This season’s chagim fall on the weekend, leaving us with the hard choice of working all week to save up for a later vacation, or to enjoy the days off with our families. In the latter case, packing lunch involves knowing the location of the nearest sukkah, or eschewing hamotzi and mezonos food items while on the road. This country’s 250th Independence Day was back in July, but many venues are continuing to celebrate this historic number through the end of this year.
They’re in Queens
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street, Corona
Complementing the model of the city at nearby Queens Museum, the Hall of Science has CityWorks, on the infrastructure that keeps New York going. 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 in Rocket Park, next to the center’s mini-golf course. Near the Hall of Science, the Queens Zoo specializes in animals of the Americas. Even if you’re passing by its gates, take note of their elaborate appearance. Titled Gates of Life, they were created by sculptor Albino Manca in 1968 on the occasion of the zoo’s opening.
Queens Museum
New York City Building, Flushing Meadow-Corona Park
With our country observing its 250th anniversary this year, Queens Museum has the exhibit About Us: The American Imaginary on the people and culture that shape America. The photographs date from the mid-nineteenth century to 1979 and are mostly albumen and vintage silver gelatin prints. On view through Feb. 7, 2027.
The museum’s great panorama of the city, created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, is an opportunity to impress out-of-town visitors by showing them the entire city in a massive miniature form without leaving Queens.
Godwin-Ternbach Museum
65-30 Kissena Blvd
405 Klapper Hall, Queens College
For many residents of Kew Gardens Hills, the campus of Queens College is an ideal place for a stroll as the leaves begin to turn. The cultural element open to the public is the Godwin-Ternbach Museum. Currently on view is Memento Mori: 9/11 Twenty-Five Years Later, containing artworks and archival materials such as books, magazines, and objects relating to that tragic day. The exhibit’s purpose is to provide space to reflect and learn about the impact of 9/11 on the city and country. On view through Nov. 30.
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. Current exhibits include Bahareh Koshooee: WELL COME HOME, with light displays on foam sculptures relating to this Iranian-born artist’s expressions of place, memory, identity, and belonging. On view through Dec. 12. The building hosting this art gallery was built in 1973 with support from the government of Taiwan as an expression of its shared democratic values with the United States. The hall is named for the first president of China, who was educated in America and then returned home to overthrow its centuries-old monarchy.
Queens Historical Society
143-35 37th Avenue, Flushing
www.queenshistoricalsociety.org
The oldest standing dwelling in Queens is the Bowne House, dating to 1661, when Quaker colonist John Bowne settled in Flushing. He famously stood up for religious freedom when fellow members of his faith authored the Flushing Remonstrance addressing the Dutch authorities. Near the Bowne House is the Kingsland Homestead, a historic house dating to the late 18th century that hosts the Queens Historical Society. Current exhibits here include Charles Dana Gibson: American Trendsetter, on the art of this early-20th-century fashion-magazine illustrator, who lived in Flushing.
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. Trails lead from the building through the marsh and woodland at the head of Little Neck Bay. It is 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, walked around, under, and through.
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City
A former public school turned art center affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art uses its yard for large outdoor sculptures. On display through 2028 is Precious Okayomon’s Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation. The installation contains a woodland of native and invasive plants with an oversized teddy bear that visitors can walk into. Inside the museum is Artist Interventions, in which the century-old walls and floors are transformed into media for site-specific art displays.
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, a 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 the City
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
One of the world’s greatest art museums has something for everyone. Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy has works by European artists as they imagined the Middle East in the 19th and early 20th centuries through their techniques in art, sculpture, and photography. On view through Feb. 28, 2027.
For Jewish content relating to orientalism, this museum has Eugene Delacroix’s Visit to a Jewish Bride in Tangier, Theodore Chasseriau’s Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, and Charles-Henry-Joseph Cordier’s bust titled Jewish Woman of Algiers.
On the occasion of this country’s 250th year, the standout painting to see is Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware, which is among the better-known images evoking the American Revolution. See it in the museum’s American Wing.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
The official museum of this city is hosting a 1930s children’s hospital mural restored by the museum in Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier’s Alice Mural, in which the cityscape is filled with characters from the Lewis Carroll book. Painted in the social realist style, it was commissioned as a federal works project. On view through Oct. 12. If you’ve seen the city model at the Queens Museum so many times that it doesn’t inspire you anymore, here’s an alternative: He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model, created by a Queens native who relocated far upstate but never forgot his roots. For 21 years, he carved models of city buildings and bridges with balsa wood, cardboard, and glue. To fit in his home, Macken’s city model is composed of more than 340 pieces assembled into 50 by 27 feet of the five boroughs.
