What a weekend, New York. The Loisaida Festival owned Avenue C this afternoon for its 39th run, DanceAfrica’s Bazaar packed the BAM campus with 150-plus vendors of African textiles, food, and crafts, and the 6th Avenue Springfest stretched eight blocks of Midtown into one long street party. If you spent the weekend chasing the sound of salsa from East 12th Street down to East 5th, or balancing a paper plate of jollof rice on the steps outside the Howard Gilman Opera House, you did Memorial Day weekend right.
But the festival energy doesn’t stop just because Monday’s a holiday. The week ahead is loaded — three Manhattan street fairs, a borough-wide Memorial Day moment, and a Saturday-Sunday closer that turns Bay Ridge and Forest Hills into all-day block parties. Here’s what you missed, and what you absolutely cannot miss next.
The Weekend That Was: Quick Recap
Loisaida Festival, Lower East Side. The 39th annual edition ran from noon to 5 p.m. on Avenue C between East 5th and East 12th Street, themed “Our AmeRícan Thing” in tribute to the late poet Jesús “Tato” Laviera. Salsa in the street, an all-women’s marching band, folkloric dance on the main stage, and enough Puerto Rican food trucks to make six blocks feel like a single block party. As always, completely free.
DanceAfrica Bazaar, BAM Brooklyn. The bazaar wrapped its weekend run with more than 150 vendors of African and African-diaspora art, jewelry, textiles, and food across the BAM campus on Lafayette Avenue. The main-stage performances at the Howard Gilman Opera House continue Monday (May 25) at 3 p.m. — Uganda’s Ndere Troupe headlines this year’s program, returning to BAM for the first time since 2007.
6th Avenue Springfest, Midtown. Sixth Avenue from 34th to 42nd Street ran ten-to-six with vendors, food, and a stretch of crowd density that turned the avenue into a slow-moving river of people. Standard NYC street-fair fare done at the largest possible scale.
LES Festival of the Arts, East Village. The 31st annual edition wraps tonight at Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue), closing out three days of theater, music, dance, film, poetry, cabaret, and visual art. If you missed the weekend, the lobby art installations should still be up through the evening.
Don’t Miss: Memorial Day Community Fair on Broadway, Monday May 25
Tomorrow’s headline event runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Broadway from Liberty Street to Rector Street in Lower Manhattan/Tribeca. It’s the official Downtown Memorial Day moment — vendors, food, live music, the works — and it pairs naturally with whatever else you’ve got planned in the neighborhood: the Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade kicks off at 11 a.m. in Bay Ridge from 78th Street and Third Avenue (a quick R-train ride away), and the Intrepid Museum’s 10 a.m. Memorial Day ceremony at Pier 86 includes a Navy flyover. You can hit all three if you’re willing to move.
The Week Ahead: Mark Your Calendar
Thursday, May 28 — Financial Community Food Fair. Liberty Street between Broadway and Trinity Place, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A weekday lunch-and-after-work street fair built around food vendors. If you work in FiDi this is your easy excuse to skip the desk salad.
Friday, May 29 — DUMBO Drop & Street Fair, Brooklyn. A staple of the Brooklyn pre-summer calendar, the DUMBO Drop returns to the cobblestones under the Manhattan Bridge for a one-day takeover combining a street fair with the neighborhood’s signature aerial spectacle.
Saturday, May 30 — Times Square Springfest, Midtown. 7th Avenue from 47th to 57th Street, full street closure, the largest of next weekend’s street fairs by sheer footprint. Bring patience for crowds and a strategy for the bathroom situation.
The Weekend Ahead’s Two Biggest Plays
Bay Ridge’s 32nd Annual #FunOn5th Festival, Sunday May 31. This is one of the best block parties Brooklyn does — 5th Avenue closed from 69th to 85th Street, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., featuring amusement rides, artists and crafters, live music, and the full lineup of Bay Ridge’s restaurants and retailers pulled out onto the sidewalk. The festival draws more than 25,000 visitors a year and is run by the Bay Ridge 5th Avenue BID with sponsorship from New York-Presbyterian and the 68th Precinct Community Council. Free admission. Take the R to 77th or 86th Street.
Forest Hills Festival of the Arts, Sunday May 31, Queens. Austin Street from 69th Road to 72nd Road shuts down for a juried fine-art-and-crafts fair that pulls more than 10,000 shoppers. This one skews higher-end than the typical street fair — it’s vetted vendors selling actual original work — and the Forest Hills neighborhood itself is one of the most pleasant browsing environments in the borough. Take the E, F, M, or R to Forest Hills–71st Avenue.
Stonewall Veterans Fair, Sunday May 31, Greenwich Village. Broadway from Waverly Place to 14th Street, a community fair honoring Stonewall veterans on the cusp of Pride Month. The kind of NYC moment that connects the city’s queer history to the present in a way no parade quite manages.
How to Play It
If you’re picking one thing next weekend, make it Bay Ridge — the combination of amusement rides, 16 blocks of street, and the genuine neighborhood-block-party energy is hard to beat. If you want a quieter, more art-focused outing, Forest Hills is your move. And if you missed Loisaida this weekend, mark your calendar now for next year’s edition (always the Sunday before Memorial Day) — it’s one of the city’s most underrated free cultural festivals.
Either way, the takeaway is simple: New York’s spring festival season is officially in full swing. Pack water, wear walking shoes, and bring cash for the vendors who haven’t quite figured out the Square reader yet.
