Chinatown's Mid-Autumn Festival hangs 100-plus painted lanterns under the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend, free, and on Saturday at 5 PM they go on parade. The whole day is built around it.
The Move of the Week
Saturday Oct 3: a Mott Street table at noon, Chinatown's lantern parade at 5, dim sum on Doyers Street after
Lanterns under the Brooklyn Bridge, two free festivals, and dim sum in a 1920 dining room
Cost: $0 at both festival gates, no tickets; vendor and dinner prices not posted
her kind of night ✓
Manhattan
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Saturday Oct 3, 12:30 PM
The Mid-Autumn community table on Mott Street, between Canal and Bayard — Free, Saturday only, 11 AM to 3:30 PM, run by the Chinatown Partnership with AAAAH Culture. One block of Mott, Canal to Bayard: a stop, not an afternoon. Give it an hour.
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2:30 PM
South to Gotham Park, 1 Rose Street, for the Mid-Autumn Festival — Half a mile, 12 minutes on foot: south on Mott to Chatham Square, then toward the bridge's Manhattan approach; the park sits underneath. Free, 1 to 7 PM: 100-plus painted lanterns, mahjong, mooncake and lantern workshops, and 20-plus AAPI food and retail vendors, Anna Ye Tea and Tay Ninh Food among them. Enough time to eat through the vendor rows once and still claim a parade spot.
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5:00 PM
The lantern parade — Saturday only; Friday and Sunday have the festival, not the parade. No route is published. Sunset is about 6:33, so the parade runs in daylight; the lanterns glow in the festival's last half-hour, 6:33 to the 7 PM close. Stay for it.
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7:15 PM
Dim sum at Nom Wah Tea Parlor, 13 Doyers Street — Back north the same half-mile, about 12 minutes, to a dining room dating to 1920. Saturday hours are listed as 11 AM to 9 PM, which gives you an hour and forty-five minutes at the table; confirm on nomwah.com. No reservations listed, so plan on walking in.
Why it lands: One appointment all day, the 5 PM parade; everything else is free and walkable inside a mile. The Mott Street table and the park are two celebrations by different organizers, so you keep moving instead of standing in one spot for six hours. The 7 PM close ends the outdoor part, and dinner is twelve minutes from the gate.
Weather backup: Friday Oct 2 and Sunday Oct 4 run the same Gotham Park festival, 1 to 7 PM, free, minus the parade and the Mott Street table; Sunday adds Fun Fest Japan at Corlears Hook Park, noon to 4 (in the radar). No rain policy posted; check welcometochinatown.com the morning you go.
Friday Oct 2: Dickson's Oktoberfest in Chelsea Market, 7 to 11, $59 for four hours of food and beer
One building, one price, a brass band and six New York State brewery stations for four hours
Cost: $118 for two, all-in for four hours of food and beer, before booking fees
her kind of night ✓
Manhattan
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Friday Oct 2, 6:15 PM
The Oishii strawberry shop on Chelsea Market's Main Concourse — Open Thursday to Sunday, 11 AM to 7 PM, through Nov 1, so you get 45 minutes before close. We printed it as a Sept 10 opening; tonight it's just your first bite. Chelsea Market is 75 Ninth Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets.
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7:00 PM
Dickson's Farmstand Meats Oktoberfest, same building — Friday only, 7 to 11 PM, 21 and over. $59 buys four hours of Bavarian food from the Dickson's butchers and unlimited pours from six beer stations, with Threes, KCBC, Industrial Arts, Wild East, Kills Boro and SingleCut among the brewers. A brass band plays first, German disco later; no set time for the switch. $59 is this year's price; we re-checked it. Buy from Chelsea Market's own event page, not a reseller.
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11:00 PM
Out the Ninth Avenue side to the 14th Street station — The A, C, E and L at 14th Street and Eighth Avenue: one block south, one avenue east, five minutes on foot. Unlimited beer with a hard 11 PM stop means nobody has to decide when the night is over.
Why it lands: A fixed price kills the running tab, and one building kills the where-next question. The 45-minute strawberry stop gives you a start time that isn't a door; the 11 PM close gives you an end time that isn't a choice. The least logistics per hour in this edition.
