By Tracy Zwick

Let’s Weekend for the last time in 2024! Because of the holidays, this UWS Weekend stretches through New Year’s Eve, when I’ll be joining around 4,000 runners and even more spectators in Central Park for the New York Road Runners’ Midnight 4-Mile Run. Add your New Year’s plans and ideas to the comments! 

December 27 to 31, 2024

Celebrate Chanukah at Theodore Roosevelt Park, 79th Street and Columbus Avenue, Sunday at 4:30 p.m., Free

Join the Chabad West Side Community in celebrating Chanukah, the festival of lights, with a menorah lighting and holiday celebration. Look out for latkes and other Chanukah treats like sufganiyot along with prizes. Free and open to all. 

See a Movie! 

I love to see movies this time of year. Lots of heartwarming, festive, and award-worthy films are released or rescreened during the lull in most people’s routines. I saw “Conclave” recently, and went to “A Complete Unknown” at the Lincoln Square AMC on Christmas Eve. They’re both terrific! “Conclave” follows Ralph Fiennes as the cardinal leading the process of selecting a new pope, during which he uncovers a trail of secrets. “A Complete Unknown” stars the UWS’s own Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan during his early years as a professional musician. I’d be surprised if these films aren’t both awards contenders. “Conclave” is screening at New Plaza Cinema, where, on Sunday, you can also see James Dean, an UWS resident before his untimely death, in the 1955 classic “Rebel Without a Cause”. A talkback will follow the screening with filmmaker Brian Vincent, who’s currently working on a Dean documentary, in conversation with historian and author Foster Hirsch. Tickets are $15 general admission, $12 for students and seniors. 

Catch a Broadway or Off-Broadway Show!

My kids love musical theater and I’ve gone from being a hater to a reluctant attendee who’s often surprised at how much fun she has. Last week, my 22-year-old daughter urged me to see “Hell’s Kitchen” – the Alicia Keys musical about a 17-year-old girl who’s full of fire being raised by a single mother in Hell’s Kitchen. It was delightful, family-friendly fun, and Hell’s Kitchen is just south of the UWS! We spent the next several days re-listening to the entire Alicia Keyes canon. She and a friend also got tickets for us all to see “Teeth” at New World Stages on West 50th Street. Provocative and appropriate for mature audiences, this one’s about an evangelical Christian teen with a piercing secret. It’s from Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Michael R. Jackson (“A Strange Loop”) and based on the cult classic film of the same name. 

Attend a “New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace” at St. John the Divine, December 31 at 7:00 p.m., Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street; tickets here. 

I attended last year and can attest to the magic of the music in this space at this point in the calendar year. If you’d like to be inspired or filled with hope and possibility, listening to a live performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 will do the trick. This piece premiered 200 years ago, when Beethoven’s deafness was so severe he couldn’t hear the applause at the end of “Ode to Joy,” the last movement. Soprano Kathryn Lewek, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis, tenor Paul Appleby, and bass William Guanbo Su perform on New Year’s Eve, celebrating 40 years of hope and optimism through music. 

Subscribe to WSR’s free email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.