This year’s Sukkos is in the middle of the week, perhaps not allowing enough time for a vacation. For those eating in sukkos close to their year-round homes, here are the opportunities for tourism in the city and nearby. This year, many of the attractions listed are celebrating their centennials and golden anniversaries, with exhibits and events relating to these milestones.
They’re in Queens
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street, Corona
Complementing the model of the city at the nearby Queens Museum, the Hall of Science has CityWorks, on the infrastructure that keeps New York going. Among the recent additions is Mathematica (Reimagined), which was updated to show how mathematical patterns appear in life and in the built and natural environments. There are more than 450 permanent displays in total at the Hall of Science, including rockets from the early years of the space race that stand inside the center’s mini-golf course.
Queens Museum
New York City Building, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park
The exhibit on the 60th anniversary of the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair ended in July, but there are plenty of displays and models relating to the international exposition that left a physical and cultural impact on the city. Relating to it, the artist duo Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan and Jevijoe Vitug) use the Philippines exhibit from that fair to share the experiences of Filipino Americans. Resembling the miniature landscapes of the city and its watershed, Fia Backström’s The Great Society depicts a West Virginia town ravaged by pollution from the coal industry with photos, documents, and art. On view through January 16, 2026.
Queens County Farm Museum
73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Floral Park
Sure, our borough has plenty of green rooftops, community gardens, backyard plots, and windowsill spices, but the largest and last true farm in the borough is in Floral Park, taking up 47 acres. In operation since 1697, this farm has livestock, heavy farm machinery, planting fields, and a vineyard. Events on its calendar include a children’s carnival, antique motor show, and a Native American pow-wow. Fall activities here include the corn maze and pumpkin picking. This year marks the golden anniversary since the farm became a museum open to the public. The milestone was marked with a $51 million investment by the city to build a Visitor and Education Center on the property.
Dr. M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery
Sun Yat Sen Hall
8000 Utopia Parkway
www.stjohns.edu/offices-departments/dr-m-t-geoffrey-yeh-art-gallery
On the beautiful campus of St. John’s University is a Chinese-style building that hosts its art gallery. The artists featured here often have a connection to the university and this borough. Current exhibits include Urbane Facades, the first solo exhibition of Queens-based artist Olney Marie Ryland. It features architectural models of buildings from the city’s historic Black communities. Another Queens-based artist, Kunsang Gyatso, has the exhibit A speck swallows the sun, inspired by themes from Tibetan Buddhist spiritual traditions.
Alley Pond Environmental Center
229-10 Northern Boulevard, Douglaston
In late 2023, the ribbon was cut on the $28-million facility, which displays the small animals living in the salt marsh of Alley Pond Park and has trails leading from the building through the marsh and woodland at the head of Little Neck Bay. It’s an ideal attraction for a short visit on the way to Great Neck. Seeking to minimize its impact on the environment, this nature center has a geothermal heating and cooling system, rainwater harvesting, and floor-to-ceiling windows to maximize natural light.
Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Astoria
In my childhood, when my parents shopped at the Costco in Astoria, I ventured to its neighbor, Socrates Sculpture Park, which has outdoor sculptures on the East River waterfront with views of Manhattan. Many of the sculptures are designed for interaction – to be touched, and walked around, under, and through.
Laser Bounce Family Fun Center
80-28 Cooper Avenue, Glendale
Located in Atlas Park mall, under the Regal Cinemas, this indoor amusement center offers many options for young visitors: bouncy surfaces, ball pit, bowling, arcades, laser tag, and virtual reality. For our Long Island readers, Laser Bounce has a location in Levittown at 2710 Hempstead Turnpike. On a rainy day, it is good to have a Laser Bounce close to home.
In Manhattan
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
One of the world’s greatest art museums has something for everyone. On view through December 9, 2026, is Allegory and Abstraction: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints, featuring works that are usually kept in the museum’s reference library. Among them is Henri Matisse’s 1947 series Jazz, a spectacular array of bold, colorful images that bring to mind ostensibly joyful memories of circuses, folktales, and travel, while also alluding to the dark days in France during World War II, along with watercolors by J. M. W. Turner and Thomas Girtin in recognition of the two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of each artist’s birth.
