Exploring Hunter Island in Pelham Bay Park
What’s there to do in the Bronx you ask? Here’s a general guide containing lots of indoor and outdoor activities to keep you and your family entertained throughout the year.
Additional Guides:
Sports, Dance, & Arts Program Guide
Animals & Nature
Bronx Equestrian Center
9 Shore Rd, Pelham Bay Park
A full service equestrian facility offering Western and English riding haywagons, wedding carriages, ponies for hire. The center offers $5 pony rides daily, just stop by.
Bronx Zoo
2300 Southern Boulevard
Open year round, the Bronx zoo is made up of 265 acres of wildlife habitats and attractions. Wednesdays are free with a suggested donation.
Loving the Bronx
This organization started out as a small block beautification project and grew into a new culture! Loving the Bronx plugs the youth into volunteer work and teach and involve them to take care of the Bronx while developing social skills and learning job skills! Loving the Bronx hosts many outdoor volunteer opportunities throughout the year where families can help clean up parks, waterways, and more.
www.facebook.com/lovingthebronx
New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd.
The New York Botanical Garden is an iconic living museum and, since its founding in 1891, has served as an oasis in this busy metropolis. As a National Historic Landmark, this 250-acre site’s verdant landscape supports over one million living plants in extensive collections. The garden hosts events throughout the year and has a children’s garden, family garden, and more.
NYC Parks
Multiple Locations
To find your nearest park, or to learn about upcoming events and activities at your local park, visit www.nycgovparks.org
Riverdale Equestrian Center
6394 Broadway
Located in the heart of Van Cortlandt Park, “Where New York City Learns To Ride!” Riverdale offers academy lessons seven days a week. Riverdale also offers boarding and training of private horses, Summer and Winter Camps and lessons galore!
Wave Hill
West 249th Street and Independence Avenue
A 28-acre public garden and cultural center overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades, Wave Hill’s mission is to celebrate the artistry and legacy of its gardens and landscape, to preserve its magnificent views, and to explore human connections to the natural world through programs in horticulture, education and the arts. Wave Hill hosts family art projects every Saturday and Sunday.
Art & Photography
Bronx Documentary Center
614 Courtlandt Avenue
The BDC uses community-based documentary practice and education to explore vital issues, stimulate critical thought, and drive social change.
Bronx River Art Center
1087 E. Tremont Ave.
Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is a culturally diverse, multi-arts, non-profit organization that provides a forum for community, artists, and youth to transform creativity into vision. BRAC holds classes for children, teens, and adults.
Confetti Paints
3190 Westchester Ave
Confetti Paints is a local party room that also hosts various paint parties each month for both children and adults.
ICP at the Point
940 Garrison Avenue
A collaborative program with the International Center of Photography, ICP at THE POINT teaches youth students the fundamentals of black-and-white photography. Students have access to THE POINT’s onsite black-and-white darkroom and Vantage Point Gallery.
Books
Boogie Down Books
A bookstore-without-walls for kids, teens, families, and educators in the Bronx and beyond. Currently hosts pop up at the South Bronx Farmers Market and weekly storytime at Mottley Kitchen in Mott Haven. For more information, visit www.boogiedownbooks.com.
Bronx Bound Books
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/BronxBoundBooks.
The Lit Bar
131 Alexander Avenue (between 134th Street & Bruckner Boulevard)
A bookstore and wine bar offering a carefully curated selection of general books, gift items, and programming for the Bronx community. For more information, visit www.thelitbar.com.
New York Public Library
Various Locations
The mission of The New York Public Library is to inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities. Each branch hosts events and programs at their locations. To find your nearest branch and to see upcoming events, visit www.nypl.org
Fitness Centers and Clubs
Bronx YMCA
2 Castle Hill Avenue
The only YMCA in New York City to boast an outdoor swimming pool, the Bronx YMCA offers programs for the whole family including swimming, sports, and the arts.
