If you're looking for the best things to do in NYC this weekend, August 22–23 is the one where late summer starts turning into the fall calendar. US Open Fan Week opens the gates in Flushing on Sunday for free, the Yankees host Toronto in a division series that actually matters, King Gizzard closes a three-night Forest Hills run that's one of only two things the band is doing in this country all year, and the Liberty are home at Barclays on Saturday night. Add a Saturday where the city hands two long boulevards over to pedestrians, and there's more happening within an hour of Nassau and Suffolk than most weekends in August.

Here's what's worth the trip in from the Island, and where the getting-there is going to be the hard part.

US Open Fan Week Opens in Flushing Meadows

Fan Week at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center kicks off Sunday, August 23 and runs through Saturday, August 29, with qualifying matches, open player practices, and Arthur Ashe Kids' Day leading things off. The Kids' Day stadium show starts at 11:00 a.m. inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, and grounds admission all week is free. Anyone 18 or over needs a free Fan Access Pass through the US Open app to get in, so set that up the night before rather than standing outside the gate figuring it out.

For Long Island families this is the single best value on the tennis calendar. You get inside the same grounds that will cost real money once the main draw starts on August 30, you can watch qualifiers up close on the field courts, and the kids can actually get near the players. The catch is the same one every Flushing event has: the parking lots at the Tennis Center fill early, they're shared with everything else happening in Corona Park, and the exit onto the Grand Central and the Van Wyck at the end of the day is slow in a way that undoes a good afternoon. A drop-off at the gate means you walk in fresh, and your driver is holding a pickup spot you agreed on before you ever left Syosset.

Yankees vs. Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium

Toronto is in the Bronx for a three-game set, with first pitch at 1:35 p.m. both Saturday, August 22 and Sunday, August 23. This is the start of a nine-games-in-ten-days homestand for the Yankees, and an AL East series in late August between these two clubs is the kind of baseball that fills the upper deck.

Both games are afternoon starts, which is good news for the ride home and bad news for the ride in. Saturday midday traffic on the Cross Island and the Whitestone builds well before a 1:35 first pitch, and the Major Deegan does what the Major Deegan does. Stadium-area garages price up on a weekend series and sell out, and the lot crawl afterward is its own small ordeal. For a family of four or five coming from Nassau, the car service math gets close to even once you count parking, and you skip the part where somebody has to stay sober and alert for the drive back down the Cross Bronx in August heat.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard at Forest Hills Stadium

Saturday, August 22 at 5:30 p.m., King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard close out a three-night stand at Forest Hills Stadium with an all-electronic rave set, with DāM-FunK opening. The band is only playing two things in the United States this year, their own festival in Colorado and these three nights in Queens, which is why people are flying in for it.

Forest Hills Stadium is genuinely close to Long Island, maybe the closest real NYC concert venue to the Nassau line, and that's exactly what makes it tricky. It sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood with almost no dedicated parking, permit-only streets for blocks around, and a hard curfew that dumps the entire crowd onto quiet side streets at the same moment. People circle Austin Street for forty-five minutes and miss the opener. A drop-off near the stadium takes that whole problem off the table, and for a late set with a rave crowd, having a known driver waiting is the right call rather than an hour of surge pricing on Queens Boulevard.

New York Liberty vs. Indiana Fever at Barclays Center

Saturday, August 22 at 7:00 p.m., the Liberty host the Fever at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. This is the marquee regular season matchup in the league right now, it's on national TV, and it's the game that's been circled on the Barclays calendar since the schedule came out.

Barclays is one of the more transit-friendly arenas in the city, and if you're going solo the LIRR to Atlantic Terminal is a fine plan. It stops being a fine plan when you're bringing three kids, or when you're doing dinner in Fort Greene first, or when the game runs long and you're standing on a platform at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Garage parking around Atlantic and Flatbush on a sold-out night is expensive and the exit is a knot. For a group or a family, one car door to door beats coordinating five people through two transfers.

NYC Summer Streets: Eastern Parkway and the Grand Concourse

Saturday, August 22 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the city closes Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn from Grand Army Plaza to Buffalo Avenue, and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx from East Tremont Avenue to Mosholu Parkway. Miles of boulevard with no cars on it, free, no ticket, just show up and walk or bike it.

The Eastern Parkway stretch is the better one for a day trip from the Island, because you start at Grand Army Plaza with the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanic Garden, and Prospect Park all right there. The obvious problem with a car-free event is that the neighborhoods on either end of it are exactly where you can't park on a Saturday, and half the cross streets are closed off for the route. Get dropped at Grand Army Plaza in the morning, walk as far east as the kids hold out, and have the car meet you wherever you actually end up instead of hiking back to where you started.

Friday Night Fireworks at Coney Island

If you're heading in tonight, Coney Island's Friday fireworks go off at 9:45 p.m. over the beach, visible from the boardwalk between West 10th and West 15th. It's free, it's about thirty minutes, and August 28 is the last one of the summer. The boardwalk fills up well before dark, so make it an early dinner at Nathan's or one of the Brighton Beach places and keep your spot.

Coney Island parking in late August is its own kind of punishment, and the drive back out on the Belt Parkway after the last firework, with the whole boardwalk leaving at once, takes longer than the fireworks did. This is a short, easy trip to hand off.

Getting There and Getting Home

Everything on this list has the same shape to it. The event is the easy part. The Van Wyck at noon on a Saturday, permit parking around Forest Hills, the Atlantic Avenue garage exit, the Belt after Coney Island: that's the part that decides whether the day was worth it. And this is also the weekend the US Open crowd starts arriving, which means JFK is running heavy and the Van Wyck and Grand Central are carrying more than usual on top of normal August volume.

We're a Long Island chauffeur service, not a rideshare app. Your driver is assigned ahead of time, knows the routes into Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and is watching the clock so the car is where it's supposed to be when you walk out. If you've got family flying in for the Open or the tail end of summer, we track the flights and handle the JFK pickup so nobody waits at the curb. For a full day in the city with a few stops in it, hourly service is usually the simpler answer than booking three separate rides.

One call or text and it's handled. You shouldn't have to think about the parking.

Whether it's Fan Week in Flushing, an afternoon in the Bronx, or a late night in Forest Hills, request a quote and we'll take the driving off your plate this weekend. See our NYC event transportation page for how we handle the big nights, or the Long Island overview for everything we cover across Nassau and Suffolk.

Best Things To Do in NYC This Weekend — August 22–23, 2026