Herbert Von King Park in Bed-Stuy is giving over Saturday, October 24 to Día de Muertos, with a free sugar skull art workshop, an afternoon celebration featuring the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, and an evening outdoor screening of the animated film Coco. Every event on the day is free and run by NYC Parks.

The daytime programs take place inside the Herbert Von King Cultural Arts Center at 670 Lafayette Avenue, the recreation center inside the park. The movie and a morning fitness class are held outdoors in the park itself, at Greene and Marcy avenues.

The schedule for October 24

Dance classes and a Calpulli performance

The afternoon celebration features the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, which will lead two dance classes, one at noon and one at 1 p.m. Doors open at 1:30 p.m. for a live performance by the company at 2 p.m., with entry while space allows.

NYC Parks is encouraging guests to come dressed as a Catrín or Catrina, the dressed-up skeleton figures associated with the holiday. Parks staff are taking RSVPs for the dance classes through the recreation center; the contact is listed on the event page.

Calpulli is a nonprofit founded in New York City in 2003. Its mission is to celebrate Mexican and Mexican-American cultural heritage through dance programs performed with live music. Alongside its touring company, it runs arts-in-education programs in schools and a community program of folkloric dance and music classes that is offered for a voluntary donation for young people and at low cost for adults. The company's own Día de Muertos production played Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on October 17 and 18.

The sugar skull workshop

The sugar skull session is the final installment of a three-week workshop series at the Cultural Arts Center that also ran on October 10 and October 17. Participants paint and pattern their own sugar skull while learning about the cultural traditions of Día de Muertos, the holiday dedicated to remembering and honoring loved ones who have died. NYC Parks lists it among its programs for kids.

Coco under the stars

The day ends with a free outdoor screening of Coco, the 2017 animated film about Miguel, a boy who dreams of becoming a musician and ends up in the Land of the Dead searching for his ancestors. The screening is part of the Movies Under the Stars series that NYC Parks runs with the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment. Coco is rated PG.

Movies begin at dusk, so bring a blanket or something to sit on. Glass bottles and alcohol are not allowed. If heavy rain or extreme weather is expected, NYC Parks will decide before the screening whether to cancel and will post the decision on its website.

About the park

Herbert Von King Park covers almost eight acres in the middle of Bedford-Stuyvesant. The City of Brooklyn acquired the land in 1857, making it one of the first parks the city established, and Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, the designers of Prospect Park and Central Park, submitted a plan for it in 1871. It was originally called Tompkins Park, after Daniel D. Tompkins, a four-term New York governor and vice president under James Monroe.

The recreation center that now hosts the Cultural Arts Center opened in 1973 after a push by the Tompkins Park Recreation and Cultural Association. It includes an auditorium named for ragtime and jazz composer Eubie Blake, with a mural by artist Akwesi M. Asante depicting 50 African American figures. The park's amphitheater was named in 2011 for Almira Kennedy Coursey, a local educator who helped turn the park into a center of neighborhood activity.

The park carries the name of Herbert Von King (1912 to 1985), a community leader known as the Mayor of Bedford-Stuyvesant who was active in the neighborhood for more than 50 years. He founded Boy Scout Troop 219 in 1933 and served on the local school board.

Getting there

The park sits between Lafayette and DeKalb avenues and Marcy and Tompkins avenues. The nearest subway is the G train at Bedford-Nostrand Avenues, a few blocks west of the park.

All four events on Saturday, October 24 are free. NYC Parks has opened online registration for each one on its event pages, and you can sign up there in advance. The Cultural Arts Center is at 670 Lafayette Avenue, and the outdoor events gather in the park near Greene and Marcy avenues. For accessibility requests, NYC Parks can be reached at accessibility@parks.nyc.gov or (212) 360-1430.

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