Forest Hills Stadium was told there was no music this summer as negotiations with neighbors tired of the noise from the concert hit a brick wall.
Last week they were denied permission to a new sound amplification, following a string of lawsuits from angry residents who said their lives had been ruined by an increasingly larger concert, as the NYPD Legal Bureau shows the NYPD Law Bureau letter of notice.
Permission was denied when the NYPD got caught up in the middle of a long-standing feud between the vast Westside Tennis Club and Forest Hills Garden Corporation.
Without access to these roads at the tennis club, the NYPD could not control public safety around the stadium, and the city had no choice but to revoke concert permits.
This means that the 13 shows currently booked for the summer season in Forest Hill will not occur unless the tennis club and its neighbors are able to reach an agreement on the noise issue before the season begins at the first show on May 31st.
“We hope that the West Side Tennis Club and FHGC will come together to reach a solution to this issue and allow the NYPD to resume issuing sound amplification permits,” Gallagher wrote in his letter.
Residents of Forest Hills are choking up development as a victory.
“This is a sign that police and city hall are beginning to realize how out of control the situation at the stadium is,” a citizen of Andy Court, president of Forest Hills, told the post.
“Forest Hills Stadium and the Westside Tennis Club have brought this to themselves by repeatedly violating noise codes and refusing to agree to reasonable restrictions on these events. They are acting like they are beyond the law.”
The court is part of a crew of residents of Fed-up Forest Hills, whose outdoor stadium patience drove off last year after 11 of 36 summer concerts exceeded the local decibel limit.
The neighbor previously claimed that he had endured windows in the summer, a wall that had vibrated with such strength that it would cause cracks from plaster, and the walls had been forced to raise flags and remove hearing aids.
“This is an outdoor stadium that hits the middle of a residential neighborhood, sucking your butts all the way to your house and thrust your butts into the building. Music is sent hours at a time into people's living rooms.”
“Imagine someone who lives just outside the concert and hears,” she said. “I know people who have tiles vibrate from the roof.”
She and her neighbors said the venue, which has hosted many years of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra and more, wasn't an issue when they only had a little more than a year of shows, but dozens of those have tripled since the pandemic.
“It's like an unprecedented level of growth. It's unsustainable for the neighborhood,” said Mandel, who described his current schedule as “off the rails.”
“I don't think commercial operations of this scale belong to residential areas. The impact is too big.”
After filing a series of lawsuits against the stadium, Forest Hills Garden Corporation (FHGC) eventually blocked the NYPD and closed a series of private streets near the venue. The NYPD letter read the NYPD letter, which blocked the safe community organizations during the concert and had no choice but to refuse police to hold the concert.
Despite the dramatic move, FHGC said it wasn't trying to end what has become a beloved fixture for many New Yorkers, but it only comes to a reasonable solution to keep their neighbors happy.
“We continue to work with all our stakeholders to find a balanced solution that addresses the impact of concerts while respecting our community,” FHGC President Anthony Oprisiu said in a statement.
The tennis club noted that each of last year's concerts ended by 10pm because they previously dispelled complaints about noise, but they said they had not heard anything from the NYPD.
“Neither the stadium's owner nor the operator has been communicated by the NYPD regarding the sound permits that have been granted to the stadium at all times on demand,” said Akiba Shapiro, a lawyer with the Westside Tennis Club.
“Non-definitely hasn't raised any direct concerns about the stadium, and if the stadium suddenly closes, the city will put serious liability at stake. We can only assume that no such final decision has been made,” Shapiro added. “We question where these rumors are coming from, find them very troublesome and demand answers from the highest level of the Adams administration.”
