This week, celebrations continue in honor of Black History Month and the Chinese Lunar New Year, a host of exciting new art exhibits are opening in museums across the city, and Untapped Cities is offering exciting behind-the-scenes tous! Check out our Untapped picks for what to do this week in New York City:

Friday, February 8th

Check out works of art and never-before-seen personal items and from Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibit Frida Kahlo: Appearance Can be Deceiving. The exhibit is the largest exhibition of Kahlo’s work to be held in the U.S. in ten years.

Saturday, February 9th

Ring in the year of the pig at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Lunar New Year Festival. The festival begins with a parade in the The Great Hall and features a full day of programming including performances by drummers from New York Korean Performing Arts Center and Chinese yo-yo tricks from the Valley Stream South High School Cultural Society, puppeteer photo-ops, art workshops and demonstrations, a zodiac center, tea ceremony and more. Certain activities have a limited number of tickets. The festival will run from 11:00AM until 5:00PM and is included with the price of museum admission.

Explore the abandoned Ellis Island hospital complex on a special behind-the-scenes hard hat tour. Gain access to the 29-building complex that has been off-limits for over sixty years after serving as a state of the art medical facility for the immigration center in the early 20th century, FBI offices and Coast Guard training facilities.

Discover the amazing works of art hidden in plain sight throughout the New York City subway system on Untapped Cities’ updated Underground Art in the Subway Tour. Spot the whimsical brass figures scattered throughout the 14th Street and 8th Avenue subway station, uncover a site specific installation that frames Union Square’s past, and more!

Behind-the-Scenes Tour of NYC Subway Art

Sunday, February 10th

Find out what remains of the original McKim, Mead and White designed Penn Station that served commuters from 1910 until the 1960s on Untapped Cities’ Remnants of Penn Station tour. See never-before-seen old station photos from the collections of three photographers who photo documented Penn’s life and demolition and go home with a framable, reproduction ticket of the first commuter ride into Pennsylvania Station from 1910!

Tour of the Remnants of Penn Station

Hop on Woodlawn Cemetery’s Black History Month Trolley tour, the first trolly tour of the year aboard the brand new, state of the art, heated Woodlawn Conservancy Trolley. The tour will celebrate the lives of many notables who helped shape our culture by visiting the gravesites of Madam C.J. Walker, W.C. Handy, Ralph Bunche, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Canada Lee, Rudolph Fisher and more.

Monday, February 11th

Explore the rich history and social impact of businesses owned by and serving black communities in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Black-Owned Businesses: A History of Enterprise and Community in Brooklyn. This conversation will feature historian Jason Bartlett, Cynthia Gordy Giwa and Glenn Alan of the online publication Black-Owned Brooklyn and Jyll Hubbard-Salk, founder of Crown Heights yoga studio Urban Asanas. Panelists will discuss the challenges and triumphs of the network of black business owners then and now, and how growing economic empowerment has tied directly to the struggle for equality. If you are an Untapped Cities Insider, you can attend this event for free!
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See which breed will win best in show at the 143rd Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. The competition features 204 different breeds and varieties of dogs who will be judged based on criteria such as general appearance, movement, temperament, and specific physical traits like height and weight, coat, colors, eye color and ear shape. You can also buy tickets for the 4th Masters Obedience Championship at Westminster at Pier 94 where dogs and handlers will compete in traditional and freestyle exercises.

Tuesday, February 12th

Learn about the lavish lifestyle of Jazz Age celebrity Peggy Hopkins Joyce at Landmark West!’s lecture Gold Digger: The Outrageous Life and Times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce with author Constance Rosenblum. Rosenblum will regale guests with tales about Joyce’s life as a Ziegfeld Girl and occasional stage and film actress and the scandalous stories of her many lovers. If you are an Untapped Cities Insider, you can attend this event for free!

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Make your voice heard at a public meeting on the future of the Flatiron Public Plazas. The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership, wants the public’s input on a permanent design proposal that includes enhanced public spaces and pedestrian connections around the area. The meeting, which is free and open for anyone to attend, will be held at 6:00PM in the 6th floor showroom of 202 Fifth Avenue. Tuesday, February 12th

Wednesday, February 13th

Photograph Courtesy of FXCollaborative

Enjoy drinks, conversation, and an exclusive look at recent and upcoming projects from the renowned architecture firm FXCollabortive on a special behind-the-scenes tour with Untapped Cities Insiders. Presented with our partners at 6sqft, join FXCollaborative Partner Nicholas Garrison, along with Gustavo Rodriguez, Principal, and Angie Lee, Principal—Design Director, Interiors, as they share some of their current projects, such as the new Statue of Liberty Museum and many other innovative projects. You can join this exclusive tour for free if you are an Untapped Cities Insider!

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Check out the New Museum’s latest exhibit, We the People, the first museum survey in New York of the work of Jamaican-born artist and Harlem resident Nari Ward. The exhibit will feature over thirty sculptures, paintings, videos, and large-scale installations from throughout Ward’s career. It is easy to see the material and thematic importance Harlem has played in his work, as many of the pieces were created using found material scavenged from the neighborhood’s buildings and streets. The pieces explore current local and national political and social topics such as Harlem’s gentrification and the increasingly fractured state of democracy in the United States.

Put your knowledge of New York City to the test with The Museum of the City of New York and Gotham Center’s Ultimate NYC Trivia Night! attend this event for free! Trivia tickets include admission to the Museum so you can study up in the exhibitions before the competition begins. Prizes will be awarded to top teams! If you are an Untapped Cities Insider, you can attend this event for free!

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Thursday, February 14th

Watch six-time Grammy Award winner Arturo O’Farrill play a concert with Friends and Foes as part of his Radical Acts & Musical Deviancy residency at the Greene Space. The concert will also feature multi-Grammy Award winner, saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, choreographer Ron K. Brown, tap dancer extraordinaire Ayodele Casel, trumpet player Steve Bernstein, saxophonist Roy Nathanson and trumpet player Seneca Black.