How to Have an Unusual Saturday in Harlem

You probably got here by Googling “weird NYC” or “weird things to do in New York.” Here’s how to live your best off-the-beaten-track life in Harlem for a day.

SATURDAY - Harlem

10am: Giddy up. You’re gonna head to Superhet Coffee at 390 Manhattan Avenue in Harlem. It’s an expensive java joint where the proprietor absolutely BLASTS heavy metal all day.

11am: Walk 15 minutes to hit up Wu & Nussbaum at 2897 Broadway - perhaps the city’s only Jewish/Chinese combo restaurant, and get your bagel breakfast.

12pm: Take a “vertical tour” of the Cathedral of St. John The Divine at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue. This building is WILD, and the vertical tour will have you squeezing into locations you didn’t know could exist inside a church.

1:30pm: Meander your way to the Uptown Manhattan Trinity Church Cemetery Mausoleum at 601 West 153rd Street - it’s massive and very pretty! There are some Titanic passengers buried there, as well as some other NYC notables.

2:30pm: Head back downtown a bit to check out the Royal Tenenbaums’ house at 144th Street and Convent Avenue, and continue walking downtown through the campus of City College, which has some absolutely stunning architecture.

3pm: Down to 125th Street you go - to the heart of Harlem! The Apollo Theater is closed for renovations, but you can get cool photos around back, at the stage door on 126th Street - where all the stars of Amateur Nights past have entered the building.

4pm: Get a midday pick-me-up at perhaps NYC’s only coffee shop that is hidden inside of a hardware store - Mushtari Cafe!

5pm: With a bit of daylight left, head east on 125th to see some fantastic street art (South side of the street), and then take a right on Park Avenue to head down to….106 and Park (sound familiar?) It’s the Graffiti Hall of Fame, and it’s free to check it out.

6pm: Grab dinner at East Harlem Bottling Co. at 1171 Lexington Avenue - for locally-brewed beer and great food!

9pm: Go see a cool show at The Shrine at 2271 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd- it’s a divey nightclub with live music, where the walls and ceiling are decked out in record covers. Always a great time and a very cool crowd.

How to have a goth weekend out in NYC

Ready to find the niche stuff you’re looking for, as the type of person that just loathes the tourist traps of Times Square and all the photo ops? I’ve got you, fam!

Below is an ambitious-but-doable Friday through Sunday NYC schedule for those interested in the dark, weird, and disturbing.

FRIDAY - Prospect Park/Park Slope/Bushwick, Brooklyn

Start your day by sleeping in. You’ll want to get plenty of rest for the night out you’re about to have, and besides, most of the cool places don’t open until at least 11am.

10am: Get outta that AirBnB bed, and head out for coffee at No Filter - NYC’s only gothic cafe - at 175 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn.

11am: Walk 15 minutes with that coffee over to Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the largest and most historic cemeteries in the country, and take a tour, or just explore on your own for free! Green-Wood often hosts amazing free art exhibitions, too.

1pm: After wandering the cemetery, either hop on the R train for 16 minutes OR keep hiking toward the Old Stone House Museum (open Fri/Sat/Sun 12p-4p, or by appointment). This site is certainly haunted, as it’s where the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn took place.

2:30pm: Hit some vintage shops and grab a late lunch!

• Notable shopping stops along the way include L Train Vintage at 654 Sackett Street, Rewind Vintage at 674 Union Street and the very famous Beacon’s Closet at 92 Fifth Ave.

• For food, you can’t go wrong with Kyuramen Park Slope or Alchemy.

4pm: It’s 5 o’clock somewhere - head to the House of Wax cocktail bar to see some medical horrors and have a yummy drink before tonight’s show. (Yes…it’s upstairs inside a weird, very sanitized mall called City Point. Don’t let the bougie-ness scare you!)

6:30pm: Get your ass over to House of Yes for the iconic Dirty Circus show (tix around $60-$70pp and worth it) - it’s a 3hr show absolutely filled with debauchery - burlesque, circus, variety acts of all kinds!

9:30pm: Finish out your night by walking 15 minutes over to Talon Bar at 220 Wyckoff Avenue with a grilled cheese on focaccia and some epic drink specials. Check their events calendar - sometimes there are great goth/industrial dance nights, sometimes DnD gatherings, etc.

