This Week In & Around Chelsea: Sept. 29-Oct. 5, 2025

Here’s What’s Happening This Week and Beyond (in order of appearance):

Happier Hour / Making Gay History Live Fall Events / MCB4 Full Board Meeting / Oktoberfest / Free Events at Chelsea Green Park / Free Programming at Bella Abzug Park / Coffee at the Curb / Blessing of the Animals / The Longest Table / Parktoberfest

“Happier Hour” at Bella Abzug Park: Wednesday, October 1 & 8, 5pm to 6:30pm Near the Paradis in the Park kiosk (524 W. 34th St.) | Deals on food and drink and free music comprise the appeal of this Happy Hour observance–which has one more feature to boast about: It is “Hour” in name only; the actual run time is 90 minutes, hence the name change from plain old “Happy” to “Happier.” On October 1, the live entertainment is provided by Wayne Tucker Music (“Miles Davis meets Stevie Wonder”); and on October 8, it’s music from Brass Meets World, a NYC-based brass band, playing the best songs of the 80s, 90s, and 00s.

Making Gay History Live Fall Events Beginning Tuesday, September 30, 7:30pm at The Center (208 W. 13th St.) | The popular podcast Making Gay History becomes a brick-and-mortar thing this fall, via an imaginative initiative from its creators (among them, Eric Marcus–editor of Chelsea’s informative and opinionated Neighborhood Newsletter). First up, at 7:30pm on Tues., Sept. 30, Movie Night invites you to “travel back nearly six decades in time for an exclusive screening of The Queen, a rare pre-Stonewall documentary featuring drag icons from across the country in competition for a national title, filmed 40+ years before RuPaul’s Drag Race and 20+ years before Paris is Burning. Stay for a live recorded interview with Elyssa Maxx Goodman (Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City) and Kevin Smith Kirkwood (Broadway’s Kinky Boots). Plus, a special one-night-only performance!” For all essential info, including how to purchase tickets, click here.

The Full Board Meeting of Manhattan Community Board 4: Tuesday, September 30, 6:30pn Online via Zoom & YouTube and In-Person atMt. Sinai West (1000 10th Ave. btw. W.58th/59th Sts), 2nd Floor, Conference Room B | From West 14th Street all the way up to West 59th–to the west of Eighth Avenue north of 26th Street, and to the west of Sixth Avenue south of 26th Street–Manhattan Community Board 4 (MCB4) is your all-volunteer advocacy and vetting entity. Its work is done through the monthly meetings of committees and task forces. The letters they generate are voted on when MCB4’s full membership meets (usually on the first Wednesday of the month.). Click here to register.for Zoom attendance and sign up for your two-minute speaking slot in the Public Session and/or the Public Hearing Session. Attend via livestream on MCB4’s YouTube channel–the Forever Home, in archive form, of all MCB4 meetings. The Conference Call number to attend Sept, 30’s meeting is 646-828-7666 (Webinar ID = 161 368 0437)..

Community Board 4’s area of coverage. | Image via CB4

OKTOBERFEST: Friday, October 3, 7pm-11pm at Chelsea Market (9th Ave./W. 15th St.) | Celebrate Germany’s world-famous beer festival and fair the hyperlocal way, by way of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats. The Chelsea Market mainstay invites you to drink in, so to speak, from the flow of six beer stations. Classic Bavarian dishes “prepared with high-quality meats, including bratwurst, braised specialties, smoked meats, and more.” The dinner party also features a live brass band. Regarding those previously mentioned six beer stations: Each will feature a different NYS brewer: Threes, KCBC, Industrial Arts, Wild East, Kills Boro, and SingleCut. Tickets are $80 and available for purchase HERE. When this event winds down, Oktoberfest by way of Chelsea Market continues, with an afterparty at The Tippler – an underground bar serving specialty cocktails, artisanal spirts, beers, and more – at 425 W. 15th St., starting at 11pm.