The city’s ability to inspire artists is exemplified in The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York, with works by this Native American artist who participated in the city’s burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1950s.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
The official museum of this city is honoring the centennial of Robert Rauschenberg’s birth with an exhibit on this Abstract Expressionist’s photographs of the city. The works connect his photos to the paintings that defined this genre. With affordability as a leading issue in this year’s mayoral race, the museum examines this topic with Housing Activism: Rent Strikes and Tenant Mobilizations, 1908-1939, depicting efforts that led to the creation of housing cooperatives, public housing, rent control laws, and community land trusts.
MoMATH: National Museum of Mathematics
225 Fifth Avenue
Created to “enhance public understanding and perception of mathematics,” this museum is preparing to move into a larger space on Sixth Avenue in 2026. In the meantime, it has more than 30 activities and displays relating to how numbers appear in nature, shapes, and art, revealing the presence of math in everything around us.
Governors Island
Situated at the confluence of the East River and New York Harbor, with views of Downtown Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty, Governors Island offers 172 acres of history, scenery, and public events. Formerly a military and Coast Guard base, the island is filled with public art, educational programs, and the highest playground slide in the city. Visitors can take tours on topics such as ecology, history, birding, and gardening. Situated within a five-minute ferry ride from either Brooklyn or Manhattan, it feels like a world unto itself.
In Brooklyn
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
The Beaux-Arts landmark has its permanent collection of ancient historical art from around the world, a colonial Dutch farmhouse transported inside the museum, and its ancient Egyptian collection. It is best to visit this museum after October 11, when Monet and Venice will open, showing the Impressionist master’s depictions of the water-bound city. Claude Monet’s cityscapes show the reflection of architecture on the water with pastel-like colors. These unique works are shown alongside depictions of Venice by Canaletto, Paul Signac, John Singer Sargent, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. On view through February 1, 2026.
Building 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
63 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn
From 1801 through 1966, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was the arsenal of democracy that produced fearsome battleships and weapons that preserved our independence, saved the Union, projected American power, and defended our allies. After the Navy left Brooklyn, this complex became a hub of light industry and tech innovation. This free-admission museum offers displays on the history and present use of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It is within a short drive of Williamsburg, where one can shop for kosher items.
New York Transit Museum
99 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn
Located inside a subway station that was abandoned in 1946 and reopened 30 years later as a museum, its tracks hold more than a century of historic rolling stock. Step inside these old subway cars to see advertisements from decades past. On the mezzanine level are displays and artifacts relating to the construction of the country’s largest – and only 24-hour – transit system.
In the Bronx
Wave Hill
4900 Independence Avenue, Bronx
The historic mansion and garden facility celebrates its 60th year as a public institution. Prior to becoming a museum, this 28-acre estate hosted famous guests like Mark Twain, Arturo Toscanini, and the future presidents Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy when they were young. It serves as a sanctuary for nature and a forum for cultural expression, with picturesque views of the Palisades and fall foliage. Accommodating the sizable Orthodox community in Riverdale, Wave Hill allows visitors to pre-register their visits ahead of Shabbos and then freely walk on its grounds on the day of rest.
New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx
The largest curated green space in the city takes up 250 acres in the heart of the densely urbanized Bronx. Its library resembles a European parliament, and the greenhouse has soaring glass domes sheltering tropical plants. On view through October 31 is Van Gogh’s Flowers, showing the plants that appear prominently in the works of the great Post-Impressionist. For young visitors, the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden offers activities, displays, and paths on a smaller scale: a park inside the park designed to answer their questions about plant life and the natural environment.
Jewish Content
Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge Street
The historic synagogue of the Lower East Side opened in 1886 as the crown of the immigrant neighborhood and was restored in the 1990s as a museum of Jewish life. On exhibit at this time is Lower East Side, 1975: Portrait of a Changing Jewish Neighborhood, a collection of photos from a time when the neighborhood was more Latino than Jewish, not yet gentrified, in a year when the city’s financial situation was in crisis. On view through November 23.
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
This center hosts five vital institutions that document the stories of Jews in America through art, artifacts, and literature: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Yeshiva University Museum, YIVO, and Leo Baeck Institute – each with its own exhibits and opportunities to research our past.
Currently on view: Anne Frank: The Exhibition brings a reconstruction of the Holocaust victim’s hiding room and its artifacts. It brings context to her family and four other individuals, most of whom did not survive the war but whose stories resulted in posthumous fame. On view through October 31.
