The New York Convention and Visitors' Bureau (tel. 212/484-1222 weekdays 9-5) has exact dates and times for many of the annual events listed below, and the bureau's Web site (www.nycvisit.com) has yet more information on free activities.

Winter

Early December: One of the tallest Christmas trees in the country is mounted in Rockefeller Center, just above the golden Prometheus statue. Thousands of people gather to watch the ceremonial tree lighting (tel. 212/632-3975).

New Year's Eve: The famous ball drop in Times Square (tel. 212/768-1560; 212/354-0003 Nov.-Dec.) is televised all over the world. In Central Park, a festive Midnight Run sponsored by the New York Road Runners Club (tel. 212/860-4455) begins at Tavern on the Green.

Early January: The 10-day New York National Boat Show, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center (tel. 212/216-2000), exhibits the latest in pleasure craft (power- and sailboats), yachts, and other seaworthy equipment.

Late January: Leading dealers in the field of so-called visionary art-also sometimes called naive art or art of the self-taught-exhibit their wares at the Outsider Art Fair, at the Puck Building in SoHo (tel. 212/777-5218).

Early February: Yankee fans will have their day at the New York Yankees Fan Festival (tel. 718/293-4300), where you can meet current and former players, test your swing, and bid in a memorabilia auction. The Chinese New Year (tel. 212/484-1222), celebrated over two weeks, includes a barrage of fireworks, extravagant banquets, and a colorful paper-dragon dance that snakes through the narrow streets of Chinatown.

February 8-9: Nearly 3,000 well-bred canines and their human overseers take over Madison Square Garden for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show (tel. 800/455-3647), the nation's second-longest-running animal event (after the Kentucky Derby).

February 14: During the Valentine's Day Marriage Marathon, couples marry atop the Empire State Building (tel. 212/736-3100 ext. 377).

Late February: In the invitational Annual Empire State Building Run-Up (tel. 212/860-4455), 150 runners scramble up the 1,576 stairs from the lobby of the Empire State Building to the 86th-floor observation deck.

Spring

March 17: New York's first St. Patrick's Day Parade (tel. 212/484-1222) took place in 1762, making this boisterous tradition one of the city's oldest annual events. The parade heads up 5th Avenue, starting at 44th Street at 11:30 AM and finishing at 86th Street.

March 25-30: At the International Asian Art Fair (tel. 212/642-8572), 60 dealers from around the world exhibit furniture, sculptures, bronzes, ceramics, carpets, jewelry, and more from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Far East.

Late March-early April: Every spring the world-famous three-ring Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (tel. 212/465-6741 for tickets; 212/302-1700 for information) comes to town. Just before opening night the Animal Walk takes the show's four-legged stars from their train at Penn Station along 34th Street to the Garden; it happens around midnight but is well worth the effort. The Triple Pier Expo (tel. 212/255-0020) lures more than 600 antiques dealers to Piers 88, 90, and 92, offering everything from art glass to furniture. There's a reprise of the event in November, as well.

Early-mid-April: The week before Easter, the Macy's Flower Show (tel. 212/494-2922) creates lush displays in its flagship emporium and sets its Broadway windows abloom. Exquisite flower arrangements are also on display in Rockefeller Center.

April 4: As in the classic Fred Astaire movie, you can don an extravagant hat and join the Easter Parade up 5th Avenue. The excitement centers around St. Patrick's Cathedral, at 51st Street.

April 15-18: The 39th annual Antiquarian Book Fair (tel. 212/777-5218 or 212/944-8291), held at the Seventh Regiment Armory, on the Upper East Side, is a book lover's jackpot of first editions, rare volumes, manuscripts, autographs, letters, atlases, drawings, prints, and maps, with prices ranging from $25 to more than $25,000.

April-September: The Major League baseball season sees the New York Yankees (tel. 718/293-6000) drawing huge crowds to Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, while the Mets (tel. 718/507-8499) play at Shea Stadium, in Queens.

Early May: The Cherry Blossom Festival (tel. 718/622-4433) is held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. At last count, about 30,000 cyclists turn out for the annual Bike New York: The Great Five Boro Bike Tour (tel. 212/932-0778). The 42-mi tour begins in Battery Park and ends with a ride across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (which doesn't otherwise allow bikes). A free ferry brings cyclists back to Manhattan.

