What's happening in New York this week?

New York in peak summer is sticky. Mornings this week start around 17.5°C at 7am with 88% humidity, which sounds mild until you factor in the afternoon. By 2pm, pavement and building glass push the felt temperature above 33°C, and the subway platforms at stations like Times Square-42nd Street and Herald Square trap the heat underground. Your best strategy is the 7am start. Central Park before 8am belongs to runners and dog walkers. You might hear a cellist practicing near Bethesda Fountain with no audience at all. The High Line opens at 7am, and the elevated steel walkway along the West Side still carries a trace of overnight cool. By 10am both fill up and the shade angles away. If you're landing at JFK this week, the AirTrain to Jamaica Station connects to the E train into Midtown for about $11 combined. From Newark Liberty, NJ Transit reaches Penn Station for about $15. A cab from JFK to Midtown can top $75 before tip, and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel backs up badly in summer traffic.

Broadway's weekly cycle shapes the rest of your schedule. Monday is dark night for most theaters, though a handful run Monday performances. That makes Monday your museum day. The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue has been open since 1870 and runs 7 days a week. Admission is $30 for adult visitors from outside New York State. MoMA on West 53rd Street, founded in 1929, tends to close one weekday, so check before heading over. The Guggenheim on Fifth Avenue and 89th Street, inside Frank Lloyd Wright's 1959 spiral, currently keeps similar hours but verify before you go. Wednesday and Thursday evenings are the sweet spot for Broadway. The crowds thin compared to Friday and Saturday shows, and same-day TKTS booth tickets at the red steps in Times Square sell for 20-50% off face value. The booth opens at 3pm for evening performances. A Wednesday line in summer typically runs 25-35 minutes. Saturday can reach 90.

The Union Square Greenmarket sets up Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at the park's north end. Saturday morning is the big draw, with 60-plus vendors selling Hudson Valley peaches, artisan bread that smells like it left the oven 20 minutes ago, and upstate dairy. Wednesday might bring 25-30 vendors, but the produce is less picked-over and the crowd is neighborhood regulars, not tourists. For a cheap, filling meal, the Halal Guys cart at 53rd and 6th Avenue runs a $9 combo plate of chicken and lamb over rice. The cart has drawn a sidewalk line since the early 1990s. South of Canal Street in Chinatown, Joe's Shanghai on Pell Street still serves xiao long bao (soup dumplings) for about $12 per 8, and they split open with a rush of hot, pork-scented broth. That said, restaurant waits on Friday and Saturday evenings in the West Village and Lower East Side hit 60-90 minutes at places without reservations. Tuesday and Wednesday nights are the walk-in window.

Saturday and Sunday mornings, brunch defines New York's neighborhoods. In Williamsburg, you'll wait 40 minutes outside Sunday in Brooklyn on Wythe Avenue for malted pancakes so thick they're almost custard. In the West Village, Buvette on Grove Street seats about 12 at a marble counter where the espresso is dark and the croissants arrive warm from a kitchen you can see. Both open around 8am. Sunday afternoons through early fall, the Brooklyn Flea at the Williamsburg waterfront sells vintage clothes and old maps. Smorgasburg, its food-market sibling, sets up near Prospect Park on Sundays with 75-plus stalls selling ramen burgers, Thai rolled ice cream, and lobster rolls. Most items cost $8-15. Mind you, outdoor markets in peak summer get uncomfortable by 1pm. Go before noon or after 4pm, when the breeze off the East River picks up and vendors cut prices on anything perishable. The Statue of Liberty ferry from Battery Park runs every 20-30 minutes, but summer wait times for pedestal access typically reach 2 hours without a reserve-timed ticket booked weeks ahead.