Posts Tagged ‘Dyker Heights’

Where to See the Holiday Sparkle in New York City

Bundle up for a stroll along the streets, inside the malls or at the parks to see New York City’s acclaimed holiday lights.

Manhattan

Holiday Windows and Sidewalks

Saks Fifth Avenue © Meryl Pearlstein

Take a walk down Fifth Avenue where you’ll see some of the department stores’ most elaborate holiday windows. Plan to spend some time in front of Saks Fifth Avenue where this year’s windows were inspired by drawings from children. The windows in front of Bergdorf-Goodman, as always, are a stylefest of imagery with adventure, fashion and fantasy themes, strikingly arranged in tones of black and white, red and white, and rainbow montages.

Bergdorf-Goodman © Meryl Pearlstein

Individual stores like American Girl and the Lego Store have their own window displays decked out with all kinds of merriment. And the exteriors of stores like Cartier twinkle with fully lit décor all wrapped up in red ribbon.

American Girl © Meryl Pearlstein

Additionally, park yourself in front of the glorious Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and watch the music-and-light spectacular that happens every 15 minutes on the façade of Saks Fifth Avenue. For about 3 minutes, the entire façade changes with lights and decorations with music that will entice and have you humming “So Happy Together” or Beethoven’s Ode to Joy over and over again.

courtesy Rockefeller Center

And this year, there’s a special bonus. A variety of stores have created magic displays right on the sidewalk in front of their establishments. There’s a Microsoft cube in front of the Microsoft store, a giant teddy bear in front of FAO Schwarz, gift packages in front of Cartier, Christmas ornaments across from Tiffany’s and much more. You’ll need to walk up and down both sides of Fifth Avenue to see them all.

Microsoft © Meryl Pearlstein

Hudson Yards

Shine Bright at Hudson Yards © Meryl Pearlstein

If you can tear yourself away from outside plaza at Hudson Yards or down from The Edge (which is also decked out with holiday lights and a garland), you should venture inside the Hudson Yards mall where Shine Bright at Hudson Yards, a twinkling, floor-to-ceiling display of more than two million lights illuminates The Shops, Public Square and Gardens, The Edge and The Vessel. Floating hot air balloons and Christmas trees add to the twinkling magic.

Brookfield Place

Luminaries courtesy Brookfield Place

The mall’s annual Luminaries tradition invites participation with an interactive installation in the Winter Garden. Each hour, you’ll enjoy a special light show featuring music by groups like The Bird and the Bee and Pentatonix. A canopy of colorful lights is formed from hundreds of lanterns suspended among the palms. Below, contactless wishing stations let you send a motion-activated wish to the lanterns prompting a magical display of lights and colors. And you’ll be doing a good deed, too. For each wish that you make, Brookfield Place will donate $1to an organization that’s near and dear to me, ROAR (Relief Opportunities for All Restaurants), which supports New York City restaurant employees facing economic challenges as a result of the pandemic. This year, a new experience called Maestro! allows you to conduct the canopy with a gesture-controlled instrument.

The Lights of Manhattan

courtesy Empire State Building

And here’s a little bonus. You can watch the changing colors of the Empire State Building and the lights of downtown NYC at home on their ESB Live Cam. Two cameras give you two always-changing views. I could watch these for hours.

Brooklyn

When it comes to decorating houses, New York City is “top of the heap.”

The Lights of Dyker Heights

The Lights of Dyker Heights © Meryl Pearlstein

It’s hard to imagine a Christmas without the over-the-top lights displays of the houses in Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. Started in 1986 by Lucy Spata as a give-back to brighten up the neighborhood, the decorated homes and yards have attracted busloads of tourists to the streets each year. Due to COVID, you may have an easier time viewing the inflatable Santa’s, motorized displays and thousands of candy canes and elves, as walking tours are replacing buses.

The Lights of Dyker Heights © Meryl Pearlstein

It’s an immediate way to lift your spirits as you marvel at the passion and creativity here. The main area is 83rd through 86th streets between 11th and 13th avenues. Plan for crowds as this is one of the most popular highlights of the Christmas season in New York City.

New York City has two lantern festivals that you’ll want to put on your holiday lights calendar.

Staten Island

Staten Island’s Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Gardens has an awesome display of more than 1000 winter lanterns, sculpted into figures of all sorts. It’s a party, too, with a live DJ, lots of food, interactive display amid the eight acres of luminaries. You’ll also come away with a holiday gift, your own personal wish lantern. Tickets are required.

Queens

courtesy Queens Country Farm Museum

For the first time, Queens Country Farm Museum is transformed into another lantern and figure wonderland with luminaries taking on shapes appropriate to the farm: flowers, farm animals and tractors. A festive atmosphere reigns throughout with music, food and lots of space to enjoy the lights. Tickets are required.

The Bronx

The Bronx outdoes itself each holiday season with lighting displays and characters that appeal to all ages.

