Parents and kids can free-swim together all year round in our indoor half-Olympic sized pool! Bring your own towel, lock and swim cap and we’ll provide you with a fun array of pool toys, noodles and floaties.
Fridays: 7 pm - 9:45 pm
Free for members. If you’re not a Community Center member yet, Day Passes are available for only $15 for adults and $10 for youth, students and seniors.
The Harlem Renaissance Orchestra plays ‘Big Band’ music from the 1930s and 40s to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the end of World War II. Period dress encouraged! Learn the Charleston!
Energetic, joyful community dance for all ages. No partners or experience necessary.
Energetic, joyful community dancing for all ages. No partners or experience necessary. Free!
An instructor will be on hand to teach the audience in the basic swings, slides, and turns of classic Texas Two Step.
North of Amarillo play an upbeat mix of classic country. Vocalist Kelli Scarr belts out songs with a vigor that recalls Wanda Jackson and Kitty Wells, and the band behind her cooks with an energy reminiscent of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band of the mid 70’s. They have a fun, danceable sound that will have the whole family on its feet.
Improvise on African, Latin and Caribbean rhythms at Sunset Jam on the Hudson drumming circle. The gatherings are led by master drummers. After beginning with the teaching of traditional drumming patterns, and establishing a steady heartbeat pulse, participants are then asked to contribute their own rhythmic patterns as part of call and response chanting and drumming. Instruments are provided, or bring your own.
Enjoy this unique celebration of the summer solstice. Decorate the midsummer pole and learn folk dances from Barnklubben Elsa Rix and Swedish Folkdancers of New York. Make midsummer wreaths. Enjoy a parade, children’s games, and Swedish delicacies. Traditional music by Paul Dahlin and Fiddlers from the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. Dances led by Ross Sutter, Scandinavian folklorist. For more information, visit www.nycmidsummer.com.
Swedish Midsummer Festival is co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Sweden, New York.
Note: In accordance with New York City law, alcoholic beverages are not allowed in the parks.
Battery Park City Parks Conservancy and co-sponsor National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene present an all-ages performance by Socalled on Sunday June 14, 2015, as part of KulturefestNYC.
Socalled, born Josh Dolgin, is a Montreal based musician, known for mixing hip hop and klezmer into a unique blend of acoustic and electronic music. A pianist and accordion player as well as a rapper and producer, Socalled has collaborated with artists as varied as Fred Wesley, the Mighty Sparrow, Roxanne Shante, Matisyahu, Theodore Bikel, and Derrick Carter. The subject of The Socalled Movie, a feature documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada, he has been making records and touring the world for over a decade.
KulturefestNYC is an eight day festival of music, theater, films, and lectures celebrating the culture of the Jewish diaspora, as well as the centennial of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, the longest running Yiddish theater in the world.
Join our contemporary art historian for a tour of Demetri Porphyrios’ Pavilion. This is considered both art and shelter, especially in a downpour! Explore the instinct to design and build shelters with your own creative building project with our artist educators. Materials are provided. Free.
The afternoon will be facilitated by Dorothea Basile, Battery Park City Parks Conservancy’s Contemporary Art Historian. The shelter making will be led by artist/educator Larry Dobens.
On Saturday June 6, 2015 Battery Park City Parks Conservancy will present an entertaining day of storytelling by Mary Ann Schmidt in lovely Teardrop Park. She will be telling “Herman and Marguerite,” a story about a shy earthworm and a lonely caterpillar, as well as other stories.
Storytelling – humankind’s oldest art form – teaches as well as entertains both young and old. Tucked away in the nooks of magical Teardrop Park, this event will excite the imagination and encourage an interplay between the stories being told and the unique features of the park. Sitting on the park’s green grass, listeners embark on a wonderful journey as Mary Ann Schmidt weaves adventure-filled stories.
Mary Ann Schmidt is the storytelling teacher at Manhattan School for Children. She works primarily in the lower grades, visiting classrooms regularly and recounting world folk tales, fables and legends from a variety of cultures. She weaves imaginative and fantastic stories, often related to themes and concepts that the children are studying, such as community-building and problem solving.
Drop by the Rockefeller Park House and have fun playing in the park! Adults and children can borrow toys and play equipment to use free of charge. Smaller kids can let their imaginations go wild with the play kitchen and pretend food or invent a game with hula hoops, bouncy balls and blocks. There are many fun kids’ books available for those who wish to sit on the grass and enjoy a quiet read. Older children, teens and adults can play billiards, Ping-Pong, Chess or Scrabble. Stop in and challenge your friends to a game of knock-hockey, basketball, Ping-Pong or pool!
Join Battery Park City Parks Conservancy’s Contemporary Art Historian and an artist/educator for an interactive conversation and exploration of Tom Otterness’ first major public installation, The Real World. Both kids and adults will get to create their own clay figure inspired by their favorite pieces from The Real World.
The Real World is located on a terrace in Rockefeller Park and includes groupings of sculptures that in turn make up a bustling society populated by animals and people, bankers and robbers, laborers and pilgrims, plus predator and prey. It is imaginative, fun and full of things to touch. Yet, kids as well as adults quickly discern what Otterness calls “the park’s second edge”- the social satire that lurks with devilish geniality in each of the mini-dramas created by the sculptor.
