Día de los Muertos in New York City Today: Ofrendas in the East Village and Times Square, and a Parade in the Bronx

While the marathon takes the avenues, a quieter observance fills the city's churches, gardens and plazas today. Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, falls on Sunday, November 1 this year, and New York's Mexican and Mexican-American communities have built the day around ofrendas — altars of marigolds, candles, photographs and food that remember the dead by welcoming them back for a day.

The city's longest-running celebration is the free one. Mano a Mano's Day of the Dead at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, at 131 East 10th Street in the East Village, runs its final day today from noon to 5 p.m., with the community ofrenda open to the public — visitors are invited to place copies of pictures, notes and letters in memory of their loved ones — alongside a Mexican folk-art marketplace and food. Sunday's program brings the Cetiliztli Nauhcampa drumming and dance circle at 2 p.m. and a Mariachi Hidalgo performance at 3 p.m.

In the Bronx, the New York Botanical Garden folds the day into its grounds: its Día de los Muertos parade steps off at 2 p.m., led by musicians and dancers with larger-than-life puppets — La Catrina, skeletons and monarch butterflies — followed by performances and dance activities on Daffodil Hill; the parade is included with garden admission. And in Times Square, the Grand Ofrenda stands on Broadway between 42nd and 43rd streets from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. through November 2, open to the public, with music and catrinas in the middle of the city's busiest crossroads.

None of it asks much of a visitor: the St. Mark's celebration is free and family-friendly, the Times Square altar is a walk-up, and the garden asks only its admission. On a Sunday when New York is already out in the streets cheering the living at full volume, the ofrendas offer the day's other register — remembrance, done in color, in public, and in community.