Weather backup: The Oktoberfest is one night only. Oishii keeps its Thursday-to-Sunday hours through Nov 1, and Saturday Oct 3 brings Daddy Rabbit's opening weekend at the Ace Hotel on West 29th, about a 20-minute walk northeast (in the radar).
Saturday Oct 3: the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, then the Creole Food Festival's after-hours session in Dumbo, 6 to 8
A walk over the bridge, two hours of unlimited Creole tastings, and the sun setting behind Manhattan
Cost: $154 for two for unlimited tastings; the bridge is free
her kind of night ✓
Brooklyn
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Saturday Oct 3, 5:15 PM
Walk the Brooklyn Bridge from the City Hall end — 1.3 miles from the Manhattan entrance to Dumbo, about 30 unhurried minutes, free. Gotham Park, this week's Move of the Week, sits under the same bridge's approach: spend the afternoon at the Mid-Autumn Festival, skip the 5 PM parade, and this walk joins the two plans.
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6:00 PM
The Creole Food Festival's after-hours session, Brooklyn Bridge Park's Dumbo waterfront — Saturday only, $77 each for unlimited tastings. The day runs 3 to 8 PM in two sessions: 3 to 6 (the family session) and 6 to 8 (after-hours). You want the second. Listings split between Emily Warren Roebling Plaza and Pier 3; your ticket names the spot. Book on the festival's own site.
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6:33 PM
Sunset, on the right side of the river this time — Sunset is about 6:33. The Dumbo waterfront faces west across the East River, and in early October the sun sets west-southwest, behind the Lower Manhattan skyline in front of you. The first 33 minutes of your session get the last of the light: the one real view in this edition.
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8:00 PM
Session ends; the F at York Street — The session closes at 8. York Street on the F is about a 10-minute walk inland. Or take the bridge back, the same 1.3 miles, if neither of you is done talking.
Why it lands: Unlimited tastings at a fixed price turn a festival into a shared tasting menu: each of you orders the thing the other wouldn't, at no extra cost. The bridge gives the evening a slow first half-hour, and the 6 PM session is timed for the light.
Weather backup: The 3 to 6 PM family session is the same price and site if 6 PM doesn't work. No rain policy posted; check creolefoodfestival.com Saturday morning.
Sunday Oct 4: Greenpoint's first StoopFest, 1 to 5, then the closing party in McCarren Park, 5 to 7, free
Greenpoint's first StoopFest, with free food, jazz and live-band karaoke, then a park party into dark
Cost: Free, all of it; the free food runs out, so arrive at 1
her kind of night ✓
Brooklyn
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Sunday Oct 4, 1:00 PM
The StoopFest hub, Lorimer Street between Nassau and Norman Avenues — Free, 1 to 5 PM, all ages, and the festival's first year: food and drink from local businesses, a jazz quartet, live-band karaoke, a neighborhood quest, a community mural and a photobooth. The organizers say come early because the free food runs out, so 1 PM is the time, not a suggestion. A second hub is listed at Bedford Slip; stick to Lorimer.
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5:00 PM
The closing party at the McCarren Parkhouse — Free, 5 to 7 PM. McCarren Park begins at Nassau Avenue, the south end of the Lorimer hub, so it's a few minutes' walk. Follow the festival's signage to the right door.
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7:00 PM
Party ends; the G at Nassau Avenue — Sunset is about 6:31, so the party's last half-hour runs after the light goes. McCarren is flat and ringed by buildings: you get the dusk, not a sunset view. The G at Nassau Avenue, at Manhattan Avenue, is about three blocks east along Nassau.
Why it lands: Live-band karaoke and a neighborhood quest give you two something to do besides talk, which helps at 1 PM on a Sunday, and the two-part schedule tells you when to move. Six free hours, no bill to split.
Weather backup: No rain policy posted; check the Eventbrite page Sunday morning. If Sunday doesn't work, the same corner of Greenpoint has the NYC Coffee Festival on Saturday at The Post BK (in the radar), ticketed by session.