For a small town, there's a lot going on. Metuchen offers many activities that involve the community and attract residents of neighboring communities as well.
Special events like the spring Arts & Crafts Festival and the fall Country Fair, the Kidsfest, and the annual town-wide garage sale bring throngs of people to Metuchen each year. Metuchen's residents also line the streets for the annual parades on Memorial Day and for the holiday season. Other seasonal event attractions are the First Night celebration on New Year's Eve and Halloween activities like the "Haunted Trail."

One local attraction is The Forum Theater, which opened in 1927, and offers a regular series of musicals, drama, comedy and shows for children, with equity actors. Movies are shown during the off season. Home-grown talent is featured in monthly "coffeehouses" at the Borough Improvement League Building, including classical, popular and folk musicians, poets, and dramatists, served up with coffee and pastries from a local gourmet coffee store.

In the summer, an outdoor musical concert series is held at Tommy's Pond, ranging from classical to country & western, and even klezmer. Metuchen has eight playgrounds, nine ball fields (including a Little League field), tennis courts, three parks and a municipal swimming pool. The Metuchen pool complex, with a new and expanded snack bar and covered eating area, attracts nonresidents (neighboring Edison has no municipal pool) as well as Metuchenites. It offers instructional swim classes as well as social activities for different age groups.

Children's plays and other special events are held at the Metuchen Public Library, a focal point of the community since it opened as a small reading room in 1870. The current structure, dedicated in 1937, has been expanded several times and serves as a meeting place for scores of community and civic groups.

Another place to gather and grow fit in Metuchen is the Metuchen-Edison YMCA. The "Y," founded in 1921, provides comprehensive health and fitness programs to all age groups, including numerous aquatics programs and exercise classes, and state-of-the-art exercise equipment. It professes to be the largest provider of child care in Middlesex County and a leader in the development of services for the elderly and physically challenged. The Y has recently completed a campaign to expand and renovate the facility, as its membership has more than doubled in the past few years.

The Borough of Metuchen offers another alternative for youth and senior citizens to congregate. A Teen Center was established in a former schoolhouse for young people to meet and socialize. A newly built Senior Center has an arts & crafts room with a pottery kiln; a kitchen and eating area; social areas, and an exam room for visiting physicians to offer blood pressure screenings and other health services.

In addition, the Metuchen Recreation Commission and Cultural Arts Commission each offer a wide range of programming for area residents (some noted above).