During Climate Week NYC, New York is awash in conversations about saving the planet. There are panels and pledges, statistics and speeches, dire predictions and ambitious promises. But at the heart of The Footprint of Life Gala, held September 24 at CORE Club, was a considerably more personal question: What are you going to leave behind?

Hosted by Green Vision Foundation co-founders Amy Green and Gary Green, the annual black-tie evening brought together environmentalists, philanthropists, athletes, scientists, business leaders, artists and advocates around the idea that influence carries responsibility. We all leave a footprint. The question is whether that footprint simply records where we have been or actually improves what remains after us.

That distinction gave the evening its purpose. The Footprint of Life was created to harness the collective power of its guests to protect the planet, transform lives and create a lasting legacy for generations to come. This year, its focus expanded the conversation by bringing together sport, philanthropy and global leadership—not as separate worlds, but as forces capable of moving people in ways institutions alone often cannot.

Amy Green

Adam Mett, Amy Green

The evening honored Adam Met, founder and executive director of Planet Reimagined, whose rather unusual résumé makes perfect sense in this context. Musician, educator and climate advocate, Met has taken the reach afforded him by one world and applied it to another. Through Planet Reimagined, he has brought researchers, advocates, policymakers and partners together with the goal of moving climate ideas beyond conversation and into scalable, actionable solutions.

The second honoree came from an entirely different arena. Legendary big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara was recognized for using sport as a force for change, accepting the honor on behalf of Laureus Sport for Good. As a Laureus Ambassador, McNamara represents an organization built around the premise that sport can be far more consequential than competition. Laureus works with children and young people around the world, using sport to help overcome violence, discrimination and disadvantage.

That partnership also made an intriguing point about environmentalism. We tend to separate issues into convenient categories—climate over here, poverty over there, education somewhere else, human rights in another room entirely. Real life isn’t nearly so tidy. Environmental degradation affects communities. Poverty affects opportunity. The health of oceans affects livelihoods. The future of children cannot really be separated from the future of the world they will inherit. The Footprint of Life placed those connections at the center of the evening rather than treating conservation as an isolated cause.

“The Footprint of Life is about recognizing that every one of us leaves an impact—and deciding together what we want that impact to be,” Amy Green told guests. “By bringing extraordinary people into one room, we had an opportunity to turn conversation into collaboration and individual influence into collective action. This evening was ultimately about the world we leave behind and the lives we have the power to change now.”

And it was quite a room.

Among those gathering for the black-tie dinner was legendary oceanographer and Mission Blue founder Dr. Sylvia Earle, whose presence alone provided a living connection to decades of ocean conservation. She was joined by philanthropist and Giving Back Foundation founder Meera Gandhi, television personality Melissa Gorga, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Lava for Good founder and CEO Jason Flom, Bank of America Executive Vice Chair Julian Mylchreest, MLB All-Star Joey Votto, former NBA player and coach M.L. Carr, and human-rights advocate Ilwad Elman.

my Green

Amy Green

Fashion and design were represented by Alejandra Alonso Rojas, Andrew Kwon and Nicole Fuller, while actor and filmmaker Randall Batinkoff, environmental justice advocate Saad Amer, We The Planet founder Kunal Sood, real estate developer and entrepreneur Tony Cho, and Laureus U.S. Ambassador Kely Nascimento were among the evening’s other guests.

It made for the kind of eclectic guest list that could only really happen in New York: oceanographers beside athletes, fashion designers beside human-rights activists, financiers beside environmentalists. Yet that was precisely the point. Solving enormous problems requires people who don’t normally inhabit the same rooms to begin talking to one another.

There is always a danger with galas devoted to serious causes that the glamour overwhelms the reason everyone has gathered. Champagne is considerably easier than climate change. A beautiful dinner is easier than conservation. A photograph beside a step-and-repeat is certainly easier than changing the way we live.

But glamour and purpose don’t have to be enemies. A room filled with people who possess money, visibility, expertise, access or influence is also a room filled with resources. The real measure comes afterward: what happens when everyone goes home?

The Footprint of Life is built around that question. Not whether we leave a footprint—we have no choice about that—but what kind of footprint it will be.

Because legacy isn’t ultimately what we say we cared about.

It is what is different because we were here.

The Footprint of Life was presented in partnership with Laureus Sport for Good and supported by Cerity Partners, The Twenty Five, Privé and Worth Magazine.

