New York Today: Winging It

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times One of the 500 stars of the butterfly show opening Saturday at the city’s natural history museum.

It is an annual migration.

Via FedEx.

For weeks, boxes of chrysalises have been arriving at the American Museum of Natural History.

On Saturday, their contents will be unveiled with a great fluttering of gossamer wings as the museum’s Butterfly Conservatory begins its 16th year.

More than 150 species will fill the lushly humid indoor garden until Memorial Day.

Footwide atlas moths in snake-face camouflage.

Paper kite butterflies in op-art patterns.

Ulysses swallowtails flashing electric-blue upper wings.

They alight on blossoms and branches, but also, delightfully, on sleeve and skin.

“Mostly they’re looking for food and water or mates,” said Hazel Davies, the museum’s associate director of living exhibits. “But if you do hang around in there, they like to drink up perspiration because it’s full of salt.

“They’re particularly fond of bald men’s heads.”

Here’s what else you need to know for Friday and the weekend.

WEATHER

Lots of clouds, a bit more rain and a high of 65.

The weekend is a mixed bag, like life itself. Sunshine and rain Saturday, rain and then sun Sunday. Nice all day Columbus Day, though.

COMMUTE

Subways: Fine so far. Click for latest status.

Rails: Fine so far. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North and New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today but suspended Monday for Columbus Day.

COMING UP TODAY

- Bill de Blasio takes to the airwaves: on the labor leader Norman Seabrook’s show on WWRL-AM (1600) at 11:45 a.m., on WOR-AM (710) at 9:45 p.m., and on the premiere of “Up Late With Alec Baldwin” on MSNBC at 10 p.m.

- Joseph J. Lhota meets with Realtors in Staten Island, appears on PIX-11 news at 6:30 p.m. and attends a church festival in Queens.

- Tonight at midnight is the deadline to register to vote in the November election. Click to register online. Or by mail. Or go to one of these places.

- Snoop around a big, old house on the Upper East Side called Gracie Mansion as the weekend-long Historic House Trust Festival gets under way. It includes more than two dozen venerable buildings across the city. 5:30 p.m. [Free, reservation required]

- Jonathan Lethem speaks at N.Y.U., perhaps about his new novel, “Dissident Gardens.” 7 p.m. [Free]

- Horizons, an annual weekend-long conference on psychedelic drugs and their use in science, medicine and spirituality, kicks off with a reception at the Rubin Museum of Art on West 17th Street. 6 p.m.

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

IN THE NEWS

- Two Orthodox rabbis were arrested on charges that they ran a rather unorthodox business helping women persuade reluctant husbands to grant them a divorce. It allegedly included kidnapping and torturing the men for a fee of $50,000. [New York Times]

- A comeback of sorts in the polls for Mr. Lhota: he now trails Mr. de Blasio by 43 points, down from 50. [New York Times]

- A Staten Island woman who lost her husband and daughter to Hurricane Sandy became the first homeowner bought out by the city under the hurricane recovery program. [New York Times]

- Scoreboard: Giants lose to Bears, 27-21. Rangers fall to Ducks, 6-0.

THE WEEKEND

Saturday

- A show of Danish paintings of the 19th and early 20th centuries opens at Scandinavia house on East 38th Street. (Recommended by The Times’s “Weekend Miser.”) [Free]

- The Pier 42 Fall Festival on the Lower East Side features kite-flying competitions, waterfront-related art fun for children and an oral history project led by the Rhizomatic Museum. Noon to 4 p.m. [Free]

Sunday

- Meet hawks, owls and other birds of prey at the Raptor Fest at the Audubon center in Prospect Park. Noon to 3 p.m. [Free]

- Watch two graffiti artists, Chris “Daze” Ellis and Lady Pink, do their thing live outside the Museum of the City of New York to celebrate the museum’s publication of “City as Canvas,” a book about New York graffiti. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. [Free to watch from the street]

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

Weekend Street Closings: Click for complete list.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

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