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10 Great Ways to Spend New Year's Eve

From yoga to drag queens and quiet folk to power pop, we round up the rest of the best

By Elizabeth Bougerol

| Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008 | Updated 8:20 AM EST

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10 great ways to spend New year's Eve that don't involve watching a ball drop.

Rev your wheels - the pedal-driven kind - in Washington Square Park with Critical Mass in the Time's Up 11th Annual New Year's Ride, ending with a big bash and fireworks in Central Park's Belvedere Castle. 10:30PM.
Leave noisemakers and booze to the rest of NYC: the 20th Annual Silent New Year's Eve Mauna (vegan feast! yoga!) at Jivamukti will cleanse your mind and spirit. 8PM.
This time last year, you'd never even heard of Lady GaGa, at Webster Hall at 8PM.
Cavort into the new year with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck -- as part of its Essential [Preston] Sturges series, Film Forum screens the wildly fabulous 1941 screwball comedy The Lady Eve at 10PM.
Joan as Police Woman, a.k.a. Joan Wasser, one of the most arresting stage presences to come along in a while, plays two shows of her spare, melodic, complicated songs at the Stone at 8 and 10PM.
Murray Hill caps a packed holiday season with a burlesque and neo-vaudeville shindig at the Zipper Factory. There will be pasties. 10:30PM.
Why not shimmy and salsa your way into 2009 at Brooklyn's Senegalese restaurant le Grand Dakar? World grooves courtesy of a whole passel of musicians and DJs from West Africa and Latin America. 7PM.
A decade or so on, Joan Osborne is still wondering if God is one of us. She cuts the ribbon at the new City Winery with a NYE show at 8PM.
Dive in to the new year with the annual Circle Line New Year's Cruise - a big party on a big boat. 10PM.
A walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with Dr. Phil (the New York historian, not the TV shrink) is nice, symbolic way to end the year. 10:15PM.