Climate Week can sometimes feel very big—global summits, sweeping promises, ambitious targets and conversations about what the planet might look like decades from now. Project Petals is bringing the conversation considerably closer to home. Through September 27, the New York-based nonprofit is turning LinkNYC screens across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens into platforms for New Yorkers to talk about what climate change already looks and feels like in their own neighborhoods.

The campaign amplifies residents’ experiences with extreme heat, worker safety and environmental inequities that can change dramatically simply by crossing from one neighborhood into another. It is a smart approach because climate change isn’t experienced as a statistic. It is the construction worker spending hours outside during a heat wave, the elderly New Yorker living on a block with too little shade, or the neighborhood where trees, parks and other green infrastructure help lower temperatures while another community is surrounded by concrete absorbing every degree and throwing it straight back.

Project Petals’ campaign grew from Environmental Justice, Heat, Work, and Us, a Pulitzer Center-supported initiative that brought residents together to discuss their experiences with extreme heat, environmental inequality and the realities of working under increasingly difficult conditions. Now those conversations have escaped the conference room and landed directly on New York City streets.

Putting them on LinkNYC screens matters because environmental inequality is frequently discussed by policymakers, researchers and advocates in language that can make the people actually experiencing it disappear. Project Petals reverses that equation. Instead of speaking about communities, it gives members of those communities the microphone and then puts that microphone on a New York City sidewalk.

The campaign also highlights one of the most complicated aspects of environmental policy: New York does not experience climate change uniformly. One neighborhood can have mature trees, parks, gardens and significant investment in green infrastructure while another has relatively little protection from heat. The temperature reported for New York City may be the same, but the experience of living through that temperature can be remarkably different depending upon where you live and work.

That is where Project Petals has concentrated much of its work. Community investment can determine whether a neighborhood has access to environmental solutions capable of making it healthier and more resilient. During Climate Week, however, the organization is doing something equally important: it is making those disparities visible to the rest of the city.

There is something wonderfully New York about using LinkNYC to do it. We walk past those screens every day. They are part information source, part urban furniture and part background noise. Suddenly, the person staring back isn’t selling us a movie, a sneaker or the latest must-have product. It is one of our neighbors telling us what is happening where they live.

Climate Week will end. The international delegations will leave, the panels will conclude, the credentials will come off and New York will move rapidly toward whatever is next. The neighborhoods will still be here, and so will the people living in them. Project Petals is making sure that, for at least one week, New Yorkers aren’t merely the subject of the climate conversation.

They’re the ones having it.

In the heart of the Theatre District, The Actors Temple is welcoming New Yorkers to celebrate the Jewish New Year with two community events that combine tradition, spirituality and something particularly meaningful this year: giving back.

On Saturday, September 12 at 7 p.m., The Actors Temple will hold a free Rosh Hashanah Second Evening service, open to the community at its historic home at 339 West 47th Street. It is an invitation to enter the Jewish year 5787 not simply through ritual, but through reflection, renewal and community—ideas that feel particularly resonant at a moment when the world could use considerably more of all three.

Rosh Hashanah is traditionally a time of taking stock. It asks us to examine where we have been, consider where we have fallen short and decide how we want to move forward. The sounding of the shofar is both ancient ritual and spiritual wake-up call: the new year has arrived, but entering it consciously requires more than simply turning a page on the calendar.

The following afternoon, Sunday, September 13 at 2:30 p.m., The Actors Temple takes that idea of renewal beyond the walls of the synagogue with Reverse Tashlich, another free community event. Traditional Tashlich symbolically casts away the mistakes and transgressions of the previous year, often beside a body of moving water. Reverse Tashlich turns the ritual in another direction: instead of putting something into the water, participants take something harmful out of it.

It is a wonderfully contemporary interpretation of an ancient idea. Rather than symbolically casting away what we no longer wish to carry, Reverse Tashlich asks participants to help remove litter and debris from waterways and surrounding areas. The spiritual act becomes a physical one. Repairing ourselves and repairing the world are no longer separate ideas.

That concept sits comfortably within the Jewish principle of tikkun olam—repairing the world. A new year can bring prayers, promises and intentions, but eventually intention has to become action. Cleaning a shoreline may appear to be a small gesture against the enormous environmental problems facing the planet, yet there is something powerful about beginning with the piece of the world directly within our reach.