Oct. 3: Bavarian cuisine and, of course, beer–at Oktoberfest by way of Chelsea Market. | Image couresy of Chelsea Market

Free Events at Chelsea Green Park (140 w. 20th St. btw. 6th & 7th Aves.) | The Friends of Chelsea Green continue to bring free programming to the micro-but-mighty West Chelsea park. Free Chi Kung Movement Classes happen on Tuesdays through September 30, at 7pm. Laura Shapiro is your instructor. To sign up for classes, click here. Looking ahead to Friday, October 3, the Friends’ Coffee & Conversations series returns, with 8:30-9:30am set aside as an opportunity for discussions both serious and silly, conducted with civility. Fueling the whole affair are those essential social lubricants–coffee and pastries–courtesy of nearby neighborhood cafe The Commons (128 Seventh Ave. btw. W. 17th & 18th Sts.). RSVP via email to chelseagreenpark@gmail.com or on Facebook via @chelseagreenpark.

Free Programming in Bella Abzug Park (524 W, 24th St.) from HYHK (The Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance) | HYHK offers fun programming for all ages in Bella Abzug Park (524 W. 34th St.). Among the events–all of them free and open to the public–are a series of yoga classes from Bien Good Well (Mondays and Wednesdays at 6pm, Saturdays at 10:30am). To register for a class, click here. For the kids, head to the playground at Bella Abzug Park on Tuesday mornings through October, for acoustic concerts with Mike Messer Music. To access the HYHK Alliance events calendar, click here.

Neighbors of 300 West 21st, 22nd, 23rd Streets Block Association Present Coffee at the Curb: Saturday, October 4, 10am to 12pm at 360 West 22nd Street btw. 8th & 9th Aves.) | It costs nothing to chat up your neighbors at his monthly gathering, where the drinks, eats, and daffodil bulbs are on the house. See the below flyer for details.

St. Peter’s Chelsea Presents an Outdoor Blessing of the Animals: Sunday, October 5, 11:30am in the Courtyard of St. Peter’s, 346 West 20th Street (btw. 8th & th Aves.) | See the below flyer for more info on how and where the fur flies, at this beloved annual event.

The Longest Table: Sunday October 5, 12pm-2pm on West 21st St. (btw. 9th/10th Aves.) | Sharing a meal with old friends–or new ones–is the simple, lasting appeal of this recently established annual tradition that takes the premise of the potluck dinner and widens it out to fill the length of an entire crosstown block. For more information, visit www.longesttablecommunity.org. If you’d like to volunteer or have questions, email longesttablecommunity.org.

—–COMING UP, IN THE COMING WEEKS—–

—Compiled by Scott Stiffler

—END—

ChelseaCommunityNews.com (CCNews) is an independent, single-owner online newspaper providing news, arts, events, and opinion content to Manhattan’s Chelsea community and its adjacent areas (Flatiron/NoMad and Meatpacking Districts, Hudson Yards, Hell’s Kitchen, Broadway/Times Square, and the Penn Station area). Our editorial content is made possible by advertising revenue, grants, quarterly pledges of support, and voluntary reader donations (click here for our GoFundMe campaign). To join our subscriber list, click here to receive ENewsletters containing links to recently published content–as well as an occasional “Sponsored Content” email featuring an advertiser’s exclusive message.

ChelseaCommunityNews.com is a member of the New York Press Association (NYPA) and the Empire State Local News Coalition. Our content is collected for placement in the United States Library of Congress’ LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive. (“We consider your website to be an important part of the historical record,” read a July 26, 2019 email.) Our freelance reporters have been recognized by NYPA’s annual Better Newspaper Contest, with Honorable Mention wins for Best News or Feature Series (2021 & 2023). CCNews is a three-time winner in the Coverage of the Arts category (First Place and Honorable Mention, 2022 and Third Place, 2023).

PLEASE SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM: HELP CHELSEA COMMUNITY NEWS THRIVE BY FREQUENTLY VISITING THIS WEBSITE TO READ OUR ARTICLES AND CLICK ON THE ADVERTISEMENTS.

Questions? Comments? Want to Place an Advertisement or Make a Donation? Email Founder/Editor Scott Stiffler at scott@chelseacommunitynews.com.

This Week In & Around Chelsea: Sept. 29-Oct. 5, 2025 is posted on September 29, 2025