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.

I am not particularly good at routines. There, I said it. I admire people who appear to have their lives organized into neat little compartments: wake at a certain hour, exercise, meditate, take their vitamins, eat precisely what their bodies need and somehow arrive at the rest of the day looking composed. I have never quite been that person. My days have a tendency to take on lives of their own.

Getting ready for fall has made me realize something. A routine does not have to mean turning your life into a schedule. It means deciding that certain things matter enough that you are no longer going to negotiate with yourself about them every single day. There are vitamins I know I need to take, so I have decided they need to become part of my day rather than something I remember when I happen to see the bottle. After being on so many antibiotics, I want to eat yogurt every day to help replenish what those medications have disrupted. I have a trampoline, and I need to get on it. Not for an hour. Not because I suddenly intend to become an Olympic athlete. Five minutes counts. Fifteen minutes is terrific. What matters is that my body moves and that I do it again tomorrow.

None of these things is revolutionary. That is precisely the point.

We have made changing our lives far too dramatic. We announce enormous goals, buy equipment, download apps, create schedules we could never realistically maintain and then feel that we have failed when the elaborate new life collapses under the weight of the life we were already living.

A useful routine should fit your actual life. That means looking at yourself without fantasy. When do you really wake up? When do you have energy? What are you consistently forgetting? What makes you feel better when you actually do it? What have you been telling yourself for months that you need to start doing? Then make it smaller. If you cannot exercise for an hour, move for ten minutes. If ten feels impossible today, move for five. Five minutes done every day has more power than the perfect 45-minute workout you keep promising yourself you will begin next Monday.

The same principle applies far beyond exercise. It can mean taking your supplements with breakfast instead of relying on memory. Putting ten minutes aside each evening to put things back where they belong. Drinking water when you first get up. Reading instead of automatically reaching for the phone. Preparing tomorrow’s clothes tonight. Going outside every day. Calling someone you love. Writing one page. Doing one thing that consistently makes your life work better.

Routine becomes powerful when the argument disappears. You stop asking, Do I feel like doing this today? You simply do it because it has become part of the architecture of your life.

That is very different from discipline as punishment. A good routine is an act of respect toward your future self. The person you will be tomorrow benefits from what you quietly do today. The person you will be in October is being constructed by what you repeat in August. Repetition is where transformation actually happens. Fall itself understands this.

By January, you won’t need a resolution. You’ll already be living it.

If Part One of our look at the East Hampton Library’s 22nd Annual Authors Night captured the sheer excitement of the evening, Part Two reveals why this particular summer tradition has become something far more interesting than a glamorous book signing.

Under one enormous tent on August 8, worlds that ordinarily have very little reason to collide suddenly did. Historians sat near novelists. Political insiders shared space with chefs. Architects, journalists, comedians, artists, grief writers and mystery authors met readers face-to-face, while conversations moved effortlessly from the White House to Montauk, from James Baldwin to Sid Caesar, from the Titanic to Tarot.

That eclecticism is the secret of Authors Night. You may arrive looking for one writer and leave carrying the work of someone you had never heard of two hours earlier.

At the center of any gathering devoted to American nonfiction stands Robert A. Caro, whose monumental The Power Broker changed the way generations understood not merely Robert Moses, but the machinery of political power itself. More than half a century after its publication, Caro’s study remains startlingly relevant because its real subject was never simply one man. It was what happens when ambition, government and unchecked authority converge.

Nicholas Boggs brought Baldwin, his major biography of James Baldwin, returning readers to one of America’s most essential literary and intellectual voices. Baldwin’s questions about race, sexuality, belonging and America’s ability—or refusal—to examine itself have hardly grown less urgent.

That examination of America continued with Gloria Browne-Marshall’s A Protest History of the United States, while Eddie S. Glaude Jr. brought America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, considering how America’s celebrations of itself inevitably collide with the parts of its history it would sometimes rather leave outside the ceremony.

