New York Today: Night Music

Joshua Bright for The New York Times The New York Philharmonic at Prospect Park is one of many outdoor concerts happening around the city on Wednesday.

Updated, 12:36 p.m. | City summers are sticky, but there's a saving grace: plenty of fun free stuff, even midweek.

If you can get through the day on Wednesday and the weather cooperates, you will be rewarded with a slew of concerts.

The New York Philharmonic kicks off its summer series with a concert in Prospect Park at 8 p.m., followed by fireworks.

At Crotona Park in the Bronx, D.J. Kool Herc, who pretty much invented hip-hop circa 1973, will perform at 7 p.m.

And B.B. King, still on the road at 87, plays the Lowdown Hudson Blues Festival near World Financial Center at 6 p.m.

From old school to very, very old school (Tchaikovsky), it's all out there.

Here's what else you need to know to start your Wednesday.

WEATHER

Warm (mid-80s) and muggy with thunderstorms likely in the afternoon and evening. Bring the umbrella.

TRANSIT & TRAFFIC

- Roads: Alternate-side parking rules in effect.

- Mass Transit Click for the latest M.T.A. status.

- Air Travel Storm-related delays have been reported on flights into area airports on Wednesday. Click for the latest status.

COMING UP TODAY

- On the campaign trail, Bill de Blasio goes to Brooklyn to voice support for keeping Long Island College Hospital open. At 7 p.m., Republican mayoral candidates will debate, live on NY1.

- In the comptroller's race, Eliot Spitzer is holding a petitioning party Wednesday night at a restaurant. Women's groups will criticize him outside City Hall at 11 a.m.

- Andy Golub, an artist who dislikes public nudity laws and likes publicity, intends to lather body paint on naked models in Times Square in the afternoon. He has been arrested in the past for doing so.

- Jury deliberations continue in the trial of Nicholas Brooks, charged with killing his girlfriend inside the Soho House club.

- Still more outdoor concerts! Tenor saxophonist Houston Person at Grant's Tomb, Leon Russell at Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City, both at 7 p.m. [Free]

- An experimental adaptation of “Death of a Salesman” opens inside a shuttered clothing store in the Pier 17 mall at South Street Seaport. [Free]

- Space Shuttle Pavilion â€" the new home for the space shuttle Enterprise â€" opens at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan.

- But not outside: A master Tibetan butter sculptor will show how it is done at 5 p.m. at the Rubin Museum of Art. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times's Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- Ed Koch's posthumously released F.B.I. files describe a plot to paint him as a racist by forging a letter in his name warning of a “crisis” if a black mayor were elected. [Associated Press]

- The police issued more tickets for biking on the sidewalk than for speeding in a car last year. [Streetsblog via Gothamist]

- Gov. Chris Christie leads his Democratic opponent 61 to 29 percent in a new poll.

- Eliot Spitzer is said to be offering campaign workers the unheard-of sum of $800 a day to collect signatures. [Daily News, New York Times]

- Prosecutors say the Bonanno crime family branched out into Viagra sales. [New York Times]

- A jealous ex-boyfriend trying to run over his replacement on the Upper East Side struck and killed the man's Siberian husky instead, the authorities said. [New York Post]

- In other dog news, Chase, the golden retriever who retrieved bats for the Yankees' New Jersey minor-league affiliate, died just after retiring at age 13. [Associated Press]

- Two stars for Wylie Dufresne's latest adventure in restaurant science, featuring “a nice, normal plate of fettuccine, except that it tastes exactly like a Katz's pastrami on rye with mustard.” [New York Times]

- Mets win, Yanks lose.

AND FINALLY…

Fifty years ago this week, a girl group of high school classmates from Queens called the Exciters were No. 86 on the charts with “Get Him,” the effervescent sequel to their No. 4 hit “Tell Him.” Ya Ya Yo, indeed.

E.C. Gogolak contributed reporting.

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