Recruitment at a Huge Commuter school
 

Hey Greeks, I'm rush chair of a Co-Ed Fraternity and having a little trouble with creating interesting rush events because we are a commuter school in NYC (20,000+ undergrads) and people don't tend to stay on campus when they don't have to.
And since this is NYC we obviously don't have a sorority house to throw big parties at, so we have to work with the locations around the school.

Any creative suggestions that can be done in a small-ish location? (apartments/class rooms/parks etc)

First off, if people are interested in greek life them they will come so don't worry too much about getting people to stay on campus if they would otherwise leave.
That said when we are planning recruitment at our large urban commuter school we consider the following things.

Timing: we don't want people taking public transit or walking home in the dark so we wrap up as close to 9pm so that they can get on the train by 9:30 (before they switch to once and hour stops). We use the schools time table to plan the start time as most day-students are getting out of their last class.
Location: we use empty rooms on campus conference rooms are best but classrooms can work too. People will give up if they can't find you so let them know in advance where you are going to be
RSVP: when we table in the quad or people email us we keep track of their email and send them an Evite. That way they can see who else is coming and can RSVP so we know how many to plan for.

OK now to answer your original question. Anything, free and with food usually gets people there. Pizza and bowling works well for us, as does a service project followed by food. Movies are bad since you can't talk.