(Lincoln Center, 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023) Some of the most influential and beloved American popular music comes alive when musical-theater director Rob Fisher trains his expert focus on Cole Porter, iconic vocalist Kurt Elling offers a sublime interpretation of the collaboration between saxophone giant John Coltrane and balladeer Johnny Hartman, and the engaging singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli salutes Richard Rodgers. The music of Broadway and beyond is highlighted as South Pacific showstopper Paulo Szot appears in a highly anticipated solo performance, the adored Broadway star Sutton Foster returns to Songbook with songs from her debut album, and award-winning composer Alan Menken plays a selection of his film and theater scores. In addition, the inimitable Scottish performer Alan Cumming captivates the audience with his seemingly limitless talents, and Stew, the creator of the Broadway sensation Passing Strange, returns to the Songbook stage. Also this season, a selection of Andy Warhol’s famous Screen Tests is set to music by alt-rock veterans Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, an all-star lineup of musicians pays tribute to the Grateful Dead with The American Beauty Project, acclaimed and emerging Broadway, R&B, and gospel stars celebrate Black artists’ contributions to popular song in Soul Deep: An Anthology of Black Music, and classically trained composer and arranger Nico Muhly showcases his genre-defying music. Soul-folk artist Amos Lee and charming chanteuse Lizz Wright appear in evenings that mark the ascension of a new generation of singer-songwriters, The Del McCoury Band brings its scorching brand of bluegrass to the Big Apple, and Nashville’s legacy is represented by country-music legends Patty Loveless and Rodney Crowell. Event Website

(City Center, 131 West 55th St, New York, NY 10019) Featuring 19 dances by Paul Taylor, including two New York Premieres: Changes, which revisits the turbulent 1960s through songs sung by The Mamas & The Papas, and Beloved Renegade, which Alastair Macaulay in the New York Times calls "the best new choreography I saw in 2008." Plus the return after 40 years of the legendary Scudorama. ($10+) Event Website

(American Folk Art Museum, 45 West 53rd St, New York, NY 10019) A remarkable display of quilts made during the Depression era by thrifty women who reused clothing, flour and feed sacks, and other recycled fabrics to create "new" bedcovers in a variety of vibrant patterns. Event Website

(The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10128) The exhibition will bring to light a remarkable period in the early years of the Soviet Union when innovative visual artists, including Marc Chagall, Natan Altman, and Robert Falk joined forces with avant-garde playwrights, actors, and theatrical producers to create a theater experience with extraordinary mass appeal. Through paintings, costume and set designs, posters, photographs, film clips and theater ephemera -- many of which have never been exhibited before -- Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949 will capture an exhilarating but fleeting moment in the cultural history of the Soviet Union. Event Website

(New York Transit Museum, corner of Boerum Pl & Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn, NY 11201) See the tools used to build, operate, and maintain New York’s subway, bridges, tunnels, bus and rail systems. This exhibition shows how an obscure function can take on a fascinating form. Event Website

(Trump Lasker Skating Rink, Central Park at 110th St & Lennox Ave, New York, NY 10022) Competitive hockey leagues rule this rink, but open to all for freestyle skating as well. Winter Skating Camp and Skating Lessons available. ($2.25 - $6; Skate Rental: $5.25.) Event Website

(Floyd Bennett Field, Flatbush Ave South of the Belt Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11234) This facility is no joke, housing two NHL size-specific rinks, competitive hockey leagues and figure skating programs, as well as public skating. Not unlike Chelsea Piers, the huge facility also houses indoor soccer, basketball, gymnastics and rock climbing, along with some schoolyard favorites like dodgeball and wiffleball. ($6 - $8; $4.50 Skate Rental) Event Website

(Prospect Park near Lincoln Rd & Ocean Ave entrance, Brooklyn) Wollman Rink offers fun for all seasons, providing 26,600 square feet of ice for skaters in the winter and pedal boats on the Lake in the summer. Although not a part of the original plan for Prospect Park, the Rink, built in 1960, has added a big dose of winter fun for thousands of skaters, in addition to serving as home ice for local amateur men’s and women’s hockey teams. ($5; Children & Seniors: $3; Skate Rental: $6.50) Event Website

(Trump Wollman Rink, Central Park at 59th St at 6th Ave, New York, NY 10019) After Rockefeller Center, this is NYC's most popular chill zone. It is also home to the largest learn-to-skate program in the country. ($4.75 - $14; Skate Rental $6.) Event Website

(City Center Main Stage, 131 West 55th St, New York, NY 10019) This powerful play follows Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman in a land torn apart by civil war. Event Website

(American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd St, New York, NY 10036) A new interpretation of Henrik Ibsen's modern classic, Mary-Louise Parker plays a woman of dangerous independence restrained by a conventional marriage. Event Website

(Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11238) This exhibition of twenty-five portraits by internationally renowned photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is a documentary project that explores being Black in America. Sanders also directed a series of filmed interviews conducted by noted film critic Elvis Mitchell that will be presented along with the photographs. Serena Williams, Chris Rock, Colin Powell, Toni Morrison, Russell Simmons, Al Sharpton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Sean Combs are among the many African Americans whose faces are seen and voices heard in The Black List Project. The images, photographic and filmed, are the core of the collaboration between Greenfield-Sanders and Mitchell that has resulted in The Black List: Volume One, an HBO documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and was aired nationally for the first time in August 2008, and a multi-city museum exhibition. Event Website

(Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th St, New York, NY 10036) A tentative courtship unfolds at a Catskills summer resort in the 1960’s. This exciting new look at an acclaimed play is from Tony Award winning author of Take Me Out. Event Website

(War Memorial Ice Skating Rink, 1321 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, NY 10301) (Friday: 4pm - 8pm. Saturday: 12pm - 4pm and 7pm -) ($8; $5 skate rental) (718-720-1010) Event Website

(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave at 82nd St, New York, NY 10028) This will be the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the European old master and 19th-century drawings from the distinguished collection of Mr. Jean Bonna in Geneva, Switzerland. Many of the 120 drawings on display are masterpieces, ranging through 500 years of art history, from the Renaissance to 1900, and representing a diversity of artistic schools in Italy, Northern Europe, France, and Great Britain, among other regions. The selection will include works by famous artists -- such as Carpaccio, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Parmigianino, Canaletto, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Watteau, Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard, Goya, Ingres, Gericault, Delacroix, Manet, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Seurat -- as well as superb and poignant drawings by others less well-known. Event Website

(Museum of Sex, 233 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016) A male bonobo shrewdly soliciting sex in exchange for sugar cane. Two female bonobos blissfully engaging in genito-genital (G-G) rubbing. The strenuous coupling of endangered Panda bears. Encounter these creatures and others so vivid in their portrayal that they will likely feel as though they have unwittingly begun a voyeuristic journey into the wild. Event Website

(Various Locations Five Boroughs) New York City Opera begins an exciting year of transition as the company’s home at Lincoln Center, the New York State Theater, undergoes major renovations. During the renovations, City Opera will take to the road, bringing live music and provocative cultural conversation to more than fourteen different venues in all five boroughs of New York City. Through concerts, showcases, multi-media presentations, talks, panels, and film screenings, City Opera will celebrate opera’s surprisingly central role in contemporary culture, and will provide a preview of future seasons. Event Website

(The Morgan Museum & Library, 225 Madison Ave at 36th St, New York, NY 10016) Approximately eighty original drawings by some of The New Yorker's most talented and beloved artists who have tackled the theme of money and the many ways in which it defines us. Included in the show are drawings by such luminaries as Charles Barsotti, George Booth, Dana Fradon, Lee Lorenz, William Hamilton, and J. B. Handelsman. Event Website

(American Museum of Natural History, 175 Central Park West, New York, NY 10023) Celebrate the annual return of this must-see tropical forest environment filled with over 500 live tropical butterflies. Event Website

(The Museum at FIT, 295 7th Ave, New York, NY 10001) Seduction will be the first chronological exploration of the role of sexuality in fashion. The exhibition will feature over seventy looks from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, using objects from the Museum’s permanent collection. Event Website

(New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex, Grand Central Terminal, 42nd Street & Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017) (8 am - 8 pm M-F 10 am - 6 pm Sat. & Sun) The New York Transit Museum and the New York Public Library join forces to present a two-location exhibition about New York City's underground infrastructure initiatives in the 21st Century. Examining the magnitude and historical context of eight massive building projects, the exhibition provides New Yorkers a behind the scenes glimpse at their changing city and how these improvements will affect their lives. Join us for free lectures on The Extension of the 7 Line; The Second Avenue Subway and exploring Ea. (Free) (212 878-0801) [email protected] Event Website

(American Museum of Natural History, 175 Central Park West, New York, NY 10023) This exhibition will examine one of the most pressing scientific issues of our time -- the massive, human-induced warming of Earth, a phenomenon that could lead to drought, rising sea levels, heavy storms, and other events with potentially dire impacts on the health of society and the natural world. Explore the science, history, and impact of climate change, and find out ways in which individuals, communities and nations can reduce their carbon footprints. Event Website

(Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036) Vanities spans the turbulent '60s through the late '80s and explores how important friends are, as one faces life’s defining moments. Event Website

(Nederlander Theatre, 208 West 41st St, New York, NY 10036) This revival of the classic musical about gamblers, showgirls, and the Salvation Army, stars Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham. Event Website

(Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036) The revival of the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical premiered last summer at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. Event Website