The best things to do in NYC this week: The Orchid Show opens at NYBG, love letters bloom in SoHo, First Saturdays kicks off Black History Month, and Big Game watch parties fill Brooklyn.
February settles into the week with quieter confidence. Winter still holds the city, but creativity and gathering break through in small, deliberate ways. Gallery doors open for new exhibitions. Orchestras cross genres. Football fans claim familiar barstools for one of the year’s most-watched games.
Between the cold and the crowds, New York reveals what is worth paying attention to now.
Here is what deserves your time this week.
Table of Contents Show
Featured Event: The Orchid Show Opens at New York Botanical Garden
The Orchid Show: Mr. Flower Fantastic’s Concrete Jungle
📍 Location: New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard — Bronx | Date: February 7 through April 26, 2026
Inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, thousands of orchids meet the visual language of the city. Stoop railings, slice shops, and subway references are reimagined in bloom, turning familiar urban symbols into something lush and unexpected.
The effect is playful without being precious. Colorful, immersive, and visually striking, the show invites lingering rather than rushing. Beyond the photographs, it offers something rarer in February: warm air, scented quiet, a reminder that beauty still unfolds even in the depths of winter.
The exhibition runs through late April, but early February carries its own appeal. The contrast between the Bronx’s winter streets and the Conservatory’s saturated interior feels especially pronounced, making the experience feel almost transportive.
Details: The Orchid Show: Mr. Flower Fantastic’s Concrete Jungle
What’s Worth Your Time This Week
Arlo’s Living Room Gallery: Paul Kuntze Opening Reception
📍 Location: Arlo Midtown, 351 W 38th Street — Midtown West, Manhattan | Date: February 6, 2026 | Time: 6 PM – 8 PM
Celestial paintings by Paul Kuntze anchor this edition of the Arlo Living Room Gallery Series. The evening brings together a panel discussion with Square One Gallery, live violin music, and a setting that makes contemporary art feel open rather than imposing.
Curated by Jasmine Arakel, the series continues to reframe hotel lobbies as cultural spaces. A reminder that engaging with art in New York does not always require museum steps or hushed rooms. With a full-service cocktail bar at the Bar Room at Altair, the experience encourages unrushed conversations about form, mood, and interpretation.
Details: Arlo’s Living Room Gallery: Paul Kuntze Opening Reception | RSVP: Eventbrite
First Saturday: Imitate No One
📍 Location: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway — Prospect Heights, Brooklyn | Date: February 7, 2026 | Time: 5 PM – 10 PM | Free admission
After a brief winter pause, First Saturdays return with a Black History Month edition centered on reinvention, legacy, and collective expression. Titled Imitate No One, the evening honors artists who reshape tradition while building community.
The program includes a tribute to poet Jayne Cortez, featuring a performance by her band, The Firespitters, alongside readings from contemporary poets in conversation with her work.
The night unfolds throughout the museum: live music, curator-led tours, film screenings, hands-on art making, pop-up talks, and a local marketplace. Free and expansive, First Saturdays remain one of the city’s most consistent expressions of Brooklyn’s creative life, open, layered, and communal by design.
Details: First Saturday: Imitate No One
GLOBAL MASHUP: Swing Meets Mambo at Flushing Town Hall
📍 Location: Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Boulevard — Flushing, Queens | Date: February 7, 2026 | Time: 7 PM
For one evening, the George Gee Swing Orchestra and the Arturo O’Farrill Afro-Latin Octet share a stage. It Is a first-time collaboration that brings two traditions into conversation rather than competition.
The night opens with ballroom dance instruction led by Vanda Polokova, welcoming newcomers and seasoned dancers alike. Short sets from each ensemble follow, before the music fully intertwines. Swing meets mambo. Brass answers brass. The result feels less like a novelty pairing and more like a natural evolution.
What emerges is jazz as a living practice, social, physical, and meant to be experienced in motion rather than observed from a distance. Music that invites participation, whether you step onto the dance floor or let the rhythm carry the room.
Details: GLOBAL MASHUP: The George Gee Swing Orchestra Meets the Arturo O’Farrill Afro-Latin Octet
Love Letter Gallery
📍 Location: HOST on Howard, 21 Howard Street — SoHo, Manhattan | Date: February 7, 2026
For the second year, POPUPFLORIST returns with its citywide Love Letter Gallery, a Valentine’s-season project that invites New Yorkers to write notes to a person, place, memory, or the city itself. Red mailboxes appear across local businesses, quietly folding romance into everyday routines.
Thirty selected letters, chosen by founder Kelsie Hayes and her team, are transformed into a one-day exhibition. Each message is paired with a custom floral installation, creating a space meant for reading, wandering, and sitting with other people’s words.
Open to the public and free to enter, the gallery offers a softer take on Valentine’s Day. Romantic without exclusivity. Creative without affectation. Public without performance. A reminder that intimacy can be communal.
