By Tracy Zwick
Let’s Weekend!
May 30th to June 1st, 2025
Celebrate 150 Years of The Art Students League: 215 West 57th St.; weekdays 10 AM to 9PM, Saturdays 10 AM to 4 PM; Closed Sundays; Free
Just steps inside the landmark building on West 57th Street that houses The Art Students League, you’ll find paintings, lithographs and drawings by the likes of Georgia O’Keefe, Winslow Homer and Norman Rockwell. Go and see these works and others by storied alums and League teachers this weekend, for free, as this leader in accessible art education for all celebrates its 150th birthday. On Saturday there will be free drop-in classes, tours of the building and more. Grab a snack or a drink at the Atelier Cafe on the 3rd floor, and while you’re there, check out the course offerings! Both my children and I have taken classes with League instructors at one time or another and they’ve been terrific.
Take a Walk through Central Park’s Conservatory Gardens: Between East 104th and 106th streets in Central Park; 8 AM to dusk; free
If you haven’t taken a stroll through the elegantly planted lilacs, crabapple trees and chrysanthemums of Central Park’s Conservatory Gardens in awhile, there’s exciting news. After a three-year restoration, the gardens fully reopened this spring. Having debuted in 1937, they were in need of infrastructure upgrades, which Central Park Conservancy has now completed. Enjoy a peaceful stroll through the French-style North Garden, the Italianate Center Garden and the English-style South Garden, all free from runners and cyclists and typically offering a quiet oasis in often-bustling Central Park. My daughter took a photography workshop that brought students here, and it yielded some magnificent pictures.
Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes: Audible Minetta Lane Theater at 18 Minetta Lane; Showtimes and tickets here
This one’s not on the UWS, but the theater’s easy to reach via the A, C and E trains, which I’ll be using Sunday to get to a matinee performance. A friend invited me to see Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty (daughter of Annette Benning and Warren Beatty) in this two-hander about a middle-aged professor and novelist’s relationship with a 19-year-old star student. The topic may be cliché, but the play’s been described as complicating culpability.
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The Conservatory Gardens are one of my favorite destinations in Central Park. Absolutely worth going at any time of year. The new restorations are magnificent. I am missing the the wisteria on the iron work but perhaps it will come back. (The iron looks great following its restoration…and there are remnants on the stone pillars either side.) Thanks for spotlighting this!