The best things to do in NYC this weekend feel like real fall. After a warm Friday near 74, a cold front comes through, and Saturday is expected to top out in the low to mid 50s with a north wind around 20 mph. Sunday looks sunny and a little milder, in the upper 50s. The calendar is full. Harry Styles is back at the Garden Saturday night. The Food Network NYC Wine & Food Festival holds its Grand Tastings at the Seaport. Open House New York opens about 300 buildings that are usually closed to the public. The Giants host the Saints on Sunday afternoon, and Flower Power closes at the New York Botanical Garden. Here's what's worth the trip from Long Island, and how to get there without spending half the day in traffic.

Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden, Saturday Night

Saturday, October 17 is another night of the "Together, Together" residency at Madison Square Garden. Styles has played Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at the Garden since late August, and the 30-show run ends on Halloween. Guests change from night to night, so check your ticket for the opener and door time.

There are only a few Saturdays left in the residency. If you have tickets, the show itself is the easy part. The hard part is 20,000 people walking out onto Seventh Avenue at the same moment. Penn Station is right underneath, and a packed LIRR platform after a sold-out show tests anyone's patience, especially if the last train you can make leaves before the encore ends. Your driver can wait on a side street a few blocks off the Garden and come around when you call. We wrote a full guide on getting to the Harry Styles residency from Long Island that covers pickup spots and timing.

NYC Wine & Food Festival Grand Tastings at the Seaport

The Food Network NYC Wine & Food Festival wraps up this weekend in Lower Manhattan. Its centerpiece is the Grand Tasting at the Invesco QQQ Festival Campus in the Seaport. Saturday's session runs from noon to 4 p.m., hosted by Marcus Samuelsson and Andrew Rea. Sunday's daytime session runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. There's also a new Grand Tasting: After Dark on Sunday from 7 to 10 p.m. General admission is a little over $220 with taxes and fees included, and you must be 21 or older to enter.

This is a perfect reason to book a car. Four hours of tastings from dozens of restaurants, wineries, and distilleries is not something you should drive home from. The Seaport is also one of the hardest parts of Manhattan to reach from the Island by car, and you'll find little or no street parking. Coming in on the LIE and the Brooklyn Bridge, or down the FDR, we'll drop you at the festival entrance and pick you up there when you're done. If you're planning a full day, with lunch and a session and then dinner downtown, our hourly service keeps one driver with you the whole time.

Open House New York Weekend

From Friday, October 16 through Sunday, October 18, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the 24th annual OHNY Weekend opens about 300 buildings and spaces across all five boroughs. Most are free. Many sites are drop-in, while the more popular tours need an advance reservation and tend to fill up fast. This year's lineup includes the rooftop garden above Radio City Music Hall, the Coast Guard Cutter LILAC, and the Red Hook Treehouses, a group of townhouses in Brooklyn designed to stand up to flooding.

People on the Island who like architecture and history wait all year for this. The trouble is that the best OHNY plan covers three or four sites in different neighborhoods, which works poorly on subway transfers and even worse when you're paying for a Manhattan garage at every stop. A driver for the day changes that. You might see a rooftop in Midtown, have lunch in Brooklyn, and make an afternoon tour in Red Hook, with the car waiting at each one. Look over the lineup at ohny.org on Friday night, pick your sites, and send us the list.

Giants vs. Saints at MetLife, Sunday 1 p.m.

The Giants (3-1-1) host the New Orleans Saints (1-4) on Sunday, October 18 at 1:00 p.m. at MetLife Stadium. This is the last home game before the Week 8 bye, and the team is coming off a fourth-quarter comeback to tie Washington. Sunday's forecast is the better of the two days, sunny and cool, so it's a good afternoon to tailgate.

MetLife is a long trip from Long Island no matter how you go. It means the LIE or the Northern State, then across Manhattan or over the Throgs Neck and the GW, and then the Turnpike and Route 3. Getting in is manageable. Getting out is the problem, with 80,000 people heading for the same few exits and lots that can take an hour to empty. We know where to stage so you walk out to the car instead of sitting in a lot waiting to move. Our Giants season opener guide goes through MetLife timing from Nassau and Suffolk in detail.

Final Weekend of Flower Power at the New York Botanical Garden

NYBG's Flower Power exhibition closes Sunday, October 18. It's a celebration of flowers in 1960s art and culture, with garden displays, psychedelic installations, and live music, and it has run since late May. The Garden's Día de los Muertos programming is also running now, so one ticket covers both.

From the North Shore, the Bronx is closer than most people think. Over the Throgs Neck and up the Hutch, NYBG is a short trip from Great Neck or Manhasset when traffic is moving. It's also a trip with kids that's easy to overthink. Saturday will be windy, so Sunday is the better day for this one. Parking at the Garden fills up on closing weekends. We'll drop you at the Mosholu Gate, and you won't have to circle Southern Boulevard with a back seat full of restless kids.

Ghostbusters in Concert at the United Palace

Saturday, October 17 at 8 p.m., the United Palace in Washington Heights screens the original 1984 Ghostbusters while a full orchestra plays Elmer Bernstein's score live. Tickets start around $60. It's a good pick for the week before Halloween, and the United Palace, a 1930 movie palace on Broadway at 175th Street, is worth seeing for the building alone.

Washington Heights is a long way from Long Island by public transit. That means the LIRR to Penn, then the A train all the way uptown, and the same trip home late at night. Driving is easier, but street parking near 175th Street is tight, and you can wait a long time for a rideshare after the show. A car service is the simple answer. It's a straight run over the Throgs Neck or the RFK, and the car is out front at the end.

Getting Around This Weekend

This weekend is busy without being chaotic. Saturday has a Garden show, a food festival downtown, and hundreds of OHNY sites drawing people all over the city. Sunday has the Giants in the afternoon and two festival sessions at the Seaport. LIRR weekend trains run less often than on weekdays, and the last trains after a show leave less time to spare than people expect. Rideshare prices tend to jump at exactly the moment a crowd walks out of an arena.

We're a Long Island chauffeur service, not a rideshare. Your driver is assigned ahead of time and knows the routes in and out of each of these venues. They watch for the actual end of the show or game, not the scheduled time, and they'll be at the curb when you walk out. There's no surge pricing and no cancellation four minutes before pickup. We've been driving these roads for 20 years. Our NYC events transportation page has venue-by-venue details, and if you're flying out of JFK this weekend, the JFK car service page has terminal timing.

Whether it's the Garden, the Seaport, a day of open doors, or a Sunday in the Meadowlands, request a quote and let us handle the driving this weekend. The car will be there.

Best Things To Do in NYC This Weekend — October 17–18, 2026