There is also something wonderfully appropriate about these celebrations taking place at The Actors Temple. Founded as Congregation Ezrath Israel, the synagogue has been part of the Theatre District for more than a century and became famous for its connection to performers and entertainment figures. In a neighborhood defined by people telling stories on stages, this small synagogue has quietly preserved a much older story of faith, survival and community.

Both events are free, making them particularly welcoming for New Yorkers who want to participate in the High Holidays without allowing the cost of admission to become a barrier. The Rosh Hashanah Second Evening service begins Saturday, September 12 at 7 p.m., with Reverse Tashlich following Sunday, September 13 at 2:30 p.m.

A new year traditionally begins with the hope that we can do better than we did the year before. The Actors Temple is offering two ways to begin—one by looking inward and the other by looking at the world around us.

Perhaps we need both.

The Actors Temple High Holidays and 2026–27 events

High Holiday tickets and membership

September arrives with the U.S. Open in full swing at Flushing Meadows, followed almost immediately by Fashion Week, Broadway Week, major art fairs, Harry Styles taking over Madison Square Garden, the Feast of San Gennaro and the first real surge of New York’s fall cultural season. Summer isn’t quite gone, but the city is already moving at full speed again.Continuing 9/13: The U.S. Open Tennis Championships take over the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, bringing the world’s greatest tennis players to Queens for the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.

9/2, 4-5, 9-12, 16-19, 23, 25-26 & 30: Harry Styles begins his massive Together, Together residency at Madison Square Garden, turning September at MSG into something close to Harry Styles month.

9/3: Bryant Park Picnic Performances presents saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly with Ashni as the Asian American Arts Alliance takes over the Lawn for a free evening of music beginning at 7 p.m.

9/4: Bryant Park’s Brass Festival fills the Lawn with brass bands and big sound during another free Picnic Performance beginning at 7 p.m.

9/4–5: Ed Sheeran brings his 2026 tour to MetLife Stadium for two nights.

9/6: Islands in the Park: A Caribbean Jam transforms Smorgasburg Prospect Park into a Caribbean celebration with DJs, live steel pan, Caribbean food vendors, arts and crafts and guest chef Scotley Innis. Admission is free.

9/7: The West Indian American Day Carnival Parade explodes across Eastern Parkway on Labor Day with spectacular costumes, steel-pan and calypso bands, floats, Caribbean food and an estimated crowd approaching two million.

9/8 – 20: If you’re looking to add a can’t-miss theater night to your September plans, Broadway Week returns to New York City from September 8–20, 2026, offering 2-for-1 tickets to select Broadway shows.

Sara Kerens, Times Square Alliance, Taste of Times Square

9/9: The Annual Taste of Times Square, one of NYC’s most beloved and longest-running food events, is returning to Midtown this September. The four-hour outdoor festival features 30+ restaurants serving everything from Mexican street tacos and Caribbean classics to Italian pasta, Indian curries, and American BBQ all for under $10per plate!

9/9: New York Fashion Week gets an early start, with Ralph Lauren, Coach and other designers presenting ahead of the official CFDA calendar.

9/10–15: New York Fashion Week unveils the Spring/Summer 2027 collections as designers, models, celebrities, editors and the fashion circus descend upon New York.

9/10: Bryant Park Picnic Performances: Dance Party All-Stars brings Alfredo de la Fé All Star Band and the George Gee Swing Orchestra to the Lawn for a free night of salsa and swing.

9/11: New York commemorates the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, with the annual reading of victims’ names at the 9/11 Memorial and observances throughout the city.

9/11: American Symphony Orchestra performs at Bryant Park in a special free Picnic Performance commemorating the 25th anniversary of September 11.

9/13: The U.S. Open Men’s Singles Final brings two weeks of extraordinary tennis to its climax at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows.

9/15 -10/15: Hispanic Heritage Month in NYC  a month-long celebration recognizing the rich cultures, histories, and contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities.

9/17–20: Clio Art Fair launches the first of two consecutive September editions in Chelsea, showcasing independent and emerging artists outside the traditional gallery system. Admission is free.

9/17–27: The Feast of San Gennaro celebrates its 100th anniversary, filling Little Italy with eleven days of Italian food, music, processions, entertainment and one of New York’s most beloved street traditions.