May 7-12: The International Fine Art Fair (tel. 212/642-8752) brings dealers from all over the country to the Seventh Regiment Armory, where they show off exceptional paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the Renaissance to the 20th century.

Mid-May: Congregation Shearith Israel (the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue-the landmark home of America's oldest Orthodox Jewish congregation) sponsors a one-day Sephardic Fair (tel. 212/873-0300), where you can watch artists making prayer shawls and crafting jewelry, potters throwing wine cups, and scribes penning marriage contracts.

Late May: Some of the world's best hoofers join the Tap Dance Extravaganza (tel. 718/597-4613); events are held in varying venues in Manhattan. For more than half a century, Memorial Day has marked the start of the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit (tel. 212/982-6255), an open-air arts-and-crafts fair with some 600 exhibitors who set up in the park and on surrounding streets. The action continues for three weekends, from noon to sundown.

Summer

Early JuneThe Belmont Stakes (tel. 718/641-4700), New York's thoroughbred of horse races, and a jewel in the Triple Crown, comes to Long Island's Belmont Park Racetrack.

Early-mid-June: The Texaco New York Jazz Festival (tel. 212/219-3006), which began more than 10 years ago as an alternative to the JVC Jazz Festival (see below), sponsors 350 performances of classic, acid, Latin, and avant-garde jazz at clubs and public spaces around town. The Knitting Factory (74 Leonard St.) is a main venue; performances on the Hudson River in Battery Park City began in 1998.

June: Lesbian and Gay Pride Week (tel. 212/807-7433) includes the world's biggest annual gay pride parade, a film festival, and hundreds of other activities. During the National Puerto Rican Day Parade (tel. 212/374-5176 or 718/401-0404), dozens of energetic bands send their loud rhythms reverberating down 5th Avenue as huge crowds cheer them on.

Late June: JVC Jazz Festival New York (tel. 212/501-1390) brings giants of jazz and new faces alike to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Beacon Theater, Bryant Park, and other theaters and clubs about town.

Late June-early July: The Washington Square Music Festival (tel. 212/431-1088) is a series of Tuesday evening free outdoor classical, jazz, and big band concerts.

Late June-late July: Midsummer Night Swing (tel. 212/875-5766) transforms Lincoln Center's Fountain Plaza into an enormous open-air dance hall. Top big bands provide jazz, Dixieland, R&B, calypso, and Latin rhythms for dancers of all ages; dance lessons are offered each night.

June-August: Every Monday night filmgoers throng glorious Bryant Park, the backyard of the New York Public Library's Humanities Center, for the Bryant Park Film Festival (tel. 212/922-9393; 212/512-5700 film hot line early May-Aug.); the lawn turns into a picnic ground as fans of classic films claim space hours before show time, which is at dusk. In Central Park SummerStage (tel. 212/360-2777) presents free weekday-evening and weekend-afternoon blues, Latin, pop, African, and country music; dance; opera; and readings. Shakespeare in the Park (tel. 212/539-8500; 212/539-8750 seasonal phone at the Delacorte), sponsored by the Joseph Papp Public Theater at Central Park's Delacorte Theater, tackles the Bard and other classics, often with a star performer or two from the big or small screen. The New York Philharmonic (tel. 212/875-5656) chips in with free concerts in various city parks. Celebrate Brooklyn (tel. 718/855-7882 ext. 52), New York's longest-running free performing arts festival, brings pop, jazz, rock, classical, klezmer, African, Latin, Caribbean multicultural music, as well as spoken-word and theatrical performances, to the band shell in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

Early July-mid-August: The Museum of Modern Art's sculpture garden becomes an alfresco auditorium on Friday and Saturday evenings for Summergarden performances of 20th-century classical music, played by graduate students and alumni of the Juilliard School (tel. 212/708-9400).

July 4: Lower Manhattan celebrates Independence Day (tel. 212/484-1222) with the Great 4th of July Festival, which includes arts, crafts, ethnic food, live entertainment, and a parade from Bowling Green to City Hall. South Street Seaport also puts on a celebration. Fireworks (tel. 212/560-4060) fill the night sky over the East River. The best viewing points are FDR Drive from 14th to 41st streets (access via 23rd, 34th, and 48th streets) and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The FDR Drive is closed to traffic, but arrive early, as police sometimes restrict even pedestrian traffic.

