Weekend Preview — The Daily Boston Brief, August 20, 2026

Thu 8/20

ICA Free Thursday Nights · Free · 5 to 9pm · Seaport

Start the weekend indoors, because today is the one day of the four you would rather not be standing in a park. The ICA opens its galleries free every Thursday evening, harbor views included, and advance tickets are required. Derrick Adams: View Master is up. If you want a table: Row 34 is a short walk along the waterfront, takes bookings on OpenTable, and sits seventh on this week’s most-booked list.

Fri 8/21

USS Constitution Underway · 10am to 2pm · Charlestown Navy Yard

Old Ironsides leaves her berth for one of her rare underway turnarounds in Boston Harbor, viewable from the Navy Yard between 10am and 2pm. Friday is the driest of the three weekend days — 78 degrees and a 33 percent chance of showers — and this is the thing to spend it on. The USS Constitution Museum next door has Greg M. Cooper’s Exploring Old Ironsides on view daily. If you want a table: Monument Restaurant & Tavern is a short walk up into Charlestown and takes bookings on OpenTable.

Sat 8/22

Greenway Food Truck Festival · Free · 11am to 5pm · Rowes Wharf

Four blocks of the Rose Kennedy Greenway fill with food trucks, artisan vendors and local brews, with an inflatable obstacle course, a rock wall and mini-golf running alongside the Rings Fountain and the carousel. Admission is free and the RSVP is optional. Worth knowing before you plan the trip in: the Greenway runs along the surface road where the Orange Line is not running this week.

Sun 8/23

Hung Ching Children’s Lion Dancing · Free · 9am · Chin Park, Chinatown

Young performers from the Hung Ching troupe bring traditional lion dancing to Chin Park on the Greenway, free and open to all with no registration. It is outdoors and Sunday carries a 44 percent chance of showers, so have a backup: Trident’s open mic turns the Newbury Street bookstore cafe into a poetry room on Sunday night, indoors and also free. If you want a table: Shojo is around the corner in Chinatown and takes bookings on OpenTable.

Free this weekend: Mayor’s Movie Night: Anaconda Thu 8pm, Hyde Park · Hawa Collective: Concerts in the Courtyard Fri 12:30pm, Copley · Night Shift on The Greenway Sat from noon, Dewey Square

Last chance: Summer’s Bounty Fest at Boston Public Market closes today, Aug 20 · Kyle Kinane at Laugh Boston through Saturday, Aug 22

Jack Harlow: Monica Tour · Friday · MGM Music Hall at Fenway

Lansdowne Street on a Friday the Sox are also home. Give the block, and the Green Line, extra time.

August Adventures Free Day: Larz Anderson Auto Museum · Free · Friday · Brookline

America’s oldest car collection, on the Brookline hill, with the admission waived for the day.

Boston Triathlon · Saturday 6am to noon · Carson Beach and Moakley Park

Swim, bike and run out of South Boston, free to watch from the beach. It runs again Sunday.

New England Revolution vs. New York City FC · Sunday · Gillette Stadium

The Revolution close the weekend at home in Foxborough.

Local

Harvard said Tuesday it will pay $53 million to settle claims over body parts that had been donated for research and were instead stolen and sold. The former morgue manager at the medical school, Cedric Lodge, 58, was fired in 2023 and sentenced to eight years in December after pleading guilty to interstate transportation of stolen goods; a federal investigation found he supplied brains, skin and other parts to collectors in several states. The remains had come through the Anatomical Gift Program and were meant to be cremated after research ended. The university, in a statement reported by the New York Times Service, reaffirmed its “deep sorrow and empathy for the families of donors who may have been impacted.”

City Hall

In a letter released Tuesday, Mayor Michelle Wu urged owners of Boston parking lots and garages to turn down federal immigration officials looking to rent space for vehicles, writing that it would be “an unprovoked and unwarranted escalation.” WBUR reports the letter follows a public notice earlier this month in which ICE sought nearly 250 parking spots around Boston, part of a wider federal effort to locate what it called surge parking in 14 communities. The city has also filed a public records request to learn whether any lot owners responded. Homeland Security officials, posting on X, called Wu’s move unhinged and said she has no authority to block the use of private property.

Politics

The 2023 contract the city negotiated with the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association allows civilians to fill construction details when officers cannot cover them. More than three years later, the Dorchester Reporter finds the details are still handed out exclusively to officers, precinct by precinct. Asked about the delay, Wu said the city has procured a technology platform for a new assignment system but still has to open it up and hire, recruit and train the flaggers themselves: “I am very impatient on this front.” Civilians already do the work in other Massachusetts communities and on state highways.

Business

Newton-based Dinosaur Capital Partners has landed $39.6 million in construction financing to turn 31 Milk St. into 110 apartments, Banker & Tradesman reports off a Suffolk County mortgage filed Monday. The lender is S.USA Life Insurance Company of Miami. The 86,730-square-foot building went up in 1923 and its stone facade stays; the new systems will be all-electric, most of the units will be one-bedrooms, and 20 percent are set aside as income-restricted. The Healey administration put $4 million into the project in January under a state program encouraging office-to-residential conversions, alongside $3.4 million for 80 units at 15 Court Square.