Jonathan Mahler turned his attention toward another kind of American power in The Gods of New York, exploring the personalities and forces that shaped a city forever negotiating between money, ambition, politics and myth. Nearby,

Julian Zelizer

Julian Zelizer offered The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden: A First Historical Assessment, bringing together the kind of immediate historical examination that begins almost before an administration has disappeared from view.

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre arrived with Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, while Don Lemon brought two books examining subjects that have defined much of his public career: race, religion, faith and America’s continuing argument with itself.

Then there was Bradford E. Billet, whose Chaos Reveals It contains enough history for several lives. Billet’s experiences encompass TWA Flight 800, September 11 and his tenure as New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, dealing directly with the United Nations and State Department. It is precisely the kind of book Authors Night is made for: you pick it up because of the title and suddenly find yourself standing across from someone who witnessed history from inside the room.

Hassan Nemazee’s Persia, Politics and Prison offered another journey through power and consequence, while Aziz Abu Sarah’s The Future Is Peace turned toward one of humanity’s oldest and most elusive ambitions: finding a way through conflict rather than perpetuating it.

The evening was equally rich in cultural history. David Margolick’s When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy revisits the astonishing influence of the comic genius whose television work helped shape modern American comedy. Carol Leifer, herself part of comedy history and famously associated with the inspiration for Elaine on Seinfeld, took a considerably less solemn approach with How to Write a Funny Speech . . . for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Graduation & Every Other Event You Didn’t Want to Go to in the First Place. Even the title knows exactly what room it has walked into.

Tom Junod brought In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man, while Jay McInerney, forever associated with the literary electricity of New York, offered See You on the Other Side. Amy DuBois Barnett’s If I Ruled the World joined Gayle Feldman’s Nothing Random, Jenna Blum’s wonderfully titled Murder Your Darling,

Amy Chozick

Amy Chozick’s With Friends Like You, Amy Ephron’s Unseasonably Cold

Adam Ross

Adam Ross’s Playworld, and Joanna Margaret’sThe Daughters among the fiction and literary works inviting readers into entirely different worlds.

Then there was one of the titles impossible to walk past without stopping: J. Brooke’s I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side. In an age when almost everyone seems to arrive with a version of events designed to secure allegiance before the facts have even entered the room, the title alone feels wickedly contemporary.

Mystery and suspense were everywhere. David Baerwald brought The Fire Agent, Rachel Ekstrom Courage Death on the Lanai

Tom Clavin

Tom Clavin Vengeance

Alex DeMille

Alex DeMille The Tin Man,

Steve Israel

Steve Israel The Einstein Conspiracy, Chris Pavone The Doorman, Bob Reiss The Impossible Detective

John Searles

John Searles Single Girls, Alyssa Sheinmel Such Sheltered Lives, and Charles Lachman They Shall Not See the Dawn. Aphrodite Jones, long known for examining notorious criminal cases, arrived with Michael Jackson Conspiracy, Jeffrey Sussman’s Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecutionspromised exactly the wonderfully combustible history its title suggests.

The East End itself naturally had its chroniclers. Christy Scott Cashman brought What Happened in Beulah, while David Cataletto’s Kings of the Coast: Montauk kept the geography decidedly local. Jennifer Ash Rudick’s Inside the Hamptons turned the lens on the homes and aesthetic identity of the East End

Michael Gross

Michael Gross’s Treasured Island examined another enclave synonymous with extraordinary wealth.

Architecture and design were particularly well represented. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Paul Goldberger’s Why Architecture Matters asks us to look beyond buildings as objects and understand how the spaces surrounding us influence the way we live. David Netto’s Rosario Candela & The New York Apartment: 1927–1937 celebrates the architect whose elegant apartment houses helped define Manhattan luxury. Jeffrey Banks brought Storyteller, while

Steven Kasher

Steven Kasher’s Memoir of a Collection: Finding Meaning Through Art explored the deeply personal relationship between collector and object.