NYBG Glow

NYBG Glow © Meryl Pearlstein

Each year the New York Botanical Garden schedules its beloved train show for the holidays with New York City vignettes and buildings created out of flora and fauna foraged from nature. Further brightening up the landscape, NYBG Glow shines bright into the night with its outdoor Glow color and light experience. The glowing world surrounds the Haupt Conservatory. As you explore, colors, dazzling lights and nighttime illuminations in the reflecting pool and area create a winter wonderland that might conjure up visions of Disney’s World of Color. Adding to the festivities are ice carving displays, roaming dancers and musicians. Expect a Hip Hop Nutcracker performance of the re-imagined Tchaikovsky classic as well. Timed-entry tickets are required for entry.

The Bronx Zoo Holiday Lights

The Bronx Zoo Holiday Lights @ Julie Larsen Maher

Around the corner, the Bronx Zoo doesn’t disappoint with their seasonal celebration of lights. Through January 10, you’ll see illuminated animals and flowers, ice sculptures, a decked-out Christmas tree and light-strung buildings as you wander along “a safari” path through Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and the Ocean. Costumed characters, stilt walkers and projections onto buildings add to the sparkle. A returning favorite, the Luminous Garden is filled with larger-than-life plants and animals.

Where to See the Best Holiday Decorations in NYC

It’s a different kind of year for holiday spectaculars, but New York City doesn’t slack when it comes to showing off the joy and sparkles of the season.

Holiday Windows

Saks Fifth Avenue Photo By: Meryl Pearlstein

While the department stores may be emptier than usual this year, they haven’t turned down the volume when it comes to creating a festive holiday showcase on their exteriors. Barneys is missing. Lord & Taylor is no longer. But there’s still plenty to see and love.

Bloomingdale's Photo By: Meryl Pearlstein

The holiday windows at Bloomingdale’s turn and sparkle with colors and glitter. Macy’s windows pay tribute to the many heroes of the year including our frontline workers.  The music and light show on the façade of Saks Fifth Avenue is a must-see, too, if you’re in the vicinity of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Support the stores, if you can, by shopping in person and acknowledging their good work for the year.

Hudson Yards

Hudson Yards

If you can tear yourself away from The Vessel or down from The Edge (which is also decked out with holiday lights and a garland), you should venture inside the Hudson Yards mall where Shine Bright at Hudson Yards is a brand-new twinkling, floor-to-ceiling display of more than two million lights. Floating hot air balloons and Christmas trees add to the twinkling magic. The display will be up through January 1.

Brookfield Place

Brookfield Place Luminaries

Through January 3, the mall’s annual Luminaries tradition invites participation with an interactive installation in the Winter Garden. Each hour, you’ll enjoy a special light show featuring music by groups like The Bird and the Bee and Pentatonix. A canopy of colorful lights is formed from hundreds of lanterns suspended among the palms. Below, contactless wishing stations let you send a motion-activated wish to the lanterns prompting a magical display of lights and colors. And you’ll be doing a good deed, too. For each wish that you make, Brookfield Place will donate $1to an organization that’s near and dear to me, ROAR (Relief Opportunities for All Restaurants), which supports New York City restaurant employees facing economic challenges as a result of the pandemic.

Lights from Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center - Photos by Sachyn Mital

While the theaters of Lincoln Center remain shuttered until 2021, the exteriors are still ablaze with lights. The gateway to Lincoln Center, Josie Robertson Plaza is illuminated in purple, red and pink tones. Adding further holiday merriment, lanterns float on the reflecting pool and lights adorn the trees in the back campus.

The Lights of Dyker Heights

Dyker Heights in Brooklyn Photo By: Meryl Pearlstein

It’s hard to imagine a Christmas without the over-the-top lights displays of the houses in Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. Started in 1986 by Lucy Spata as a give-back to brighten up the neighborhood, the decorated homes and yards have attracted busloads of tourists to the streets each year. Due to COVID, you may have an easier time viewing now, as walking tours are replacing buses and only private groups of 20 or less are allowed.

Dyker Heights in Brooklyn Photo By: Meryl Pearlstein

It’s an immediate way to uplift the spirits as you marvel at the passion and creativity here. Most displays stay up through January 1. The main area is 83rd through 86th streets between 11th and 13th avenues.

NYBG Glow

NYBG Glow - Photo Courtesy Of: NYBG

Each year the New York Botanical Garden schedules its beloved train show for the holidays with New York City vignettes and buildings created out of flora and fauna foraged from nature, but this year the show is limited to NYBG members and Bronx community partners. Don’t despair, though, NYBG has something else for celebrants in 2020. The  general public event shines bright into the night with a new outdoor Glow color and light experience. Through January 16 on weekend nights, you’ll see a glowing world around the Haupt Conservatory.  As you explore, colors, dazzling lights and nighttime illuminations in the reflecting pool and area create a winter wonderland that might conjure up visions of Disney’s World of Color. Adding to the festivities are ice carving displays, roaming dancers and musicians. Expect a Hip Hop Nutcracker performance of the re-imagined Tchaikovsky classic as well . Timed-entry tickets are required for entry.

