New Yorkers have been looking up lately. From renewed fascination with Artemis to Hollywood’s continuing obsession with what waits beyond our atmosphere, space is once again capturing the imagination. Now you don’t need a rocket—or a NASA badge—to get considerably closer.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience has landed in New York, bringing a remarkable free-roaming virtual reality journey aboard the International Space Station to Eclipso at 555 West 57th Street.

This isn’t a fictional spacecraft or someone’s idea of what life in orbit might look like. The experience incorporates extraordinary 360-degree 3D footage actually filmed by astronauts during NASA missions, allowing visitors to travel virtually some 250 miles above Earth and enter a world very few human beings have experienced firsthand.

Created from the Emmy Award-winning series Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, the project comes from Felix & Paul Studios in association with TIME Studios and in collaboration with NASA and other international space agencies. More than 500,000 visitors have experienced versions of Space Explorers around the world; New York receives the new Free-Roaming Edition.

Slip on the headset and suddenly the International Space Station becomes explorable territory. Visitors move through a walkable 3D recreation of the ISS, encounter astronauts and discover the surprisingly human routines of living in a place where virtually everything—from eating and sleeping to working and simply moving—has to be reconsidered.

Then comes the reason to go…..Earth.

Seen from orbit, our familiar planet becomes something altogether different: brilliant, fragile and astonishingly alone against the darkness surrounding it. The experience even includes the first spacewalk captured in cinematic virtual reality, creating the sensation of stepping outside the ISS into an immensity the human brain isn’t particularly accustomed to contemplating.

Astronauts have long described something called the overview effect—the profound shift in perception that can occur when seeing Earth from space. Borders disappear. Countries vanish into geography. What remains is one small living planet suspended in an incomprehensibly enormous universe.

Space Explorers attempts to give those of us remaining firmly on Earth a taste of that perspective. That may be what makes this more interesting than another technological attraction. The VR is the vehicle; perspective is the destination. There is something deeply humbling about looking back at Earth rather than looking outward from it. From 250 miles above us, so many things we consider enormous suddenly become very small.

The approximately 40-minute experience is open to ages eight and older and runs Tuesday through Friday from noon to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Monday is dark. The final entry is at 6:30 p.m.

One important consideration: the experience is not ADA compliant, something guests with mobility concerns should know before purchasing tickets.

For everyone who stared at the night sky as a child and wondered what it would feel like to leave Earth, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience offers an extraordinary approximation.

You won’t actually become an astronaut, but for 40 minutes on West 57th Street, Earth can become the place you’re looking home toward.

Every night in September, just before midnight, Times Square will abandon reality for three minutes.

For September’s Midnight Moment, artist duo LIZN’BOW transforms the district’s monumental digital screens into Niñalandia, a wildly saturated alternative universe where flying grandmothers, unicorn cows and islands made of money replace the considerably less charming anxieties of the present.

Titled El Mundo es Niña, the work rejects our cultural fascination with dystopia in favor of what the artists call a “pro-pocalyptic” future—a world built not around impending collapse, but radical joy, imagination and human connection.

Against a magenta sky, a neon-green island fashioned from money rises into view. Liz’s abuela sails overhead on a flying bicycle. A dancing unicorn cow races across the landscape on a jet ski as strange and wonderful creatures converge for what feels somewhere between a celebration, a dream and a wonderfully deranged Saturday-morning cartoon.

Beneath the exuberance is a more serious proposition.

LIZN’BOW have created an expanding fictional universe informed by queer and Latinx futurisms, personal memory, pop culture, humor and nostalgia. Here, fantasy isn’t an escape from reality so much as an opportunity to redesign it. That distinction gives El Mundo es Niña its bite.

We are continually presented with visions of the future dominated by climate catastrophe, technological upheaval, isolation and fear. LIZN’BOW ask a far more interesting question: What if imagining disaster isn’t the only way to take the future seriously?

Their answer is Niñalandia, where kinship, mutual care, resilience and play become acts of rebellion against despair.

Times Square may be the perfect place for it. The Crossroads of the World already exists somewhere between reality and fantasy, its enormous screens constantly selling us versions of who we might become, what we might desire and what tomorrow supposedly requires.

For three minutes each night, those screens will sell nothing. Instead, they become a portal. El Mundo es Niña will be presented throughout September as part of Midnight Moment, Times Square’s nightly digital art program, appearing across participating electronic billboards from 11:57 p.m. to midnight.

In a neighborhood built on spectacle, LIZN’BOW are offering something surprisingly subversive: the possibility that joy itself might be a vision of the future.

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.

“Dusting off the old robes. New York — see you all in February,” Grint announced on Instagram.

It took 25 years, eight films and one very famous redheaded wizard, but Rupert Grint is heading back to Hogwarts.

Grint, who first became Ron Weasley at just 11 years old, will reprise the role that made him famous in Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Now 38, Grint will play the adult Ron for a four-month engagement at the Lyric Theatre beginning February 2, 2027, through May 30.

There is something deliciously full-circle about the casting. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child begins 19 years after the events of the original Harry Potter story, finding Harry, Ron and Hermione firmly in adulthood. Ron and Hermione are married, have children of their own, and are now sending the next generation off to Hogwarts. Grint, too, has grown up, become a father and built a career beyond the franchise that first introduced him to the world.

“Ron Weasley has been a part of me since I was 11 years old and I can’t wait to meet him again in this stage of life,” Grint said in announcing his return. “There is something so full-circle and so special about stepping back into Ron’s shoes now when we are both fathers; it is somehow both very familiar and completely new.”

For Grint, Broadway itself won’t be new territory. He made his Broadway debut in 2014 in Terrence McNally’s star-packed comedy It’s Only a Play, opposite Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, F. Murray Abraham and Megan Mullally. His stage work also includes the West End productions of Mojo and For the Love of a Primary School.

Since hanging up Ron’s wand after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in 2011, Grint has deliberately moved into decidedly non-Hogwarts territory, with television work including Sick Note, Snatch and M. Night Shyamalan’s unsettling Apple TV+ series Servant. Yet he has never pretended Ron disappeared entirely. Speaking to the BBC last year about remaining associated with the character, Grint was refreshingly uncomplicated: “I’m fine with that. I think it’s great.”

He now becomes the first of the original film’s central trio—Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson—to reprise his Harry Potter role onstage.

There is another familiar Hogwarts face currently roaming the Lyric Theatre. Tom Felton, who originated Draco Malfoy onscreen, is presently playing the adult Draco in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Alas, anyone dreaming of a Ron-and-Draco reunion will need a Time-Turner: Felton’s engagement ends January 3, a month before Grint arrives.

Producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender noted that Grint isn’t simply revisiting his past but continuing a character’s journey with everything he himself has experienced since leaving Hogwarts behind.

And that’s what makes the casting irresistible. Audiences aren’t getting an actor impersonating the Ron Weasley they remember. They’re getting Ron Weasley himself, grown up alongside the actor who created him.

Twenty-five years ago, an 11-year-old Rupert Grint stepped aboard the Hogwarts Express. This February, he’s getting back on—only this time, Ron Weasley has grown up right alongside him.