SATURDAY - The East Village & Lower East Side, Manhattan

11am: Stumble out of bed in a stupor. Go to La Cabra Bakery (152 2nd Ave, Manhattan) and caffeinate/feed yourself to get ready for your East Village day! Today will be a day of mostly walking.

11:30am: Next, walk 2 minutes to hit up Spark Pretty (333 East 9th St - it opens at noon) for some incredible 80s wear - we all know goths love our 80s vibes!

12:15pm: In a four-minute walk, go visit the classic Trash & Vaudeville (96 East 7th Ave) for all your Kikwear and Doc Martens needs.

1pm: Walk about 7 minutes over to Gothic Renaissance (110 4th Ave) to check out some corsets and giant platform shit-kickers. Then go to Halloween Adventure (104 4th Ave, right next door), the only all-year Halloween shop in NYC, for colored contacts, spiky leatherwear and fake blood!

2pm: Walk 10 minutes to check out the Evolution Store at 687 Broadway for skulls, taxidermy, fun gifts to take home to your favorite friend.

2:45pm: Stop by in a 7-minute walk to pay your respects to the old CBGB at 315 Bowery (now a John Varvatos store) - they’ve preserved one of the walls, so do go inside.

3:15pm: First Street Green Art Park (33 East 1st Street), just 3 minutes of walking away, is the place to see some CRAZY awesome outdoor murals and street art.

3:45pm: Make a pit stop by walking 10 minutes to Economy Candy (108 Rivington Street) - goths can be the sweetest!

4:15pm: Walk 10 minutes over to the Tattoo Museum at 141 Division Street - it’s a museum INSIDE of a tattoo parlor, so you can see all the old tattoo machines and paraphernalia while enjoying the sights and sounds of an active shop! It’s a short experience - about 15 minutes. And free!

5:30pm: Make sure you’ve got a reservation for a classy dinner at Chinese Tuxedo on Doyers Street (a 10-minute walk from the Tattoo Museum). Doyers street was once known as The Bloody Angle, as it’s where old Chinatown gangs called “tongs” used to fight their street battles over opium, women, and territory.

8pm: Reserve a ticket for The Slipper Room (usually $30-$60pp), the absolute best burlesque show in Manhattan! It’s at 167 Orchard, about a 20-minute walk from Chinese Tuxedo. You’ll get the best seats by arriving at least 15 minutes ahead of the show.

10pm: Walk 10 minutes over to Home Sweet Home Bar (131 Chrystie St), where you can finish out the night surrounded by taxidermy and live music!

SUNDAY - Bushwick, Brooklyn

10am: It’s maybe your last day in NYC, and perhaps your flight leaves in the evening. So you’re gonna wake up atypically early and do breakfast at The Bushwick Diner, 299 Wyckoff Ave. Sober up, ya lush!

11am: Check out some more great vintage shops on your way to the Bone Museum.

• Along the route, there are several great stops including Brooklyn Vintage Company (194 Irving Ave), Select Vintage (191 Wilson Ave), What Mary Kept (203 Knickerbocker Ave) and Urban Jungle (118 Knickerbocker Ave)

12pm: The Bone Museum (255 McKibbin St) is NYC’s only museum with REAL human skulls, femurs, spines and tibiae! The staff are friendly and knowledgeable. And it’s only $20!

1pm: The Gecko Gallery is in the same damn building! ALSO only $20! What luck.

2pm: Take the L train from Morgan to Lorimer (Manhattan-bound, but you’re staying in Brooklyn I promise) - you’re gonna check out the City Reliquary (370 Metropolitan Ave, $10), a small museum full of weird/old NYC ephemera, and then you’ll head on a 3-minute walk to 306 Grand, home of The Twisted Spine - NYC’s only horror book shop!

4pm: Last but not least, you’re gonna wanna walk 8 minutes to 567 Driggs to see Mother of Junk (floor to ceiling antiques and vintage art) and then have a lovely stroll through McCarren Park to get to Dream Fishing Tackle at 59 Norman Ave (an 80s dreamhouse set within a bait & tackle shop - not kidding)

5pm: Go catch your flight!!

Now…if you tried this epic weekend route, I wanna hear allllll about it in the comments!!