The Bronx Zoo Holiday Lights

The Bronx Zoo Holiday Lights

Around the corner, the Bronx Zoo doesn’t disappoint with their seasonal celebration of lights. Through January 10, you’ll see illuminated animals and flowers, ice sculptures, a decked-out Christmas tree and light-strung buildings as you wander along “a safari” path through Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and the Ocean. Costumed characters, stilt walkers and projections onto buildings add to the sparkle. New this year, the Luminous Garden is filled with larger-than-life plants and animals.

LuminoCity Festival

LuminoCity Festival

Randall’s Island turns into a trippy light extravaganza again through January 10. Sculptures, mushrooms, characters, and towering light displays will keep the entire family entertained as you walk through the expansive LuminoCity Festival park area . Masks are required as you explore the imaginative adventures of Lumi, a character hailing from a universe created from a unicorn’s horn. Timed entry keeps the crowds moving through the narrative journey of love, loss and life.

The Lights of Manhattan

Empire State Building

And here’s a little bonus . You can watch the changing colors of the Empire State Building and the lights of downtown NYC on their ESB Live Cam. Two cameras give you two always-changing views. I could watch these for hours.

Where to See the Holiday Displays in NYC This Year

Of course the department stores rock when it comes to showing off the best displays of holiday (and commercial) cheer, but there’s also a fun way to see the light displays that take non-commercial venues almost as much time to put up.  Here’s how and where to see both:

Tony Muia’s Christmas Lights and Cannoli Tour

Tony Muia’s Christmas Lights and Cannoli Tour (yes…. Cannoli as well as lights!)

After you’ve exhausted Rockefeller Center and the displays listed below, this 3 1/2 hour holiday tour takes you to Dyker Heights, the Italian-American section of Brooklyn that acquires the nickname “Dyker Lights” every December. Here you’ll see over-the-top Christmas decorations that even a department store “dresser” couldn’t imagine. Think 15-foot-tall animated Santa’s, animatronic figures, life-sized Nativity Scenes and millions of lights. And the cannoli part? You can’t go to Brooklyn without a stop at an authentic neighborhood pastry shop for dessert and hot chocolate.

You’ll even be entertained on the bus with a multimedia presentation of vintage Christmas variety specials with Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and more.  Three or four busses leave nightly through December 31 (excluding December 24 and 25) from Union Square.  For more information, www.asliceofbrooklyn.com

And, the best when it comes to department store displays:

Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale’s – Catch this one soon, as it ends on New Year’s Day. Bloomie’s windows depict shopping around the globe, with music from each country along with recognizable icons.  1000 Third Avenue at 59th Street.

Barneys New York

Barneys New York – Certainly the wildest of the windows, with a behind-the-curtains video fairyland, light shows, live models, and an interactive window-video game set, Barneys in collaboration with Jay Z have outdone themselves.  Through January 3. 660 Madison Avenue at 61st Street.

Bergdorf Goodman

Bergdorf Goodman – Save this one for last as the breakdown date is January 6.  Bergdorf’s doesn’t disappoint with its always-glam windows, this year’s showing the holidays of the year, done up in icy and fashionable renditions.  754 Fifth Ave., btw 57th and 58th sts.

Henri Bendel

Henri Bendel – If you love illustrator Al Hirschfeld, you’ll love these windows on display through January 2.  All the classic celebs are there: look for Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Carol Channing among others. 712 Fifth Ave., btw 55th and 56th sts.

Lord & Taylor

Lord & Taylor – Ending the soonest of all of the displays, on December 29, Lord & Taylor remains true to its traditional holiday windows with scenes from vintage New York City.  424 Fifth Avenue, btw 38th and 39th sts.

Macy's

Macy’s – The story of a boy’s dreams on Christmas Eve, the windows also feature an interactive display where you create the movement in the background and break icicles.  151 W. 34th St., at Seventh Avenue. Ends January 2.

Saks Fith Avenue

Saks Fifth Avenue – Through January 2, enjoy the 3-D light show on the building as well as the story of the SFA Yeti, a fluffy white creature that creates holiday snow.  611 Fifth Ave., btw 51st and 52nd sts.

Holiday Activities from Trains to Dining — For the Whole Family

The New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show If your kids love trains or any type of transportation, this show is an absolute don’t-miss.  Model trains and trolleys travel along a landscape of scale models of more than 140 New York landmarks instantly recognizable to any NYC fan.  The kick is that these buildings are made of fruits, twigs, seeds and other materials.  You’ll see the Empire State Building, Yankee Stadium, Penn Station, among others, all in this twinkling wonderland. The New York Botanical Garden,  200th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard, The Bronx. 718-817-8700. NYBG.org/Holiday-Train-Show.  Through January 13.  Tickets online or at the park.
More on Holiday Activities from Trains to Dining — For the Whole Family

Halloween Happenings in Manhattan

No matter what the weather brings, the Halloween season leaves NYC with nothing short of an endless list of spooks and spectaculars.  Whether you’re looking for a taste of artistic and ghoulish creativity, a good old-fashioned scare, or another reason to dress up your pooch in a costume, you have lots and lots of choices.  Also, check out the Botanical Gardens and the Zoo for other special offerings.  Be sure to keep tabs on the parade to see whether Sandy has caused any delays or disruptions.
More on Halloween Happenings in Manhattan

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