New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions
In honor of this country’s 250th birthday, the city’s flagship public library has the exhibit Declaring America: 1776 and Beyond, which offers the complex, diverse, and powerful stories of the American Revolution told through historic documents, protest memorabilia, artworks, and artifacts. Considering the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, this exhibit shows examples of liberal activism and conservative reaction, truly representing the spectrum of political opinions throughout the past 250 years. On view through Jan. 10, 2027. For Jewish content, see the Dorot Division, a room containing books on Jewish history, where the staff can assist in genealogical inquiries.
Fraunces Tavern Museum
54 Pearl Street
Located in the Financial District, this active tavern and museum was used during the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Sons of Liberty, where Black loyalists were emancipated during the British occupation, and where General Washington gave his farewell address in 1783 as he returned to civilian life. During the city’s brief role as the nation’s capital in the 1780s, the tavern building hosted the departments of Foreign Affairs and War and the offices of the Board of Treasury. Our country and government have grown tremendously since then!
Currently on view, Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation honors the country’s 250th birthday with documents, artifacts, and works of art from the first year of independence.
Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street
This neighborhood museum focuses on art from the Black experience, having begun in 1968 on the second floor above a liquor store. This institution has grown impressively in the half-century since then, opening its present six-story building last November. The spacious galleries host works that speak of past centuries, contemporary issues, and the immediate neighborhood’s ongoing role as the center of African-American culture. The ongoing exhibit, on the sixth floor, To Be a Place, has details on the museum’s growth from a grassroots space to an internationally renowned museum. Following the examples of the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney Museum, the rooftop is open with a view of Manhattan, weather permitting.
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. In honor of this country’s 250th birthday, the exhibit Common Sense takes inspiration from Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet with artworks on this country’s evolution since independence. On view through Nov. 8. Celebrating the museum’s bicentennial, the exhibit Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200 offers fresh narratives from Brooklyn-based artists on the museum’s role in the borough’s culture. On view through Feb. 7, 2027.
Building 92 at 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
The museum is 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.
Kids’n’Action
1149 McDonald Avenue, Brooklyn
Sometimes it rains on Chol HaMoed and the temperature turns too chilly for outdoor activities. An indoor play center can fulfill the child’s desire to climb, jump, and compete for prizes. Located between Borough Park and Midwood, this indoor amusement park is close to the kosher establishments in these neighborhoods.
Luna Park
1000 Surf Avenue
Since its opening in 2010, Luna Park has led Coney Island’s revival as a day trip destination. The rides are post-millennial, but many of them have names relating to the history of Coney Island, such as Steeplechase and Thunderbolt. Inside the park is a preserved decorative rocket from Astroland, the space-themed amusement park that preceded Luna Park. Besides the rides and arcades, Coney Island serves as an outdoor art gallery with murals relating to the neighborhood’s long history of entertaining the public.
In the Bronx
Wave Hill
4900 Independence Avenue, Bronx
The historic mansion and garden celebrate their 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, after which they can 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 Oct. 18 is Flower Power, featuring art and photography from the 1960s and ’70s that use flowers as symbols of peace and love. 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 1887 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 Lighting the World: Menorahs Around the Globe, with detailed explanations of the design, meaning, and history of each object. They are on display in the historic sanctuary of this landmarked building as the first-floor gallery space undergoes renovation work.
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street cjh.org
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: The Jack Kirby Way: How a Boy From the Lower East Side Became the King of Comics, covering the Jewish childhood of the Marvel Universe co-creator. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret Photo Album of Theresienstadt shows 41 recently publicized photos taken at this Nazi concentration camp in Czechia that served as a propaganda showpiece. The tragedy here is knowing that the individuals depicted were aware of the camera and nearly all of them would be killed. YIVO is also an ideal place to begin one’s genealogical search with volunteers who can assist in tracing the origins of Ashkenazi last names and places associated with them in Europe.
Museum of Jewish Heritage
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place
Along with its permanent collection of artifacts from the Holocaust, the exhibit Will These Words Reach You? The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto examines the archive hidden by the Jewish inmates as a record of their existence. Historian Emanuel Ringelblum and his volunteers gathered nearly 35,000 documents, including testimonies, diaries, letters, underground newspapers, artwork, ration cards, children’s writings, and cultural ephemera. On view through Feb. 14, 2027. From the Heart: The Photojournalism of Ruth Gruber shares photographs from a pioneering woman journalist who reported on the Soviet Arctic, Alaska, postwar Europe, and the struggle to re-establish Jewish independence, most famously through her firsthand account of being aboard Exodus 1947.
