Before the music came back, most people in the brick townhouses and apartment buildings of Forest Hills didn’t give much thought to the crumbling, steel-and-concrete Romanesque stadium abandoned by the United States Open 37 years ago.
Its $120,000-a-year taxes, waist-high weeds and colony of feral cats were headaches for its owners, the West Side Tennis Club.
But rock shows have returned to the Forest Hills Stadium, with window-rattling sounds that pierce the neighborhood’s calm. Some people have simply left home at performance time. Others hunker down and console weary toddlers, put off homework or S.A.T. preparation, and reschedule family affairs.
The city’s Department of Environmental Protection has recorded sound in excess of permissible levels, and issued a notice of violation this week to the concert producers for the Replacements’ too-loud finale on Friday, which closed a show in which the opening bands had repeatedly been warned to turn it down.
26 comments:
On my way there, I could hear the warm up band from Austin Street so I had a feeling the hood wouldn't be digging it. I wonder how they dealt with the screams from the Beatles 1964 show that were like a couple of 747's taking off for a half hour.
The owners will sell it. Then you will get affordable housing.........thete goes the neighborhood. Or they build 15 story luxury aprtments and yo get 24 hr noise and traffic and no sunshine..........picck your poison.
Saw the Replacements there just last Friday. Great show.
The two bands before them were actually very low volume wise that it was a little embarrassing. When the headliner did get on there was no way they could go lower as noise from the audience already rivaled them during some points in the show. They also had to promptly wrap up at 10 PM.
As much as I liked having it in Queens, this just wasn't a good venue.
Meanwhile, the LIRR has been bullying out-of-towners. Ticket collectors on the Forest Hills bound train take one-way tickets after punching them, and those who don't ride the train regularly are unaware that they are entitled to keep their stub. This is important because another ticket collector, backed by police officers on patrol in station square, was standing at the bottom of the stairwell, demanding to see tickets from all arriving passengers at Forest Hills, and telling those whose ticket was collected on the train leaving them with no proof of paid ridership that they needed to purchase another one on the platform if they could not present evidence of having bought a ticket.
For those few of you who may not know, on busy or understaffed trains, collectors sometimes don't reach all commuters before they get to their destination, and this provides a gamble of an opportunity to ride for free. I can see that they might want to crackdown on that, but those checking tickets on the train need to be informing people with one-way tickets stamped for Forest Hills that the stub will be checked again and not taking them mindlessly.
Can't wait for the Vallone kunckleheads around Astoria Park wake up to his Diving Platform Rock Concert Space.
Add that to their loss of the city view from the Pot Cove Towers and quality of life in Rose Marie Pavo-Rambo bailiwick is starting to slip.
Gotta add a few more commissioners to the stage for her next 'civic' dog an pony show.
Queens will never compete with Manhattan.
I would like to see how much is being spent for the Queens Museum and Queens Theater, a study of where their patrons come from, and how much bang for the buck our taxes are giving us, and to compare those numbers with similar venues across the city.
I cannot remember a single person that goes to any of those venues when they can hop onto a train to the city to see better entertainment.
$85 million for the Queens Museum
$30 million for the theater in the park
Both way underutilized because nobody can access them or don't bother because the venues are poorly managed and don't have anything worth visiting. Helen Marshall was responsible for this waste of funds . The same Helen Marshall who demolished the historic aquacade so that she could install a pretzel stand...which by the way , was shuttered for nearly 5 years until recently.
Why isn't this community group protesting the endless and unbearable noise from the LIRR trains speeding through FH 365 days a year? Surely this noise is more "annoying" than 3 hours of loud music.
Why isn't this community group protesting the endless and unbearable noise from the LIRR trains speeding through FH 365 days a year? Surely this noise is more "annoying" than 3 hours of loud music.
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Probably because the train's been running continuously. The stadium has been quiet for 35 years.
But the unhappiness with the few stadium concerts is nothing compared to the misery that either a "Queensway" or a Rockaway Line re-build would create.
I figured this was going to be a problem. At the Phil Lesh concert Sunday I spotted people on the street with meters checking sound levels. There can be all kinds of problems bringing so many people into a quiet neighborhood although the crowd seemed well behaved and quite mellow judging from the smoke wofting over the stadium. As a 65 year old rock and roller I believe most concerts are too loud and I have tinnitus to prove it and I never go without my ear plugs.
Have they consider doing strictly afternoon shows?
Oh, get over it people. The music isn't that loud. I have lived across the street from the stadium for 40 years. Have witnessed the traffic inundation of the US Open, the really loud Rolling Stones and the hilarity of Bette Midler. The alternative would be development of the property and THAT would be unacceptable in an already densely populated area.
I agree about the LIRR comment - I happened to get off at FH the day of the Phil Lesh concert and got harassed by the ticket collectors at the bottom of the ramp. There was no warning at all about that, and it sucks.
I live a block from the stadium and I think the concerts have been great for the neighborhood. As do all the neighbors I've talked to. But you'd never know it from the way the Times wants to drum up sympathy for the NIMBY naysayers. My kids - younger than the complaining 8-year-old at the end of the article - love the music and we go out and dance with them while the concerts are going on. Perhaps people should learn to relax and enjoy life instead of ruining other people's fun.
I think 10pm is a reasonable hour to end a show. That's when quiet hours are supposed to start.
"in excess of permissible levels"
Bullshit !
How about posting ALL the numbers in decibels dB meter weighting (A, B or C) -including wind direction, speed and exact speed of the measurement taken.