Bronx House
990 Pelham Parkway South
Bronx House is a community center offering fitness and wellness, personal training, swimming, summer camp, dance, music, sports, early childhood education, and more.
Turtle Cove Golf Center
1 City Island Road, Pelham Bay Park
Turtle Cove Golf center is home of a golf practice range, featuring private full-swing practice stations, short game area, PGA instruction, golf fitness programs, miniature golf, batting cages, event space and sports camps.
Zerega Handball Courts
2365 Newbold Ave
An indoor handball court where locals and professionals go to play handball, racquetball, and paddleball.
www.facebook.com/pages/Zerega-Indoor-Handball-Courts
Fun on the Water
Bronx River Alliance
The Bronx River
The mission of the Bronx River Alliance is to serve as a coordinated voice for the river and work in harmonious partnership to protect, improve and restore the Bronx River corridor and greenway so that they can be healthy ecological, recreational, educational and economic resources for the communities through which the river flows. From May – October, the Recreation Program offers a full calendar of public canoe tours along all eight miles of the Bronx River within the Bronx. Private tours for groups and individuals are available as well. The Alliance offers these trips as a public service to raise awareness of the river, showcase its wonders, and have fun.
Rocking the Boat
Hunts Point Riverside Park
Lafayette Ave. and Edgewater Road
Rocking the Boat empowers young people from the South Bronx to develop the self-confidence to set ambitious goals and gain the skills necessary to achieve them. Students work together to build wooden boats, learn to row and sail, and restore local urban waterways, revitalizing their community while creating better lives for themselves. Every Saturday afternoon from May through September, Rocking the Boat brings its boats down to the Bronx River waterfront at Hunts Point Riverside Park to offer free rowing to the public.
Museums & Bronx History
Bartow Pell Mansion Museum
895 Shore Rd, Pelham Bay Park
Built between 1836 and 1842, the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum exemplifies a type of country living that existed in the Pelham Bay Park area in the early 19th Century. Officially open as a museum since 1946, Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum’s mansion, gardens and landscape offer visitors a source of serenity in the urban landscape. Many city children and their teachers participate in education programs and connect to the history of the site. Mansion tours, public programs and classes allow children and adults to expand their horizons in an exceptional setting.
www.bartowpellmansionmuseum.org
Bronx Children’s Museum
Slated to open 2017
To give the children of the Bronx a fun portal to playful learning, the Museum will open the KIDS’ POWERHOUSE DISCOVERY CENTER in 2017. At KIDS’ POWERHOUSE DISCOVERY CENTER, children and families will interact with, learn from and create with local artists; participate in developing new exhibits; and get to showcase their work on-site and online. Until then, the museum’s mobile unit- Museum on the Go bus, travels throughout the Bronx and makes visits to many events throughout the year.
Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is a contemporary art museum that connects diverse audiences to the urban experience through its permanent collection, special exhibitions, and education programs. Reflecting the borough’s dynamic communities, the Museum is the crossroad where artists, local residents, national and international visitors meet. The museum also hosts free monthly family events.
City Island Nautical Museum
190 Fordham Street, City Island
City Island, a small island with a rich nautical history. Much of its colorful past is preserved in the Museum, which is open to the public every Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. and by special appointment.
Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection at Hebrew Home at Riverdale
5901 Palisade Avenue
As a member of the American Alliance of Museums, the Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection is committed to publicly exhibiting its art collection throughout its 32-acre campus, including a sculpture garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. The Art Collection is comprised of 4,500 modern paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and prints, and decorative and historic artifacts representing world cultures. Work is on view by such artists as Herbert Ferber, Louise Nevelson, Andy Warhol, Diego Rivera, Oscar Rabin and Ben Shahn. As a repository of Jewish ritual objects, Derfner Judaica Museum serves as an educational resource about Jewish art, culture and lifestyle practices through permanent and changing exhibitions. The founding gift to the Museum was made by Leuba and Ralph Baum, European emigres, who amassed a collection of more than 800 Jewish ceremonial objects. The Museum offers public programming that is free and open to the public, including artist talks, art lectures, tours for senior and special needs groups.