July: Lincoln Center Festival (tel. 212/875-5928), a summer performance event lasting several weeks, includes classical music concerts, contemporary music and dance presentations, stage works, and non-Western arts.

August: Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (tel. 212/875-5108) is a series of music, dance, and family-oriented events lasting almost the entire month. Harlem Week (tel. 212/862-7200), the world's largest black and Hispanic festival, runs for about two weeks. Come for concerts, gospel events, and the concurrent Black Film Festival and Taste of Harlem Food Festival. The music of Mozart and his peers wafts through Lincoln Center during the Mostly Mozart festival (tel. 212/875-5103), whose orchestra plays under the inspired baton of Gerard Schwarz; solo guest performers illuminate chamber works in recitals. Free outdoor afternoon concerts are followed by casual evening concerts at reasonable prices.

Late August: Brooklyn's County Fair (tel. 718/689-8600) goes the old-fashioned route, with watermelon-eating contests, pony rides, and the like.

Late August-early September: The U.S. Open Tennis Tournament (tel. 800/524-8440), in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, is one of the city's top annual sport events.

Autumn

Labor Day weekend: A Caribbean revel modeled after the harvest carnival of Trinidad and Tobago, the West Indian American Day Parade (tel. 212/484-1222), in Brooklyn, is New York's largest parade and the centerpiece of a weekend's worth of festivities. Celebrations begin with a Friday-evening salsa, reggae, and calypso extravaganza at the Brooklyn Museum and end on Monday afternoon with a gigantic Mardi Gras-style parade of floats, elaborately costumed dancers, stilt walkers, and West Indian food and music.

September: Garlands and lights bedeck Little Italy's Mulberry Street and environs for the Feast of San Gennaro (tel. 212/764-6330), the city's oldest, grandest, largest, and most crowded festa, held in honor of the patron saint of Naples. Broadway on Broadway (tel. 212/563-2929) brings some of the best current musical theater to the streets for a free two-hour outdoor concert held in Times Square in early September.

September 19: Publishers of all stripes set up displays along 5th Avenue from 48th to 57th streets for New York Is Book Country (tel. 212/207-7242), where you can preview forthcoming books, meet authors, admire beautiful book jackets, chat with George Plimpton at the Paris Review booth, and enjoy live entertainment and bookbinding demonstrations. Bring the kids.

Late September-early October: Begun in 1963, the New York Film Festival (tel. 212/875-5610) is the city's most prestigious annual film event. Cinephiles pack various Lincoln Center venues; advance tickets to afternoon and evening screenings are essential to guarantee a seat.

October 14-21: Considered one of the world's top art fairs, the International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show (tel. 212/642-8572) brings dealers from the United States and Europe, who show treasures from antiquity to the 20th century.

October 31: Fifty thousand revelers, many in bizarre but brilliant costumes, march up 6th Avenue (from Spring to 23rd Sts.) in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade (tel. 914/758-5519).

October-April: New York Rangers Hockey (tel. 212/465-6741) attracts passionate fans at Madison Square Garden. The ever-popular New York Knickerbockers (tel. 212/465-5867) basketball team continues to fill up Madison Square Garden during their home games.

November 7: The New York City Marathon (tel. 212/860-4455), the world's largest, begins on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and snakes through all five boroughs before finishing at Tavern on the Green in Central Park.

November 11: On Veteran's Day an annual parade marches down 5th Avenue to the United War Veterans Council of New York County.

November 18-21: The 21st annual Fall Antiques Show (tel. 212/777-5218), the foremost American-antiques show in the country and a bonanza for collectors of Americana, attracts 75 dealers from all over the United States to the Seventh Regiment Armory.

November 25: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (tel. 212/494-4495) is a New York tradition; huge balloons float down Central Park West from 77th Street to Broadway and Herald Square. The night-before inflating of the balloons has become an event in its own right.

November-January: The Radio City Christmas Spectacular features the famed Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall (tel. 212/247-4777).

Late November-early January: Every year the Christmas window displays on view at Saks Fifth Avenue (611 5th Ave., between 49th and 50th Sts.) and Lord & Taylor (424 5th Ave., between 38th and 39th Sts.) are more inventive and festive than ever.

Late December: A Giant Hanukkah Menorah is lighted at Grand Army Plaza (5th Ave. and 59th St., tel. 718/778-6000).