Photography by Teddy Wolff

9/18–19: Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi sends 40 life-sized buffalo puppets through Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in an extraordinary free public-art event created with Lenape and Lakota elders.

9/19: The German-American Steuben Parade marches up Fifth Avenue, celebrating German-American heritage with marching bands, traditional costumes and organizations from across the country.

9/20-27: Climate Week: The week attracts decision makers from across society. Leaders set the strategies here that drive pollution reduction and business growth.

9/22: Fall officially arrives in New York with the Autumnal Equinox, as the city trades summer for one of its most beautiful seasons.

The Armory Show

9/24–27: Armory Week brings collectors, galleries, artists and the international art world to New York, led by The Armory Show and a constellation of satellite fairs and exhibitions.

9/24–27: Clio Art Fair returns for its second September edition, offering another roster of independent artists in Chelsea.

9/25: The Museum of the City of New York opens Halumii Ktapihna, exploring the enduring presence and living cultures of the Lenape/Lunáapeew, the original people of the land that became New York City.

9/25: The Museum of the City of New York also opens Raise Your Voice, tracing more than 250 years of New York activism and the ways generations of New Yorkers have fought to create change.

9/26: Global Citizen Festival with Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey, and TOMORROW X TOGETHER (TXT). The concert is free, you’ll have to earn your ticket by taking action through the Global Citizen app or website, such as signing petitions and completing quizzes on global issues. New this year, fans can also get automatic entry with a $25 charitable donation, with proceeds supporting local New York causes.

Photography by Teddy Wolff

New York has seen just about everything parade through its streets, but on September 18 and 19, 40 life-sized buffalo will thunder through Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn—without creating so much as a hoofprint.

The extraordinary herd is at the heart of Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi, a two-day public-art event conceived by Amir Nizar Zuabi in partnership with elders from the Lenape and Lakota communities. Billed as the largest interactive public-art experience in the country this year, the event combines spectacle, history, performance and ceremony while bringing the story of America’s national mammal directly into the streets.

Photography by Teddy Wolff

These are no ordinary puppets. Created by South Africa’s Ukwanda Puppets from recycled materials and assembled locally at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the buffalo are remarkably lifelike. More than 150 volunteer puppeteers will bring the 40 animals into motion, transforming downtown New York into something between a migration, a theatrical event and a living work of art.

The creative pedigree should sound familiar. Zuabi and many of the artists involved were behind Little Amal, the unforgettable 12-foot-tall puppet representing a young Syrian refugee who walked through New York City in 2022. Amal turned sidewalks into stages and strangers into participants. This time, instead of one enormous child moving through the city, New Yorkers will encounter an entire herd.

Photography by Ant Strack

Beneath the visual spectacle is a much deeper story. The American buffalo was driven nearly to extinction during the 19th century, its destruction inseparable from the devastation inflicted upon Native communities whose lives and cultures were intimately connected to it. Its survival and restoration—due significantly to Native conservation efforts and their allies—makes the buffalo an unusually potent symbol of resilience, reckoning and repair.

New Yorkers aren’t being asked merely to watch from behind a barricade. The audience is invited to join the herd. As the buffalo move through locations carrying their own layers of American history, parks and plazas will become temporary stages filled with tribal ceremonies, gospel choirs, marching bands and live performance.

The impressive roster includes Rhiannon Giddens, Laurie Anderson, Native Pride Dancers, Pilobolus and the all-women Brazilian percussion band Fogo Azul, joined by First Nations tribal elders, civic leaders and additional performers.

On Friday, September 18, the buffalo take Manhattan, beginning at Bowling Green Park at 5 p.m. and making their way through Lower Manhattan before arriving at Foley Square at 7:30 p.m.

The following afternoon, Saturday, September 19, the herd crosses into Brooklyn. The procession begins at Abolitionist Place at 2 p.m. and travels through Downtown Brooklyn before reaching Brooklyn Bridge Park at 4:30 p.m.

Both events are free and open to the public.

There is something wonderfully audacious about releasing 40 buffalo into the visual chaos of New York City. Yet Return of the Buffalo promises considerably more than an irresistible photograph. It places an animal nearly erased from America back into the center of public life while asking us to remember what disappeared alongside it—and who fought to bring it back.

For two September days, New York won’t simply stop traffic. It will stop for the buffalo.