UWS Weekend: Great Things To Do in (and Around) the Neighborhood

By Tracy Zwick

On offer over the next few days: a comedy show featuring a local prodigy; a Lou Reed birthday celebration at the New York Public Library’s Lincoln Center branch; a film festival and NYPL main branch “takeover” celebrating The New Yorker magazine’s 100th birthday; and a creature double feature just across the park.

Let’s Weekend!

February 28th to March 2nd, 2025

Celebrate The New Yorker’s 100th Anniversary: Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street; runs through March 6th with movie times and tickets available here; NYPL at 42nd and 5th Avenue; NYPL After Hours, Friday, February 28th from 7 to 10 p.m.; tickets here; free exhibition open through Feb. 21, 2026

Last week I highlighted the NYPL’s main branch exhibition celebrating this legendary magazine with deep UWS connections, one of the first events in a year-long celebration of its milestone anniversary. I attended the opening last Friday and the show is marvelous. With original correspondence from renowned writers and editors (including a typed 1939 plea from John O’Hara: “I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money…”), edited original pages from iconic manuscripts (including “In Cold Blood”), cartoons and, of course, covers, you’ll want to allow yourself plenty of time to explore.

Tonight, the NYPL is staging a “building takeover” called “The Library After Hours” that will showcase the exhibition alongside curator talks, trivia, musical performances, drinks, dancing, and more. There’s also a film festival, “Tales From the New Yorker” at Film Forum, spotlighting movies inspired by fiction and reporting from TNY’s pages and by the writers who’ve defined its distinctive voice. This weekend alone you could catch “A Star is Born”, “Adaptation,” “The Red Badge of Courage,” “Shadow of a Doubt” or “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” TNY’s editor and quintessential UWSer David Remnick introduced both the festival and the exhibition last weekend.

LalaHaha: A Period Piece, The Pit, 154 West 29th Street; Friday, February 28th at 7 p.m.; tickets $16

 LaLaHaHa is a musical comedy group founded by Upper West Sider Margot Krauss, a senior at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and 2020 graduate of LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, who fused her passions for singing and comedy with this group that writes and performs original (and hilarious) songs in and around NYC. If you’re a fan of performers like Rachel Bloom, Bowen Yang, Adam Sandler, and Bo Burnham – acts that satirize everyday life via musical theater – this is your jam. Krauss has been part of several established downtown comedy groups known for launching cast members into careers including writing and performing at SNL. I’ve been to a few of these hour-long LaLaHaHa shows and try not to miss them going forward. You can preview their work here.

Long Films for Long Nights: Vampires! Friday, February 28th, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue near 82nd Street; Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium; registration free

 Not one but two adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, “Dracula,” are on the program at the Met this evening. For its inaugural feature-length presentation of modernist cinema, the Met will screen Tod Browning’s “Dracula” (1931) and Carl Theodo Dreyer’s “Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Gray” (1932), interspersed with remarks from John Edgar Browning, an expert on horror, vampires, and Dracula, and Damian Volpe, Supervising Sound Editor on “Nosferatu” (2024). Note: Space is limited; first come, first served and priority will be given to those who register.

Lou Reed Birthday Celebration: NYPL for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza; Saturday, March 1st, from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

 Celebrated musician Lou Reed was born on March 2nd, 1942. Celebrate what would have been his 83rd birthday this Saturday at the NYPL, which owns the Reed archive and has made it accessible to all. Each year the NYPL celebrates Reed’s birthday. You can register for this event here, but don’t fret if it’s sold out. Join the standby line, which forms 45 minutes before the event’s start time. Five minutes before the program starts, all remaining seats are released – the NYPL does its best to accommodate all.

Lou Reed photo credit: © Mila Reynaud.

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