NYC Virtual Activities: Online Art, Culture, and Events for Quarantined New Yorkers

With so many of New York’s beloved cultural institutions shuttered, and most live events canceled or postponed, many of us are feeling isolated and unstimulated. But culture is too important to take a backseat to a pandemic, especially in this city. Luckily, lots of your favorite museums, landmarks, and parks are offering free online tours. And there’s no shortage of performances to livestream, either. So let’s all try to make the best of a tough situation with these virtual NYC activities that let you enjoy the city’s best culture from home.

NYC Museums Offering Free Virtual Tours

Google Arts & Culture is a wonderful virtual portal that has partnered with hundreds of museums across the globe. Using it, you can virtually stroll Museum Mile, walking the halls of some of NYC’s best museums. City institutions offering free virtual tours here include:

• American Museum of Natural History
• Brooklyn Museum
• Cloisters Museum and Gardens
• Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Museum of Modern Art
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Whitney Museum of American Art

Other institutions offer free tours or access through their own websites:

• Frick Collection
• Museum of the City of New York
• New York Historical Society Museum & Library
• New York Landmarks Conservancy
• New York Public Library 

And if your taste in art runs more toward the streets than the museum, the internet has still got you covered. Go an a virtual tour of the city’s best street art, including works by Banksy and Keith Haring, with Google Arts & Culture’s “9 Amazing Street Art Murals in New York.”

Virtually Tour NYC Parks

Unfortunately, not all of NYC’s parks can remain open during the crisis. So it’s especially nice that you can tour some of NYC’s green spaces from the comfort of your quarantine, including:

• Central Park
• High Line
• Greenbelt
• Prospect Park
• Riverside Park

Stream NYC-Based Performances Online

Museums and parks aren’t the only NYC institutions that have been hit by coronavirus. Most live performances in the city have been canceled — or have taken place sans audience. The good news is that many of these performances have been made available online, either as a livestream or as downloadable content. The list of performance-based virtual NYC activities will surely grow, but here’s a few to get you started:

• 92^nd Street Y is livestreaming events without audiences.
• Actor’s Fund is streaming daily live “Stars In the House” performances on its YouTube channel, featuring some of Broadway’s biggest stars.
• BroadwayHD, a monthly subscription service, streams recent and classic stage productions.
• Metropolitan Opera is offering nightly livestreams. Check the calendar for what’s on tap.
• New York Philharmonic has debuted “NY Phil Plays On,” an online portal with free archived performances “to provide comfort and connection to classical music fans worldwide.”
• On the Boards is offering free streams of experimental stage performances through the end of April.

Music Livestreams to Check Out

And though these aren’t strictly for New York City, there are plenty of ways to check in with your favorite musicians — and some new ones — during our time of isolation.

• Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame is doing daily livestreams from his home studio.
• Billboard Live At-Home series will feature musicians like Josh Groban and JoJo via Facebook.
• Charli XCX has announced a “Self-Isolation IG Livestream,” featuring a different guest every day.
• Diplo is offering live DJ sets nightly via Instagram Live.
• DJ Nice‘s “quarantine dance parties” on Instagram Live have already become legendary. Celebrity cameos have so far included Jennifer Lopez, Dave Chapelle, Oprah, and even Michelle Obama.
• Neil Young will be livestreaming his Fireside Sessions.
• Shut In & Sing is a collection of livestreams from a circle of country and folk musicians.
• “Together, At Home,” a virtual concert series launched by the World Health Organization’s Global Citizen movement, will feature artists such as Chris Martin, John Legend, and Common.

[This post has been updated and republished.]

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