NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A swath of Central Park's Great Lawn was "destroyed" during the Global Citizen Festival and will not reopen until the spring of 2024, a lawmaker said as she urged Mayor Eric Adams to move the annual concert somewhere else.
In a letter to Adams, Upper West Side Councilwoman Gale Brewer wrote that the Great Lawn took a beating during the Sept. 23 concert, and she asked that the city no longer schedule it anywhere in Central Park.
The festival has brought some 60,000 attendees to the park annually for the past 11 years. The 2023 show—featuring headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Jung Kook—went on despite torrential downpours.
"The combination of heavy rain, foot traffic, and machinery used for staging destroyed one-third of the Great Lawn," Brewer wrote in her letter. "The Central Park Conservancy determined the extent of the damage necessitates immediate closure of the lawn for reseeding."
Brewer said 12 acres of the greenspace will be unavailable to New Yorkers until April 2024 or later "to accommodate a one-day event."
Brewer admitted she's "never been a fan of the Global Citizen Festival, because so little, if any, of the grants are allocated to nonprofits in New York City." But since the festival does bring $2 million to the general fund, the mayor could schedule it at a different venue, such as an arena or stadium, the councilwoman said.
Adams responded publicly to the letter Tuesday, telling reporters he'll reach out to Brewer about her concerns but that "no park is any better than any others."
"We're not looking to damage the Great Lawn, but I don’t want to damage the lawn at Prospect Park, I don't want to damage the lawns anywhere," the mayor said.
Global Citizen also responded through a spokesperson, saying in a statement that it works in close collaboration with the city, its agencies and the Central Park Conservancy for the event.
"We are incredibly grateful to call New York City and Central Park the home of our movement, which has seen $43.6 billion deployed to end extreme poverty, impacting 1.3 billion lives around the world," the spokesperson said.
"This year’s rainfall meant closer alignment with City agencies and stakeholders than ever before," the statement continued. "In the months leading up to the festival on Sept. 23, and daily in the week before the event, we worked closely with the NYC Mayor’s Office, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Office of Emergency Management, NYPD, FDNY and the Central Park Conservancy. Ultimately, the City of New York, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Central Park Conservancy, determined that this year’s festival should go ahead."
The spokesperson said Global Citizen not only pays a fee each year to use the park but works with the Central Park Conservancy "to assess and cover the costs of any damage, and we remain committed to fulfilling those obligations, as we have since 2012."