I worked with "The Who" and have personally beaten these cops and so called "experts" in court every time.
Wind, cool air coming down and atmospheric density can drastically enhance sub sonic frequency's. These new cheap double pane PVC Euro windows getting slapped on buildings are also very resonant.
To add old Jewish people always have to complain about something or they are not happy. After 50 years of live music Freports nautical mile is now having the same problem. In Freeport the clubs and restaurants didn't "contribute" to a certain black politician. The the guy won the election and is now breaking every businesses on nautical mile balls as payback with $80 noise tickets.
You can not simply hand the police dB meters, they can be trained to get any result they want with them such as a dog bark, passing bus, or gust of wind, non amplified audience included !
**Outdoor" sound pressure measurements are only relative due do many other dynamics.
I was at the Replacements show it was really good and not loud at all at the sound console let alone outside. Actually TO LOW and lacking sub harmonic "kick" you should feel as well as hear in my opinion !!
I would love to be a fly on the wall watching these brats & crybaby in spanks react to an act like KISS with that bands .7 megawatt FOH rig and technical rider spec and outdoor pyro !!
"Phil Lesh"
Great Bass player and nice guy at a personal level however 90% of HIS Audience SUCKS and is something to really complain about !!
"Deadheads" and "Phishheads" are mostly homeless people who follow those psychedelic jam bands hitchhiking around the country, selling dope, mushrooms, MDMA & acid, don't bathe or shower for days.
I'm quite surprised no stoners fell into the path of a subway trains this year.
Ever been at Penn Station when The Dead, Phish or Lesh was in town? --HOLY SHIT talk about dirty barefoot messed up people !!
If this and "RAP shit" is what that promoter is importing into into Forest Hills the residents have every right to be pissed off and YES HE SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN.
If this and "RAP shit" is what that promoter is importing into into Forest Hills the residents have every right to be pissed off and YES HE SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN.
Uh oh! You better not say that in front of Councilwoman Koslowitz who loves the misogynistic beats of Jay-Z.
Look they tried the same BS with Bohemian Hall back in the 90s - the local talent that runs Astoria was so stupid all they could see was land for a garage - so they did everything they could to stir up the community that the beer garden was noisy.
Lucky non-locals got involved, the politically connected guys (not the sharpest knives in the drawer) stormed out in anger and the rest is history.
(Interesting to see how things have changed today - when the Stand actually makes noise at all hours of the night [Bohemian Hall never did that] the locals are told to move - campaign donations can 'even' the playing field even for a menace that many in the community believe that place is).
Well in any case, with our friends that run Queens, we know that everything in their rather pathetic lives are geared toward one thing - campaign donations.
And donations come from developers so you get the picture, eh?
I live in the neighborhood and I don't see a problem. I'm happy that we have concerts in the area. If concerts were good enough to be held back in the stadiums heydays, I don't see why it should be a problem now unless they are mismanaged, which can be corrected.
I'm not sure I understand comments regarding competing with Manhattan. Queens has never tried to compete, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't have our own venues for the arts and entertainment.
I'm so out of the loop that I hadn't even realized the stadium was up and running until I was strolling through Forest Hills this summer on what happened to be a concert night. It was early evening, and I noticed that the LIRR was puking out hordes of college-age-looking people. The music started soon thereafter. I usually do not have much sympathy for the richies of Forest Hills Gardens, but if I paid so much $$ to live in a wannabe-exclusive neighborhood, I'd be pretty pissed by the noise generated at these shows. I love concerts as much as the next person, but I wouldn't want to hear one while trying to go about life at home. It's not just amplified music that is a nuisance, but the crowd noise.... And the garbage that crowds leave behind... I was in the 'hood early on in the evening, when the show (or, I guess, opening act) had just begun, and I noticed that the pristine FHGardens streets were already accumulating littered bottles. Still, I felt a little bad for the concertgoers who innocently parked in the Gardens must have been in for a surprise when they returned to their cars to find tickets.
----A bitter old hag
"mismanaged"
If they are booking baggy pants karaoke acts like Jay-Z, rap and hiphop they are more then "mismanaged"
Its only a matter of time before somebody get's stabbed, shot or killed. Then they they lose the liability insurance and it's over.
Due to these rap, hiphop and electronic dance music live entertainment liability insurance has gone through the roof. I bet these people cant even buy it for acts like Jay-Z. As stated they must have special friends and "heavy lawyers"--(bag money) to make things happen.
By the way the term "rap music" "hip-hop music" are oxymoron's.
Hey, we are New Yorkers, we love to complain and why not. We have around 9 million people crammed into a very small space that we have to share with slobs, bottom of the barrel types, rich egoistical pricks, shitty politicians, fake hipsters and every other creature in a city that is way too jammed packed, horrible infrastructure, terrible traffic, a subway system that has gone done hill in the last decade, dirty and enough noise to drive anyone crazy. Plus so much of it is looking like third world crap.
Face it we love to bitch, no matter what. And that includes concerts in residential areas.
A few nights a month of concerts vs permanent overcrowding? Besides, the new housing might have a backyard cafe.
Empty beer kegs bouncing around in air shafts like they have in Astoria at 4 AM is no picnic.
Even if the New York Philharmonic were playing at Forest Hills, the NIMBYs would be complaining.
"Even if the New York Philharmonic were playing at Forest Hills, the NIMBYs would be complaining."
Ha! You got that right!
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