As YIVO celebrates its centennial, there are two exhibits honoring this milestone. Hail to the Zamlers: YIVO’s Collections at 100 honors the collectors who gathered the massive trove of books, artworks, artifacts, and documents that share the experiences of Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. The Strashun Library: Rare Books Rescued from the Ashes of Vilna shares the massive collection of Rabbi Matisyahu Strashun – over 35,000 volumes – that survived the Holocaust and made its way to New York.
Museum of Jewish Heritage
One Battery Place
Along with its permanent collection of artifacts from the Holocaust, the exhibit Judy Glickman Lauder: The Danish Exception is a photo collection from 1993 documenting Danish Jews who fled ahead of a planned Nazi roundup, along with Danish Resistance members who risked their lives to rescue these Jews. This exhibit appears in partnership with Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark on the nation that rescued 95 percent of its Jews through grassroots resistance – an exception to the Holocaust.
The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue
In this year’s mayoral election, progressives are having their momentum, and the artist on view through October 26 shares many of their views concerning social justice. At the same time, Ben Shahn’s life experiences and artistic works speak of his experience as a Jew and early 20th-century immigrant. Fittingly titled On Nonconformity, it features 175 artworks by Shahn that include paintings, mural studies, prints, photographs, and commercial designs, depicting the labor movement, protesting fascism, and championing civil rights, along with Jewish themes.
Beyond the City
LONG ISLAND
Cradle of Aviation Museum
Charles Lindbergh Boulevard, Garden City
This is a former hangar transformed into a museum of air and space technology. Currently, it has exhibits on drones and the early “flying boats” of the late Pan American Airways. The latter is produced by the Pan Am Museum Foundation, a nonprofit created by former employees and airplane enthusiasts to preserve the history of this pioneering airline company.
Nassau County Museum of Art
One Museum Drive, Roslyn
The grounds of this museum are the former property of naturalist William Cullen Bryant and industrialist Henry Clay Frick. As visitors drive into the museum, the lawns feature sculptures designed to fit into their setting. It is the Long Island version of the Hudson Valley’s Storm King Art Center: smaller in size but free and with fall foliage to match the artworks. Then there is the mansion with its Gold Coast opulence. Current exhibits include At Play, in which famous painters depict forms of entertainment. These include modern master Pablo Picasso; American early modernists Reginald Marsh, Everett Shinn, and Max Beckmann; and pop artist Andy Warhol’s depictions of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. On view through November 9.
Adventureland
2245 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale
I have not visited Adventureland since I was in summer camp. Long Island’s longest-operating amusement park struck me as a street fair permanently moored in place, with rides that are standard across the country, such as a swinging pirate ship, carousel, and log flume. I had no idea that in 2015 it welcomed Turbulence, a new roller coaster that has become its star attraction. This new ride serves as an extra reason to revisit this blast from the past.
Oceanside Library
30 Davison Ave, Oceanside
In our previous Chol HaMoed Guide, the Far Rockaway public library was listed as the newest place to appreciate architecture and borrow a book. This year, it is the 48,000-square-foot library in Oceanside, which opened last November and still has that new-building feel. Designed to function as a community hub, it also has a theater, classrooms, podcast studio, and a café. Imagine eating a snack inside a library! Oceanside has a growing Jewish community anchored by the Young Israel of Oceanside, a short drive from this new library.
Valley Stream Historical Society
143 Hendrickson Avenue, Valley Stream
www.valleystreamlibrary.org/vshistpagan.htm
At the southern tip of Valley Stream State Park is a historic mansion that predates the suburbanization of Long Island. The Pagan-Fletcher Restoration contains old maps of the area and other displays relating to the history of this village and its surroundings. The state park outside this mansion is one of the smallest, with a playground, picnic area, and paths through a dense woodland. This year, the Village of Valley Stream marks the centennial of its incorporation, with events and shows relating to its hyper-local sense of identity.
Long Island Maritime Museum
88 West Avenue, West Sayville
This year’s Chazaq-sponsored Chol HaMoed Sukkos concert will be on Oct. 9, with the Flip Circus, Nachas, and The Amazing Bello. It will take place far to the east of Queens at South Shore Mall in Bay Shore. If time allows for local sightseeing, Long Island Maritime Museum is a short drive from this event.
This collection of buildings focuses on whaling, shellfishing, lifesaving, and other elements of seafaring on the Great South Bay where the museum stands.
