and “The Ladies Who Lunch.”  Come summer the annual Mostly Mozart Festival gives music lovers reason enough to stay in the city,

Aren’t you glad you stayed home?

Beverly Stephen is a freelance travel, food, and lifestyle writer and co-owner of the culinary travel company Flavor Forays.