The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue
The ongoing exhibit Identity, Culture, and Community: Stories from the Collection of the Jewish Museum on the Museum’s third floor offers more than 200 works in a thematic and chronological presentation, from delicate archaeological artifacts and Jewish ceremonial works to large-scale contemporary painting and sculpture.
Prior to its annexation by the Nazis in 1938, the Austrian capital had a bustling modern art scene, with many Jewish artists, patrons, and followers. The exhibit Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstдtte sheds new light on the role that Jewish women played as artists, designers, patrons, and tastemakers in early-20th-century Vienna, and in exile following the arrival of the Nazi regime. On view through Nov. 15.
Beyond the City
Long Island
Cradle of Aviation Museum
Charles Lindbergh Boulevard, Garden City
A former hangar has been transformed into a museum of air and space technology. Currently, it has exhibits on drones and the early “flying boats” of Pan American Airlines. 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 and with fall foliage to match the artworks. Then there is the mansion with its Gold Coast opulence. Currently on view is Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist of the Gilded Age. Although he is best known for his stained-glass windows, lamps, and decorative objects, this exhibition highlights a rarely seen dimension of his artistic practice: the paintings that he personally created at the beginning of his career. The museum’s collection includes more than 130 of his oil and watercolor paintings. On view through Nov. 8.
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.
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.
New Jersey
American Dream Mall
One American Dream Way
East Rutherford, NJ
After hearing about it from her 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, with the added satisfaction that this mall was built by the Ghermezian family, whose philanthropy sustains many educational projects in the Jewish community.
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.
Liberty Science Center
222 Jersey City Boulevard, Jersey City
With nearly 300,000 square feet of exhibits, this interactive museum can take up to an entire day to see, ideal when it’s too cold or rainy for outdoor activities. Presently on view are Touch Tunnel, an 80-foot, crawl-through, pitch-black tunnel that engages your senses; Infinity Climber, the world’s first suspended climbing play space of its kind, which has been replicated by other museums; Making Mammoths, which explores the effort to bring back mammoths, with a detailed replica sculpture that took six months to complete; and Our Hudson Home, which shows the animals, plants, and geology of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, whose waters flow past the Liberty Science Center.
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. On the occasion of this country’s 250th birthday, this museum offers an unlikely hero of the American Revolution in an exhibit titled Remembering Cudjo Banquante; Slave, Revolutionary War Soldier and Newark’s First Black Business Owner. He was a Ghanaian royal kidnapped into slavery who earned his freedom by fighting as a patriot. For his service, he was rewarded with an acre of land in Newark, where he built a successful ornamental plant business. It is an eventful life that could inspire a movie.
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.
Newark’s Jewish history is told with Meet Me under Bamberger’s Clock: A Celebration of the Life and Contributions of Louis Bamberger, the immigrant businessman who built New Jersey’s largest department store. The exhibit was arranged in partnership with the Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey.
Urban Air Adventure Park
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
Now in its sixth decade, Six Flags Great Adventure continues to rely on customer loyalty, as parents experience rides from their childhood and introduce their offspring to new rides relating to popular movies and comics.
Among the newer attractions is THE FLASH: Vertical Velocity, introduced in 2025. The boomerang coaster launches riders forward and backward and reaches speeds of up to 59 miles per hour. Among the longtime rides, Sawmill Log Flume and Giant Wheel, formerly known as the Big Wheel, remain reminders of the park’s earlier years. Not everything at Six Flags closes at sunset, as Savannah Sunset Resort offers glamping-style accommodations inside the Wild Safari for visitors who want to stay overnight.
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 also has locations in Orlando and Bloomington, Minnesota, but it is in the Lehigh Valley where the world’s most famous crayon manufacturer had its beginnings. Former locations in Plano, Texas, and Chandler, Arizona, have closed. 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 water park, zoo, and roller coasters. Next door, Hershey’s Chocolate World offers its Chocolate Tour ride. Most Jolly Rancher candies are not kosher, unless they have a hechsher, but the 105-foot-high Jolly Rancher Remix coaster offers a colorful themed ride based on flavors, with lights, tunnels, and music, as it flips riders six times during the 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.