Kendell Cronstrom and Alejandro Saralegui

Kendell Cronstrom and Alejandro Saralegui each celebrated Madoo, preserving the extraordinary Sagaponack garden and creative world associated with artist Robert Dash, while Alice Harris and Christian John Wikane’s A Night at the Disco turned the cultural clock toward another dazzling New York institution: the dance floor.

Food, naturally, had its own irresistible corner. New York Times food authority Florence Fabricant brought Salty Not Sweet, while chef Michael Symon offered Symon’s Dinners Cooking Out.

Jenn Lueke, Sabrina Rudin, Ali Rosen

Jenn Lueke’s Don’t Think About Dinner, Ali Rosen’s The Slow Burn, and Sabrina Rudin’s Healthy With a Side of Happy approached the pleasures—and daily realities—of feeding ourselves from very different directions.

There were books about the body and the complicated business of taking care of it. Breast surgeon Dr. Elisa Port offered The Breast Advice

Michael J. Norton

Michael J. Norton’s deliciously irreverent The S** I Heard at Yoga* suggested that wellness culture deserves a raised eyebrow along with the downward dog.

Some of the evening’s most affecting books dealt with what happens when life refuses to follow the plan. Danielle Crittenden’s Dispatches from Grief and Kate Doerge’s Reimagining Grief confronted loss from different perspectives

Susan Klein and Cynthia Schaffner

while Susan Klein and Cynthia Schaffner brought Heart Art. David Biro’s The Unstoppables looked toward endurance, and April Reynolds’ The Shape of Dreams toward the landscapes we construct within ourselves.

Elsewhere beneath the tent were Lenny Ackerman with Moments Out of Time; Nelson Aspen with Kindred Spirits: A Titanic Talk; Andrew Blauner with On the Couch; Karen and Bill Brodsky with Beyond Honor; Judy Batalion with The Last Women of Warsaw; Harriet Newman Cohen with Passion and Power

Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff with 101 Lessons From the Dugout; Tom Freston with Unplugged; Luke Goebel with Kill Dick; Bianna Golodryga with Don’t Feed the Lion

Xochitl Gonzalez

 Xochitl Gonzalez with Last Night in Brooklyn; Harrison Hill with The Oracle’s Daughter; Madeleine Henry with The Last Celebrity

Andrew Lownie

Andrew Lownie with Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York

Conner Martin

Conner Martin with The Silver Fish

Lisa Raicek

Lisa Raicek with The Plunge; Deborah Goodrich Royce with Best Boy

Sydney Sadick

Sydney Sadick

 Sydney Sadick with Aim High; Allison Winn Scotch with The Insomniacs; John Seabrook with The Spinach King; Heather Ann Thompson with Fear and Fury; and Jessica Walker with The Secret Astronomers.

Monte Farber and Amy Zerner

Monte Farber and Amy Zerner

Monte Farber

Then there were Monte Farber and Amy Zerner whose books on Tarot are legendary. The longtime creative and spiritual partners arrived carrying a book they wrote 35 years ago, when Tarot existed considerably farther outside the mainstream than it does today. As they pointed out, they were writing about Tarot long before Tarot became a cultural trend. There is something rather wonderful about that. Authors Night is necessarily obsessed with what is new—the new novel, the new biography, the new investigation, the book everyone will be discussing tomorrow. But books have their own clocks. Some explode immediately. Others wait patiently for the culture to catch up with them. Thirty-five years later, Tarot is everywhere. What once occupied the esoteric edges now fills bookstores, social media feeds and conversations about spirituality and consciousness. Monte Farber and Amy Zerner were there before the fashion arrived.

That may be the perfect way to understand Authors Night itself. For all the famous names, beautiful homes, summer clothes and Hamptons glamour, the evening ultimately celebrates something considerably less fashionable and far more enduring. Ideas survive.

They move from writer to reader, sometimes immediately and sometimes decades later. They are argued with, rediscovered, rejected, reconsidered and occasionally understood by an entirely different generation than the one for which they were originally written.

On Saturday night in East Hampton, nearly 100 writers arrived carrying those ideas between two covers and thousands of conversations began.