This is Mother's Day weekend, which changes the math on every reservation, every garden, and every brunch spot in the five boroughs. Sunday May 10 is one of the busiest restaurant days of the year in NYC, and the city programs around it. The New York Botanical Garden runs a full weekend celebration. The Japan Parade rolls through the Upper West Side Saturday. There's a lantern festival in Queens. NYCFC is at Yankee Stadium Sunday. And the Met opens a major new Costume Art exhibition the same day.

If you're coming from Nassau or Suffolk, here's what's worth the trip and what the parking and traffic actually look like at each one.

Mother's Day at the New York Botanical Garden

Saturday, May 9 and Sunday, May 10 | 12:00 PM–5:00 PM | 2900 Southern Boulevard, the Bronx

The New York Botanical Garden's Mother's Day Weekend Celebration is one of the better Mother's Day plans in the city if you want something outdoors that isn't a restaurant. Both days run from noon to 5pm: lawn games, food trucks, live music, face painting, collage stations, and a craft tent where kids can make something for Mom. Admission to the Garden gets you the whole thing. If the weather holds — early May in the Bronx is usually mild — you're walking 250 acres of one of the most impressive botanical collections in the country.

This is a real alternative to the brunch arms race. Reservations at any decent Mother's Day brunch in Manhattan booked up weeks ago. The Garden didn't.

Getting there from Long Island: The NYBG is in the central Bronx near Fordham. From Nassau, you're routing the Throgs Neck or Whitestone Bridge and across the Cross Bronx — which on a Sunday afternoon is bearable. Garden parking exists but fills early on a weekend like this one. A car service drops you at the entrance gate, picks you up when you're ready, and skips the parking situation entirely. For a multi-generation family trip — kids, mom, grandmother — the door-to-door logistics matter.

Japan Parade and Street Fair

Saturday, May 9 | 1:00 PM | Central Park West, 81st to 67th Street, Upper West Side

The Japan Parade has become one of the better cultural street events in Manhattan since it launched a few years ago. It steps off at 1pm Saturday on Central Park West, and the street fair runs along the route through the afternoon. You get traditional dance and music groups, taiko drummers, anime cosplay sections, food vendors, and the kind of community energy that's hard to find at most big-city parades. The crowd is real fans, not tourists shuffling through. It tends to draw families and a noticeably engaged audience.

The parade ends near the American Museum of Natural History, which is a sensible Saturday afternoon stop afterward — particularly with kids.

Driving the Upper West Side Saturday afternoon: Central Park West is closed during the parade itself, and the cross streets in the 70s and 80s back up before and after. If you're driving in for the parade, plan to be parked or dropped before 12:30. After the parade, the area is gridlocked for at least an hour. A car service drop at 65th and Central Park West, then pickup near the Museum or anywhere along Columbus Avenue once the route reopens, is the cleanest way to handle it without circling for parking that doesn't exist.

Queens Water Lantern Festival at Flushing Meadows

Saturday, May 9 | 5:00 PM–9:00 PM | Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens

The Water Lantern Festival is exactly what it sounds like: at sunset, hundreds of LED lanterns are released onto the water at Flushing Meadows. There are food trucks, live music, and family activities through the afternoon, but the lantern release itself is what people come for. It's visually striking and the kind of thing that makes a phone camera roll worth scrolling later.

Tickets are required and the festival sells out — if you don't have one yet, check before driving in.

Flushing Meadows from Long Island: The park is right off the Grand Central Parkway near Citi Field, which makes it one of the easier Queens destinations from Nassau. Parking inside the park is limited and gets full early for a sold-out event like this. Stadium-area parking lots are available but the walk after dark with kids is not nothing. A car service drop directly at the festival gate around sunset, with a pre-arranged pickup window after the lanterns are released, removes the parking calculation.

NYCFC vs. Columbus Crew at Yankee Stadium

Sunday, May 10 | 4:30 PM | Yankee Stadium, 1 East 161st Street, the Bronx

NYCFC home matches at Yankee Stadium have a different energy than baseball. The supporters' sections sing for ninety minutes straight, the field is configured for soccer, and the atmosphere — particularly for a quality opponent — is a legitimately good Sunday afternoon. Columbus Crew is one of the stronger teams in the East and the matchup matters in MLS standings. This is not a casual matchup.

For Long Island families with soccer-playing kids, this is the closest you get to a real European-style match without flying anywhere.

Yankee Stadium logistics from Long Island: Same routing as a Yankees game — Throgs Neck or Whitestone, then the Major Deegan or local Bronx streets. On-site parking runs $40+ and the post-match exit is exactly as slow as it is for baseball. With a 4:30 kickoff and a 6:30-ish finish, you're driving home into Sunday evening LIE traffic. A car service handles the routing, drops you at the stadium gate, and meets you when the final whistle blows. For our Long Island car service clients heading to the Bronx, we coordinate the pickup so you're not standing on River Avenue trying to get a phone signal.

The Met — Costume Art Opens Sunday

Sunday, May 10 (opens to public) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue

The Met's Costume Art exhibition opens to the public Sunday, the day after the Met Gala. This is the exhibition the Gala itself is built around, and Sunday is the first chance the public has to see it. There will be a line. It's worth being there.

If the new exhibition isn't your priority, the Met on a Sunday afternoon is one of the best things to do in the city anyway. The European Paintings galleries, the Egyptian Wing, the American collection — any one of them justifies the trip. Mother's Day at the Met is also a quietly good plan: it's the rare big NYC destination that absorbs a holiday crowd well because the building is enormous.

Upper East Side parking on Mother's Day Sunday: Worse than usual. Fifth Avenue is busy with brunch traffic, the Met itself is busier than a normal Sunday, and the cross streets in the 80s are tight. Drop-off at the Met's Fifth Avenue entrance puts you exactly where the steps are. Pickup works on your schedule rather than a meter.

Mother's Day Brunch — A Note

Sunday, May 10 | All day | Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx

Reservations at the city's better Mother's Day brunch spots booked up in April. If you didn't lock something in, the realistic options now are hotel brunches (the Marriott Marquis still had availability mid-week, and rooftop spots like Vue180 take walk-ins for late seatings), neighborhood Italian places that don't take Mother's Day reservations as seriously, or skipping the brunch entirely and doing dinner somewhere you'll actually enjoy.

The transportation note for any Mother's Day brunch in Manhattan: parking near restaurants is the worst it is all year on this Sunday. If brunch is at 11am in the Village or on the Upper East Side, getting there by 10:50 with a parking spot already located is unrealistic. A drop-off and pickup arranged in advance is the difference between starting brunch on time and starting it stressed.

Driving Into the City This Weekend

Saturday morning is normal. The Japan Parade on the Upper West Side from 1pm onward closes Central Park West for the afternoon and adds local pressure. Sunday is Mother's Day — every cross-Manhattan trip is going to take longer than it should, and the bridges and tunnels back to Long Island Sunday evening are heavier than a normal weekend.

If your weekend involves a brunch reservation you can't be late for, an outdoor day with multiple stops, or a Bronx-or-Queens destination that's a logistical headache to drive yourself, having a chauffeur handle it is the difference between an enjoyable Mother's Day and a stressful one.

Request a quote and we'll have a car ready for whatever the weekend looks like.

Best Things To Do in NYC This Weekend — May 9–10, 2026