With concert season near, locals seek answers in suits against Forest Hills Stadium

Locals around Forest Hills Stadium have concerns about concert noise from the venue, which they say have created quality of life issues detailed in two separate, ongoing lawsuits. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

After a brief reprieve during the winter months, residents of Forest Hills Gardens say that with concerts set to soon return to Forest Hills Stadium so too will the noise and other irritants they are fighting to address in two separate, ongoing lawsuits.

Their concerns were recently aired out at a town hall meeting hosted by Borough President Donovan Richards at Borough Hall. While some Forest Hills locals at the town hall jeered Forest Hills Stadium, others cheered on what is arguably one of the biggest economic draws of their Central Queens community.

For several months, a group of community members have been locked in lawsuits against the stadium’s ownership over concerns that the venue’s concerts create large-scale quality of life issues in the private community. The lawsuits allege that whenever musicians come to town at the stadium, the windows of their homes shake.

Representatives from the stadium’s owners, the West Side Tennis Club, have in turn argued the issues are not as bad as locals say, and that those with complaints are merely a small sect of the local community.

Regardless, as two separate cases are carried out in Queens courthouses and the stadium’s first concert of 2024 is less than two months away, locals believe their concerns are not being addressed by local officials.

“City officials are looking the other way and are going easy on them,” said local Andy Court. “It's happening, and it's wrong.”

Court, along with other Forest Hills locals who are in support of one of the two lawsuits against West Side Tennis Club – Concerned Citizens of Forest Hills Inc. et al vs. The West Side Tennis Club – attended the borough president’s town hall at the end of February, and were unhappy with the response they got.

“They really didn't answer any questions, they didn’t really substantively address this and they really didn't give people a chance to speak,” Court said. “A lot of people at that meeting showed up to hear more about the stadium and the concerts and they didn't hear it and they were really disappointed by the way it was handled.”

“We've tried to engage with them, and they've so far really disappointed us,” he added.

At the meeting, Richards stated there was “no easy answer,” to the problems that locals say truly only began in recent years, when the stadium which once hosted the U.S Open Tennis Tournament, began playing host to around two dozen concerts a year.

“I don’t envy anyone who lives outside of a stadium,” Richards said. “I have to figure out a way [to resolve the issue] because the stadium isn’t going anywhere.”

Richards said he wants to “strike a balance,” and wants to get groups together to discuss the complaints, but doesn’t want to be “in a room with people at each other’s throats.”

Local City Councilmember Lynn Schulman, who was not at the town hall, echoed similar hopes that a balance can be struck amongst competing arguments.

“As the Queens borough president has said, the concerts aren’t going anywhere, so we have to find a way to get everybody to work together,” she said in a phone conversation with the Eagle on Friday.

“Everybody has an opinion. It's a great community. We're trying to figure out the different pieces and it's important to me that we have the ability to bring economic development to the community, which is the concerts, and that we also address some of the issues that are going on,” she added.

Schulman said she has specifically sought to get help for the community members on sanitation and security issues that come from the stadium’s large concert crowds, another concern from locals.

Those concerns are outlined in the Concerned Citizen lawsuit, filed in December, and The Forest Hills Gardens Corporation vs. The West Side Tennis Club lawsuit, which was filed last May.

Supporters of the Concerned Citizen lawsuit specifically say they aren’t averse to the concerts themselves, merely the level of noise and the instances in which the concerts extend past 10 p.m., a practice they argue goes against city law.

“The noise can be intolerable, the windows literally shake,” local Martin Levinson told the Eagle. “The stadium has received the violations from the [Department of Environmental Protection], but these violations don't amount to much; you can just write them off as a minor expense.”

“We are not opposed to the concerts, contrary to what a lot of people think,” Levinson added.

Levinson also attended the BP’s town hall and agreed he didn’t feel good about the responses they got from officials.

The petitioners on the case retained the services of Alan Fierstein, an acoustical consultant, who, according to legal documents reviewed by the Eagle, testified in an affidavit that his readings at various different times and locations outside of the stadium showed that concerts in 2022 and 2023 exceeded the city’s noise variances.

