Your Midsummer Bucket List

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but our sweet summertime is slipping away. I can never understand why it seems like February lasts for 3 months and summer? Summer is a day.

Let’s check in here. How many hot dogs have you had? How many grains of sand are elusively haunting in your bedsheets? How tan is your skin? How light is your heart? How sno-cone-stained is your tongue? How dance-worn are your barefeet?

We are running out of time here guys, but don’t panic. Let me help you embrace it. Let me show you how to hold on. I’ve created a midsummer bucket list to help you create those moments of spontaneous joy that are inherent in summertime as a slight sunburn on your skin and ice cold beer tingling your lips. Get in here. Let’s create the moments that will keep you warm all winter long.

Rose is nice. Rose on a rooftop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard made from grapes matured by the same sun that kisses your skin, while switching between hammock-lounging and playing corn hole or dirty balls (what proper people refer to as “ladder golf”) with your friends? That’s damn nice. That’s wintertime-defense-strategy nice. Rooftop Reds is the city’s only rooftop winery and one of my favorite places to watch the summer sun set. Make a reservation here and enter from 299 Sands St.

Repeat after me: a/c is for weenies, and I am not a weenie.

Now next time you want to snuggle up with someone on the couch and watch whatever the hell is on tv, instead grab a blanket, some snacks, some beers with coozies (because they deserve to be snuggled too) and a date and get out. There’s something so iconic to this city about sitting outside and watching a film in the summertime. It’s like an urbanite’s drive-in theater. What’s showing? Does it matter? Nope, it doesn’t. Use this guide of all the city’s summer films from our friend’s at Thrillist, who have a really big writing staff.

The heat can make us all act a little more dramatic than usual. And there’s a cast of amazing people who are channeling it all and bringing it to an intimate Globe-Theater in the center of Central Park nearly every night this summer. It’s your #reasontocrosstheriver at least once this Summer. Go to Shakespeare in the Park. One of the most magical and creatively alive happenings in the city, and best of all, it’s FREE. If you haven’t been, you’ll need to get to Central Park early. Like, 8am early. Bring snacks and coffee and a blanket. Camp out, sit in, make friends. They start giving out tickets at noon so settle in. Collect only up to two tickets per person. Spend the rest of the day at any number of museums, come back for the performance. Be moved.  Info here.

Stop complaining about the heat. I’m serious, stop it. You are not that delicate. And if you feel like you can’t take it anymore, the city has built nearly 50 public watering holes to cool you down and shut you up. Intimidated by how to do it? Dive in to my guide here.

Not only do we live in the greatest city in the world, but we also have some damn fine beaches that you can access by car, train, boat, bike, and dig your little toes in the sand while still maintaining a faint view of our iconic skyline. Read how to do it best here then lie to your boss and play hooky. Come back the next day with a fresh tan. Look them all in the eye. Don’t give a shit.

Choosing a life as an urbanite does not require you to relinquish your love of outdoor activities. Not in this town. You can kayak (or canoe!) for free. Yes, it’s in the East River but you’ve built up a strong enough immune system just by breathing in that sweet city air everyday that it won’t kill you. Head to the North Brooklyn Boat Club in Greenpoint, in Brooklyn Bridge Park, or with Red Hook Boaters in Red Hook and get in the water.

I get it, biking in this city is intimidating. But all of the best things in life begin by making yourself uncomfortable. If you don’t have a bike, rent a citibike. Borrow mine. Get out there and explore this city by bike. Here, try one of my Ride Your City guides, around Greenpoint or Red Hook. See things you’ve never seen. Bike over every bridge. Feel like you’re on top of the world.

There’s no denying that the nightlife in this city is pinnacle, but what about the daylife? Day parties and summertime in Brooklyn go hand-in-hand and also slip from our grasp when the seasons change. My favorite one in town is at MoMA PS1, every Saturday through Labor Day. World-renowned DJs, free art viewing, and all your favorite local eateries and drinkeries ready to serve you all day and into the night as you shake those hips in the museum’s backyard and sculpture garden. Get tickets here now.

The borough’s hottest new party venue is aptly named because you cannot believe your eyes when you see this place. Unassuming from the outside and hidden in industrial east Bushwick, it rises from the rubble like an oasis in a desert of weathered and contrived nightlife experiences. It’s only open seasonally and any night you go will be the best party of your summer. See the schedule here and get out there, in the open air, and dance all night. 140 Stewart Ave.

Take advantage of those steamy, rainy days and hit up some of the city’s more unique museums, among which my favorites are listed below.

The Mmuseumm – located inside an elevator shaft, it’s one of the world’s smallest museums and focuses on ‘object journalism’. Explore objects and ephemera that represent a specific time period, region, movement, or belief. Feel how the things we surround ourselves tell so many stories. See the schedule here. 4 Cortlandt Alley.

The Museum of Food and Drink – Food tours can be cheesy (quite literally), but his museum offers a deeper look into the culture of food and offers a tasty exploration that will open your senses to flavors you never expected. Exhibitions vary, follow along right here. 62 Bayard St.

The Transit Museum – there are few things more fascinating than the origins of the methods that keep this city and its people moving. Spend time walking through the history of the MTA that will give you a deeper appreciation and thus greater patience for train delays. Pass through antique turnstiles, board vintage train cars, and read stories and anecdotes from the ones who built the system; the ones who did so mostly with a shovel. A SHOVEL. Yeah. Plan your visit here. 99 Schermerhorn St.

The Spy Museum – This interactive museum was built by real spies (or so they say) and takes you through an interactive experience and inevitably, solve a case and in doing so, discover who your real friends are. Plus they have one of those laser-beamed hallways that you get to get through. 928 8th ave.

City Reliquary – A civic organization and non-profit gallery in Williamsburg, this museum represents and shares the living history of our city. Through its permanent collection and eclectic, rotating exhibits, it feels like the soul of New York packed into an unassuming little storefront on Metropolitan Ave. Go. Spend some time there. 370 Metropolitan Ave.

Have a day of super American experiences and then something that makes you think you’ve left the country completely. Get tickets to a Mets game (even though they suck this year) and spend the day eating hot dogs and drinking beer and heckling the opposite team and doing the wave, once. Then head to the new Mikkeler brewery located at Citifield for some exotic Copenhagen brews you can’t find anywhere else in the country. Then venture across the bridge and into Flushing to see the Queens version of Chinatown, one that feels like a completely different country and doesn’t cater to tourists hardly at all. Pop into Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao for the city’s best soup dumplings. Get the cucumber salad and beef scallion pancake too. Eat everything. 38-12 Prince St.

Bike down to Red Hook and spend a day picking crabs and playing putt-putt outside at Brooklyn Crab. Because crabs aren’t in season for very long (despite what so many cheap sushi spots would have you believe) and putt-putt sucks indoors. Especially if you tend to have a bit of a John Mcenro reaction once you’re up to stroke 7…like me. 24 Reed St.