Details: Love Letter Gallery | Tickets: Eventbrite
Ice Curling at Bryant Park
📍 Location: Bryant Park, 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue — Midtown West, Manhattan | Date: February 6–27, 2026 | Time: 11 AM – 7 PM daily
As part of Bank of America Winter Village, iceless curling lanes appear just east of the skating rink, inviting visitors to try the sport without the intimidation factor. Stones slide across the surface toward the bullseye, brooms in hand, confidence optional.
Curling looks effortless on television. It is not. That Is part of the appeal. The learning curve is immediate, the competition friendly, and the payoff comes quickly once you stop overthinking it.
All skill levels are welcome. Precision encouraged, not required.
Details: Ice Curling at Bryant Park
The Big Game Weekend
Whether you follow every play or mostly care about the commercials and the food, New York gives The Big Game its own kind of gravity. Bars fill early, seats become territory, and the city settles into a shared, screen-lit focus for the evening.
Big Game at Threes Brewing
📍Location: Threes Brewing, 333 Douglass Street — Gowanus, Brooklyn | 🌐 Website: Threes Brewing | Date: February 8, 2026 | Time: 6 PM – 10 PM
Threes Brewing takes a straightforward approach. Big screens. A packed, energetic room. Drinks flowing without fuss. It is the kind of place where you arrive before kickoff and do not feel the urge to leave before the final whistle.
An unlimited drinks package covers beer, cider, and non-alcoholic options, making it easy to settle in and stay present for the game rather than repeatedly fighting your way back to the bar.
Tickets: Eventbrite
Big Bowl LX Celebration at Time Out Market
📍 Location: Time Out Market, 55 Water Street — Dumbo, Brooklyn | 🌐 Website: Time Out Market New York | Date: February 8, 2026 | Time: 3 PM – 11 PM
For those who want to make a day of it, Time Out Market turns The Big Game into an extended, come-and-go affair. Screens stay on from afternoon through the final play, DJs rotate through the day, and the market’s food stalls keep the crowd well-fed without committing anyone to a single seat or menu.
Bark Barbecue, Pastrami Factory, and Wayla anchor the food lineup, while drinks range from straightforward beer buckets to whiskey-forward pours. A rolling raffle adds a layer of casual anticipation, but the real appeal is flexibility: arrive early, stay late, drift between bites, plays, and conversations as the game unfolds.
Tickets: Eventbrite
Tokyo Record Bar x Noko Collab
📍 Location: Tokyo Record Bar, 127 Macdougal Street — Greenwich Village, Manhattan | 🌐 Website: Tokyo Record Bar | Date: February 9 & 10, 2026 | Time: 6 PM & 8:30 PM | Price Per Person: $120 per person
For two nights, Tokyo Record Bar opens its Vinyl Jukebox to a chef-driven collaboration that favors craft over theatrics. Executive Chef Ignacia Valdés teams up with Dung “Junior” Vo of Nashville’s Noko and Kase x Noko on an eight-course tasting that moves fluidly between Japanese technique and Southern-inflected flavor.
Bluefin tuna nigiri, hamachi prepared two ways, smoked beef belly with Noko barbecue sauce, and shrimp gyoza with head juice sabayon anchor the menu, each course paced to match the room’s intimate rhythm. Cocktails from both teams round out the evening, served alongside vinyl selections that frame the experience without overpowering it.
This is less about novelty and more about conversation, between kitchens, cuisines, and the people gathered around the counter.
Reservations: OpenTable
Also Worth Noting
Three citywide programs continue quietly through February 12, offering easy ways to fill the week without overplanning.
NYC Restaurant Week runs through February 12, offering two-and three-course menus at set price tiers [$30, $45, and $60] across hundreds of restaurants. It Is a practical way to revisit favorites or try somewhere new without committing to a full prix-fixe night.
Explore Options: NYC Restaurant Week
NYC Broadway Week also continues through February 12, with 2-for-1 tickets to a wide range of Broadway productions, including several long-running and award-winning shows.
Tickets: NYC Broadway Week
NYC Must-See Week offers 2-for-1 access to museums, attractions, tours, and performing arts venues across the city through February 12. Ideal for filling daytime gaps or building a quieter itinerary around the main event.
Book Now: NYC Must-See Week
On the Horizon
The coming week carries several overlapping currents: Valentine’s Day unfolding across the city, Black History Month programming continuing to deepen and expand, and Lunar New Year approaching on February 17. Together, they shape February into something layered. Romantic in places, reflective in others, and quietly celebratory throughout.
There is no single way to move through it. Some days invite gathering. Others ask for distance, observation, or rest. New York holds space for all of it, often at the same time.
For now, layer up. Step outside. Pay attention to where the city feels generous, familiar, or unexpectedly calm. There is always more happening, but this week, it is enough to notice what is already in front of you.
