Good morning to you on this gloomy Wednesday.
It’s October.
If you like festivals, you’re in luck this month.
More than two dozen are being served up around the city, not including pumpkin-heavy events on the outskirts.
The New Yorker Festival, Fall for Dance, the Margaret Mead Film Festival and the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center are among the better known.
But there are many, many more:
• Those sick of synthetics may flock to the Natural Fibers Festival.
• The tired of land may jump into the Marine Science Festival.
• The White Light Festival and the Little Red Lighthouse Festival offer relief for the seasonally affected.
• And for those lacking drama in their lives, there’s the New York Gypsy Festival and a Tango festival.
• There are also film festivals for every taste: short, global, time travel, indie, animal, architecture and design, foodie.
• Ditto, theater: improv, bad theater, female comedy, and interdisciplinary performances galore.
• Oktoberfest is sold out, but drinks flow at the Craft Beer, Hard Cider, and Whisky festivals, too.
• Amid food festivals, Meatopia and the Oyster Festival stand out.
• Those with a hankering for a faraway land can go to the Marco Polo Festival, celebrating Chinatown and Little Italy with a puppet parade. …
• … Or to Jazz on Staten Island.
Here’s what else you need to know for Wednesday.
WEATHER
Halloweenish. Dark and a little windy, with a high of 69.
There’s a 30 percent chance of rain. Carry one-third of an umbrella.
COMING UP TODAY
• A City Council hearing on legislation that would reduce the speed limit across the city to 25 miles per hour. City Hall. 10 a.m.
• Carmen Fariña, the schools chancellor, is expected to give details on sweeping changes in how schools are evaluated, at P.S. 503/P.S. 506 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. 11 a.m.
• Officials discuss the extension of funding to ease the backlog in rape-kit DNA analysis. City Hall steps. Noon.
• Build a compost bench at the Garden of Life and Health in the Bronx. 5:30 p.m. [Free]
• Drink a kale cocktail on National Kale Day, at American Flatbread in TriBeCa. 6 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]
• The Times reporter Sam Roberts discusses his book “A History of New York in 101 Objects” at the Tenement Museum. 6:30 p.m. [Free, with livestream]
• The Berlin Philharmoniker plays Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances” and more at Carnegie Hall. 7 p.m. [$75 and up]
• Aretha Franklin, Spike Lee, Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo are expected at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s 60th birthday at the Four Seasons. 6:30 p.m.
• For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.
COMMUTE
• The PATH fare goes up to $2.75.
• Subway
• L.I.R.R., Metro-North, N.J. Transit, Amtrak
• Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.
• Alternate-side parking: in effect.
• Air travel: La Guardia, J.F.K., Newark.
IN THE NEWS
• A teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School was arraigned on sex abuse charges in a case involving six teenage girls. [New York Times]
• The mayor expanded the city’s living wage law through an executive order, a move that circumvented the City. [Capital New York]
• The city agreed to add at least 60 accessible shelters in the next three years to accommodate the disabled during disasters. [New York Times]
• Gov. Rick Perry of Texas stumped for the Republican candidate for governor, Rob Astorino, at a shoe store on Long Island. [Daily News]
• Ray Kelly, the former police commissioner, warned against the universal adoption of police body cameras. [Wall Street Journal]
• A drunken burglar slipped into a Midtown hotel room, was tackled and chased by a Swedish guest, and finally arrested. [New York Times]
• Two grizzlies named Betty and Veronica are coming to the Central Park Zoo. [New York Times]
• A photographer captured Tuesday’s painterly clouds in a time-lapse video. [Gothamist]
AND FINALLY …
If you have ever wanted to see a time capsule unearthed, today’s your chance.
At 11 a.m., at 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn, a time capsule interred in 1950 will make its return trip to the surface of the earth.
The contents may not be exciting to many:
They are microfilmed documents chronicling the construction of 370 Jay, at the time the new Board of Transportation Building.
But the process should be worth watching.
The capsule, believed to be a metal chest, was buried under a cornerstone by the Downtown Brooklyn information kiosk. The 5-by-5-foot cornerstone will be pulled off using a rope and pulley to reveal the chest.
Kenneth Rosen contributed reporting.
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An earlier version of this post carried an incorrect picture credit for the Fall for Dance photograph. The photo was taken by Richard Perry for the New York Times, not Andrea Mohin.