NEW JERSEY
American Dream Mall
One American Dream Way
East Rutherford, NJ
After hearing about it from classmates in school and bunkmates in camp, my family took the trip to the American Dream mall in the Meadowlands. Even when it’s not Chol HaMoed, this destination mall is filled with frum families eager to taste popular American foods with a hechsher, and satisfaction that this mall was built by the Ghermezian family, whose philanthropy sustains many educational projects in the Jewish community.
Did we feel like paying for an indoor amusement park when it is sunny outside, or a water park that is only a fraction of Mountain Creek and Splish Splash? Nor did we feel that the novelty of an indoor ski slope was worth the price when we could wait a few months until the slopes of the Catskills and Poconos reopen.
For a family on a budget seeking unique thrills, the indoor skating rink, mini-golf, and candy store would be worth experiencing. If you have friends in Lakewood, Monsey, or west of the city, this mall could be a good place to meet up and have fun.
New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place, Newark
The renaissance of downtown Newark continues as its skyline rises, and its cultural attractions are not much of a secret anymore. The New Jersey Historical Society highlights the unique stories of the Garden State across the street from a historic city park. Inside are exhibits on the state’s waterways, Robert R. Max’s experiences in the military as he survived Nazi captivity, and Princeton professor Albert Einstein’s contribution to the movement combating racial discrimination.
A short walk from the historical society is the Newark Museum of Art, with a respectable collection of artifacts from abroad and artworks that relate to New Jersey.
Urban Air Adventure Park
396 Ryders Lane, Milltown
1600 St. Georges Avenue, Avenel
69 Wesley Street, South Hackensack
When rain and wind interfere with fall foliage and the temperature is too chilly for a walk, Urban Air Adventure Park offers three indoor locations in New Jersey. The family-friendly facility offers ample space for bouncing, climbing, virtual reality, and sports.
Six Flags Great Adventure
1 Six Flags Blvd, Jackson Township, NJ
www.sixflags.com/greatadventure
This year, the largest amusement park in the Northeast marks its 50th year in operation. To remain profitable, customer loyalty is key, as parents experience rides from their childhood and introduce their offspring to new rides relating to popular movies and comics.
Vertical Velocity is the park’s 15th roller coaster, which will be followed this summer by The Flash, a roller coaster reaching 60 miles per hour. Among the original rides, Sawmill Log Flume and Giant Wheel, formerly known as the Big Wheel, were refurbished for the anniversary. Not everything at Six Flags closes at sunset, as it now offers glamping as its overnight attraction, starting in June.
PENNSYLVANIA
Crayola Experience
30 Centre Square Circle, Easton
www.crayolaexperience.com/Easton
Many visitors to the hometown of Crayola are surprised to learn that this interactive children’s museum has branches in Minneapolis, Orlando, Plano, and Chandler in Arizona, but it is in the Lehigh Valley, where the world’s most famous crayon manufacturer had its beginnings. Facing this museum is a traffic circle with monuments honoring Easton’s Civil War veterans and signs explaining the town’s long history. Four blocks to the west of this circle is the historic Northampton Street Bridge, with its views of the Delaware River.
National Museum of Industrial History
602 E. 2nd Street, Bethlehem
If you’re visiting the Crayola Experience in Easton, a 20-minute drive to the west is Bethlehem, which used to be the country’s leading steelmaking city. The factory closed in 1995, with its smokestacks standing as a historical monument. The Electric Repair Shop of the Bethlehem Steel complex received a new purpose as a museum of industry. Walk past the cogs, looms, and pistons from the factory’s heyday, and be sure to speak to the staff, some of whom worked in the steel mill before it became a museum.
Hersheypark
100 Hershey Drive, Hershey, PA
Since 1906, this 121-acre theme park has been a leading attraction in Pennsylvania, where the beloved chocolatier offers a factory tour, water park, zoo, and roller coasters. Most Jolly Ranchers candies are not kosher unless they have a hechsher, but the 105-foot-high Jolly Rancher Remix coaster offers colorful themed rides based on flavors, with lights, tunnels, and music, as it flips six times on its ride. On the way to Hershey, one can drive through Philadelphia, with its Revolutionary War history and the National Museum of American Jewish History, or Easton with the Crayola factory. A short distance to the west of Hershey is Harrisburg, the capital city of Pennsylvania.