“It's not like it's me just taking out my phone – people who are certified by the Department of Environmental Protection to do this work, and they've taken readings on highly calibrated state of the art machinery, two different companies, different events, different times, and they've come up with clear data showing a pattern of violation of the city noise code,” Court said.

The community members say that the problems aren’t about the stadium or the concerts, it's about quality of life.

“They describe parts of homes shaking, things rattling and shaking from the vibrations,” said Court. “That's not NIMBYism, that's basic survival, health and safety – quality of life”

Court and Levinson both say that their specific lawsuit – not speaking for those at the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation – only seeks what they call “reasonable controls” on the stadium. Restrictions which include lowering volume of the concerts and not allowing them to extend past 10 p.m.

“A lot of us have attended concerts in the past, a lot of us have just called for reasonable restrictions and for them to turn it down and not make people's homes shake,” said Court.

As with any community issue, not every single member of the community is feeling the same impact. Although 500 community members have signed the Concerned Citizen’s petition against the stadium’s practices, some have given legal affidavits in support of the West Side Tennis Club’s concerts.

The West Side Tennis Club, who owns Forest Hills Stadium, argues that only a small portion of the Forest Hills Gardens community opposes their concerts. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

“I generally find the volume of concerts at the stadium to be significantly quieter and even less disruptive than many of the routine noises of urban life that I hear in Forest Hills on a daily basis,” local Arlene Chernenko said in her affidavit. “I generally do not find concerts to be inordinately loud. As is typical of my friends and neighbors nearby, I sometimes do not hear concerts in my apartment at all. To the extent I hear anything, it is at such a low volume that it does not interfere with my daily life and routines in my apartment.”

Another local, who the Eagle spoke to on his porch with a direct view with the stadium’s stage, said it hasn’t been enough of an issue for him to get involved in petitions or lawsuits.

“It’s manageable,” said the resident, who said he wished to remain anonymous. “The amount of concerns are getting a little out of hand.”

However, the resident did say that he does occasionally feel his windows rattle, and that he believes “laws should apply to everyone.”

Gibson Dunn, the firm representing West Side Tennis Club in both lawsuits, has argued that the opposition to the concerts is from a small portion of the community, and that limiting concerts come at the expense of the local economy.

“The stadium has been critical to a growing and thriving Forest Hills for 100 years, by driving top-level entertainment, tens of thousands of yearly visitors, tens of millions of dollars of annual economic activity, and thousands of jobs to the neighborhood,” said Akiva Shapiro from the firm. “Shutting the stadium down, as both sets of plaintiffs ask the court to do, is not only legally baseless, but would be catastrophic to the local economy, countless mom-and-pop businesses in the area, and the local job market.”

“It is unfortunate that a small number of vocal opponents, dressed in the sheepskin of neighborhood advocates and trumpeting bogus claims that the court and New York City officials have time and again rebuffed, seek to trample on the will of the vast majority of local residents, who have repeatedly expressed their strong support for concerts at the stadium,” Shapiro added.

However, contrary to Shaprio’s statement, no where in the Concerned Citizens lawsuit’s petition do the petitioners call for “shutting the stadium down.”

“What our lawsuit clearly says is you shouldn't have any more events without following the noise code and there should be a plan in place for them not only following it, but also monitoring,” said Court. “All we're asking for right now is that they follow the noise code and that there'll be independent monitoring of it inside people's homes so that we know they're actually following.”

The petition specifically says that the “plaintiffs seek to enjoin defendant from continuing to create and/or allow this nuisance, which interferes with plaintiffs' quiet enjoyment of their homes, when the next concert season begins.”

The stadium’s counsel has also said that if you live near a stadium, noise should be expected, but community members say that the concerts have only been a problem in recent years, long after many of them moved into the community.

Elected officials addressed the Forest Hills Stadium issues at a recent town hall meeting hosted by Borough President Donovan Richards in February. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

In 2022, the stadium has 22 musical and comedy events – nine were held in 2015. The stadium’s first concert, The Kingston Trio, was held in 1960.

Between 1997 and 2013, no concerts were held at all.

According to legal documents both cases have their next court appearances scheduled for Wednesday, March 20.

As those lawsuits play out, Forest Hills Stadium has 19 concert events scheduled for 2024, with the first one of the season coming on May 4.