Maritime Industry Museum
6 Pennyfield Avenue
The Fort Schuyler Museum is housed on the campus of the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College at historic Fort Schuyler, The Bronx, New York. Four sides of the fort’s irregular pentagon-shaped edifice face Long Island Sound and its juncture with the East River, and housed the heavy guns which formed the fort’s original armament to protect this strategic water way. One of these sides has since been converted to a library. Two other sides, partially used as classrooms, are principally dedicated to the museum. Visitors to the museum enter through fort’s sally port, cross St. Mary’s pentagon, and enter the center bastion. The museum’s visiting hours are Monday through Saturday 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Admission and parking are free. For additional details and specific information on group tours including Saturdays and Sundays, call (718)409-7218.
www.maritimeindustrymuseum.org
Poe Cottage
2640 Grand Concourse at East Kingsbridge Road
A small wooden farmhouse built about 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island. It was a bucolic setting in which the great writer penned many of his most enduring poetical works, including “Annabel Lee,” “The Bells” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” Tours are available as well as events hosted throughout the year.
www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org
Valentine-Varian House
3266 Bainbridge Ave
In 1965, the 1758 Valentine-Varian House was donated to The Bronx County Historical Society to be used as a museum. After restoration, the house was opened in 1968 as the Museum of Bronx History. Visitors today can touch the fieldstones Isaac Valentine used to construct the house and walk on the oak and pine floorboards he fashioned. The main level contains three galleries that feature a rich rotation of exhibitions as well as a museum gift store. Open Saturday 10AM-4PM | Sunday 1PM-5PM
www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org
Woodlawn Cemetary
Webster Avenue and East 233rd street
The Woodlawn Conservancy is dedicated to enhancing The Woodlawn Cemetery as a historic, natural and cultural landmark; to creating a superior visitor experience to the Cemetery; and to building a community of supporters dedicated to preserving Woodlawn for the enjoyment of present and future generations.The organization brings to life art and history in an extraordinary outdoor setting. Woodlawn is a “must visit” for all who are eager to learn more about prominent industrialists, music legends, renowned entertainers, and cultural icons. Working with leading scholars of architecture, horticulture, history, music, and more, the Woodlawn Conservancy offers educational and cultural programs including tours, concerts, lectures, and research opportunities.
Music & Theater
BAAD! The Arts Academy of Arts and Dance
2474 Westchester Avenue
Co-founded in 1998 in the historic Banknote Building in Hunts Point by the celebrated and award-winning dancer/choreographer Arthur Aviles and writer/activist/publicist Charles Rice-Gonzalez, BAAD! (The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance ) began as a home for Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, a contemporary dance company that explores works on the margins of Latino and queer cultures. BAAD! has bloomed into a nationally-recognized arts organization firmly situated as a stakeholder in the Bronx that brings a queer perspective to the socio-political/cultural dialogue of our borough and city. BAAD!’s arts programming gives voice to artists from underrepresented demographics and aids in dismantling paradigms of social injustices including sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Bronx and beyond.
Hostos Art Center
450 Grand Concourse
Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture is a performing arts and visual arts center located within Hostos Community College.
Lehman School of Performing Arts
250 Bedford Park Blvd
Venerable, 2,310-seat venue with programs, concerts & other events by well-known & emerging artists
Play Spaces
Billy Beez at the Mall at Bay Plaza
200 Baychester Ave, 3rd floor
Indoor play park for children located inside the Mall at Bay Plaza.
Chuck E Cheese
Two locations: Bronx Terminal Market, 1816 E Gun Hill Rd
Kid-friendly chain known for its arcade games, pizza parties, play zones & mouse mascot.
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Fun stuff. This is a great list of things to do in the BX.
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What’s actually open, in 2021?
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Hi Ran, many of the above places are operating in some capacity. I recommend going to their websites to see the latest updates. Thanks!
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Hi, I’m interested in learning more.