“Forest Hills Stadium Dartmouth St jeh” by Jim.henderson is marked with CC0 1.0.
As New York has begun to thaw from the winter, so too has the heated debate over Queens, N.Y.’s Forest Hills Stadium and the volume of its summer concert series. Last night, The New York Post published an exclusive article alleging that the venue’s entire events calendar would have to be cleared after the NYPD had declined to issue required permits. The stadium has responded with a statement to the contrary.
The Post’s account suggests that long-running tensions between the West Side Tennis Club–which has operated Forest Hills Stadium’s open-air amphitheatre since 2013–and local residents represented by the Forest Hills Garden Corporation came to a head when the FHGC denied the NYPD access to private roads surrounding the venue. Without this access, the NYPD would be unable to manage safety and security at concerts, and was reportedly forced to withhold new sound amplification permits.
“It is our hope that the West Side Tennis Club and FHGC come together and reach a solution to this issue so that the NYPD may resume issuance of sound amplification permits,” Legal Bureau Inspector William Gallagher wrote in a letter excerpted by The Post.
With ticketholders for Forest Hills Stadium’s 12 concerts already announced for the 2025 season (including Phish, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Black Keys and Alabama Shakes) seeking more information, the venue shared a pithy statement to its social channels: “Forest Hills Stadium is moving forward with our 2025 concert schedule as planned and our permitting timeline is on its standard schedule. As happens every season, the vocal NIMBY [Not in my backyard] minority of Forest Hills Gardens are attempting to roadblock yet another enjoyable season of music.”
“Neither the Stadium’s owner nor operator have received any communication from the NYPD concerning sound permits, which have always been granted to the Stadium upon request,” West Side Tennis Club attorney Akiva Shapiro detailed to The Post. “Because nothing has changed, the NYPD has not raised any concerns with the Stadium directly, and the City would risk significant liability if it were to abruptly shut the Stadium down, we can only assume that no such final decision has been made. We question where these rumors are coming from, find them extremely troubling, and are demanding answers from the highest levels of the Adams administration.”
Today’s update is only the latest move in a decade of mounting tensions between residents of the Forest Hills neighborhood and Forest Hills Stadium, which in 2023 gave cause to a 68-decibel noise limit on concerts. In 2024, 11 of 36 shows in the season exceeded this limit, including two raucous shows from Neil Young & Crazy Horse.
Forest Hills Stadium’s summer series will begin on May 31 with a performance from Bloc Party. For more information on the venue and its full events calendar, visit foresthillsstadium.com.
Content shared from relix.com.