Thousands came out for Solstice Yoga in Times Square.

Photos by Sydney Froelich

“Yoga, being an art, a science, a discipline, almost a blueprint for how to live your life… Yoga is the one way that we can find those qualities within ourselves,” said Douglass Stewart, co-founder of Solstice in Times Square: Mind Over Madness Yoga.

That harmony was on full display Friday, June 20 as thousands of pink yoga mats stretched across Times Square for the 23rd annual event. From sunrise to sunset, New Yorkers and visitors gathered for free yoga classes in the heart of the city, celebrating the longest day of the year in the sun.

“This is the best day to recharge our spirit and our soul, because we have the maximum amount of sunlight,” said Tim Tompkins, Stewart’s fellow co-founder and former Times Square Alliance president. 

Together, Tompkins and Stewart created Solstice in Times Square: Mind Over Madness Yoga in 2003. What began with just a few yogis has since grown into one of the city’s most visually striking annual traditions. 

Stewart, a seasoned yoga instructor based on the Upper East Side, brought a vision of using yoga to foster inner peace. Tompkins, a native of suburban Philadelphia and former Times Square Alliance president, had spent two decades transforming Times Square from a chaotic commercial hub into a more welcoming public space. Their shared vision of using yoga as a method to counteract the city’s bustling energy has turned the annual Solstice event into an incredibly meaningful experience. 

The idea was simple when they first posed the question 22 years ago: Could people come together in the heart of the city using yoga to find peace amidst inner and outer turmoil? In June 2003, under a rainy forecast that kept most New Yorkers indoors, just three people – Stewart, Tompkins, and one of Stewart’s students – unrolled their mats in George M. Cohan Plaza. 

From those humble beginnings, the event has grown exponentially: the following year saw around 100 participants, and this year more than 9,000 people registered to practice. 

While their crowd has grown, their intentions remain unchanged: to create a space for reflection, stillness, and connection. 

That spirit of connection drew many on Friday – each person bringing their own story to the mat. 

“Yoga has been a big part of my life for about 10 years now. My husband was sick with pancreatic cancer, and that brought me into needing some peace for myself…coming for this event in this time of the world, I’m just so blessed to be here.” Says Mandy Gould, a first-time attendee from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who was sharing the moment with her daughter.

Whether you are a first timer or a longtime practitioner, a New Yorker or a visitor, the event truly welcomes everyone. People of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels come together to follow the guidance of trained yoga instructors leading each class. 

One of the instructors leading the day’s classes was Riva Gdanski, a former software developer from Chicago who turned to yoga more than a decade ago after struggling with carpal tunnel syndrome. That first class, she said, was life-changing – setting her on a path to become an international yoga teacher who has 760k+ on Instagram. 

For Gdanski, teaching in Times Square for the first time was both exciting and a challenge: 

“It’s about finding calm in the chaos – tuning in, focusing on the breath, and learning how to harness that energy inward,” she said. “If you can do it here, in the middle of Times Square, you can do it anywhere.”

By sunset, pink mats were rolled up, selfies snapped, and the yogis drifted back into the streets of Manhattan. But for a few bright hours on the solstice, Times Square wasn’t just a tourist attraction – it was a living example of what happens when thousands of New Yorkers and visitors come together with a shared purpose: to prove that even in the heart of New York, there’s always room to breathe.