The show will go on at Forest Hills Stadium – for now
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The NYPD and the city have greenlit concerts at Forest Hills Stadium for now, but some opposing locals aren’t quite convinced. Photo via Forest Hills Stadium/Facebook
By Ryan Schwach
Concert-goers and Forest Hills Stadium are celebrating after the city cleared the way for the show to go on at the Queens venue after a denied permit amid an ongoing local dispute threatened to derail the summer concert season. But how long that greenlight will stay up remains to be seen.
On Monday, Forest Hills Stadium’s operator West Side Tennis Club and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced an agreement that they say will allow the summer concert season at the stadium to move ahead as planned. Last month, the venue’s shows were cast into doubt when the NYPD declined to issue crucial permitting to the Queens concert venue.
As a result of the agreement, the NYPD decided on Monday it would issue the stadium conditional permits, but only for the first summer concert, a May 31 appearance by rock-band Bloc Party, leaving the remainder of the venue’s planned shows potentially up in the air.
And while the stadium and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards touted the agreement this week, it doesn’t appear all parties involved in the ongoing dispute over the venue’s shows are happy with the result.
The Forest Hills Gardens Corporation, the co-op still locked in a legal dispute with the stadium, told the Eagle they were left out of the agreement, despite officials claiming the local group played a part in the negotiations.
The board of the co-op – which is located adjacent to the stadium and owns the land and the private streets that surround the venue – said they are disappointed by the results of the so-called agreement.
FHGC previously sued the stadium, arguing the arena’s concerts are too loud, too frequent and dramatically harm their quality of life inside the private neighborhood in New York City.
The agreement, brokered by Richards with the NYPD and Forest Hills Stadium, includes an alternate safety plan which will allow FHS to deploy privately hired security to police the streets around the venue during concerts.
With the new plan in place, the NYPD granted the conditional permits necessary for Bloc Party to play on May 31 – but continued support is contingent on the stadium’s ability to police the streets itself and maintain noise levels for the concert.
Forest Hills Stadium said that while the agreement only applies to the May 31 show, they believe that they will be set for the season's other 18 concerts scheduled for the summer.
“We’re excited to welcome fans back this summer and proud to continue our role as a cultural cornerstone of the Queens community,” the stadium said.
The concert season was cast into doubt last month when the NYPD announced they would not be able to police summer concerts properly because FHGC had told them they could not legally close their private streets to facilitate crowd control.
After the NYPD’s decision to hold up the concerts, Richards wrote a letter calling on the city to award the necessary permits and let the music play.
“Forest Hills Stadium is a cultural crown jewel of our borough, bringing diverse crowds from all over the world to Queens every summer through the unifying power of music,” the BP said. “This historic venue is emblematic of all that makes Queens great, and I’m thrilled to say we’ve struck a deal to ensure the shows will go on in 2025 as planned.”
The BP is a strong supporter of the stadium, and has long lauded its cultural and economical importance to the World’s Borough, and Forest Hills community.
“Beyond its cultural impact, the annual concert series is a boost to Forest Hills’ economy, uplifting small businesses and creating hundreds of jobs at the stadium in the process,” he said. “I’m grateful to Mayor [Eric] Adams, Deputy Mayor [Randy] Mastro and all involved for coming together, negotiating in good faith and crafting an agreement that will benefit everyone in Central Queens and beyond.”
However, following an announcement of the supposed agreement this week, Forest Hills Gardens Corporation told the Eagle they were not involved in negotiations.
FHGC said the decisions were “unilateral,” and did not involve them, despite the claims that they were.
“l’ll be really clear, they completely went behind our back,” said Matthew Mandell, a volunteer legal chair for FHGC. “We agreed to have mediation with a professional mediator so that we can really work through these big, long-term issues that have been simmering for the last two years. Instead of doing that, they ran and used political connections or tried to basically go behind our back and work it out without us. It's just really bad faith.”
In turn, Forest Hills Stadium claimed that FHGC is stalling on a date for that mediation, and that FHGC is the one operating in bad faith.
That tit-for-tat, and the stress surrounding the stadium has been going on for several years.
FHGC, as well as another local group whose lawsuit was thrown out last year, have legally and publicly argued that the stadium’s number of concerts, noise levels and crowds have interfered with their quality of life.
They have cited so much in court, claiming that concert sound levels shake their homes’ windows and crowds damage their private property.
Forest Hills Stadium and its supporters have labeled FHGC as a “not-in-my-backyard” minority.
"I have long been clear that under no circumstance should an individual or small group have veto power over the socioeconomic vitality of an entire community or the cultural influence of an entire borough,” Richards said in a statement to the Eagle.
"Discussions continue with all parties involved, including legal representatives for the FHGC, who have been part of the conversation every step of the way,” he added. “I applaud Tiebreaker for its genuine efforts to be the best neighbor it can be and I continue to call on the FHGC to drop its obstructionist outlook, finally begin negotiating in good faith and join us in seeking long-term solutions that deliver for Forest Hills."
For now, Forest Hills Stadium is full-steem ahead with the music.
"Nobody should listen to this small group of individuals who are indifferent to judges' orders and the careful, comprehensive safety plan that has been vetted by the City of New York and the NYPD,” a stadium spokesperson said. “See you at the stadium this summer."
