The Bryant Park Sukkah Is Legally Kosher

If you can't be jewish in Bryant Park, what's the use in going to the library?

Aw sukkuh sukkah now! (Sorry, had to say it.)

The gentile asks: since a sukkah is supposed to be a temporary structure, it is possible for it to be built *too* well?

The best sukkah I've see in Brooklyn was on an apartment balcony, with the walls built with several dozen Coke bottle racks i.e. those red plastic things they ship the bottles with that stack together like Legos when not in use. Well within the letter *and* the spirit of things, I reckon.

I don't know about the Sukkot thing -- but related is the intolerable event going on for the past two days on the shut down part of Broadway between 42 & 43 st. NYC celebrates Tel Aviv or some such. Loud, amplified music and speeches. Yesterday they were blasting music from 10:00 AM until 3:00 PM -- simply intolerable for people trying to work in the office buildings next to this. I work on the 10th floor of 1500 Broadway and the music could clearly be heard through a speakerphone. How can they get permission to do this for hours and hours during business hours. Working in Times Square there is an expectation of noise, but not loud amplified music ALL DAY LONG during business hours. I was shocked to see this "event" was still going on today! We were just treated to an hour or so of a woman shrieking over pounding music leading some kind of exercise routine which had like 2 participants, but probably hundreds of nearby office workers losing their minds. I have worked in Times Square for many years and seen all kinds of crazy stuff, but I have never seen such an obnoxious, intrusive loud event go on for so long. Companies pay huge rents and should not be subjected to this kind of nonsense during business hours...

In Establishment clause jurisprudence, religious installations do not violate the 1st amendment as long as they are not unequivocal promotions of a particular religion by the state. This space welcomes all religious groups while also providing jews with a place to practice Sukkah.

Similarly, a Christmas tree installation has come to be seen as largely divorced from the religious aspects of Christmas. Park tree set-ups are seen more as a celebration of the Xmas holiday than as a promotion of Christianity through state action.

In most cases, if an effort is made to include all with a state installation that evokes a particular religious history, it will be upheld against constitutional challenge. One good way this is accomplished in the context of religious holidays is by having a myriad of religious and non-religious uses and/or icons in a particular installation. They try to do that here through the "all are welcome."

There's one of these in the Ruppert Park, a city-owned park on Second Avenue, between 90th and 91st Streets. It's a big, ugly box.

Sukkah is for suckers.

"by the way, gotta ask, what does the "jp" in "jpeditor" stand for? i have a guess,"

and you call me a troll /provocateur?

Nice try. And thanks for the "hateful" - now go back to your dustbin of useless leftist grammar and your fantasy land of hope and change for "regaining our prestige"....

How do you like our "prestige" now, when your Ø has spent his administration apologizing and caving to our enemies and pissing on our allies, AND THE WORLD STILL THINKS HE'S A JERK.)

(And yes, I HATE jihadis, communists and their useful idiots).

you can ignore my question about your name if you like, but frankly that's as telling as if you had answered it.

i haven't indicated my political affiliation whatsoever, and yet you assume, since i used the word hateful to describe your admittedly hateful ranting (what a stretch!), that i'm a "leftist."

you also assume i'm an obama supporter. your assumptions are revealing of both your intent and also of your relatively low intelligence. however if you're trying to insult me, you've failed.

frankly, i'm starting to wonder if you're a well-designed computer program; created to emulate a relatively dumb, reactionary provocateur. or just a poorly designed human being.

"I haven't indicated my political affiliation whatsoever...you also assume i'm an obama supporter."

tsk_tsk_tsk on election night:

"I can see how the enthusiasm over Obama and our victory..."

Eat more ginko and salmon - it will improve your memory.

"And if he can help us all find a better tomorrow, then what is there to oppose? ...We will need your support, and the support of many Republicans, in order to restore America to her place of prominence, credibility, and honor on the world stage."

La-la-la-la-la,kumbayah!

thanks to deadknowbrooklyn for settling the issue. i guess the author of this post could have done that research himself instead of crassly attempting to stoke sensational controversy to crank up Gothamist's traffic and therefore ad sales.

but that's the difference between this blog and Journalism, clear as day. setting up a phony dispute over something that isn't really a dispute at all. repeat after me: Gothamist is for fun, Gothamist is not journalism.

by the way, gotta ask, what does the "jp" in "jpeditor" stand for? i have a guess, but i'd rather know for sure. obviously a troll, as pointed out above, obviously a provocateur, obviously a hateful person. ooh but what is that "jp"???

sukkah blat!

"violating the constitutional separation of Church and State? "

fyi. Bryant Park is privately managed and funded...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryant_Park

So what? It's still a public park. Central Park gets a lot help from the Central Park Conservancy, but there was still a huge outcry when the RNC rally was banned from the Great Lawn, because it's supposed to be for the public. But I think the Sukkah is a fair use of public park space because it's open to the public and privately funded. Fashion week should (and will) be held somewhere else.

"So what" It's only reporting/journalism JDS!!!

Deadknowbrooklyn makes a valid point. In fact, are ANY of our public spaces truly "public" any more? I doubt it... I was recently ticketed in a park for a very minor "rule violation" and was told the parks are NOT public property, it's "private" city-owned land that is "open to the public", at least that is what the cop said.

so is this like PARKing Day?

it looks mighty dark in that container like structure.

oil vay.

Oy vey... Gothamist (and every other brain-washed lemming)... WHERE in the constitution does it read "separation of church and state"?

Umm... The First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

That being said, I don't believe the Sukkah violates the first amendment any more than a Christmas tree does and should be allowed to be erected.

And if you don't believe in the importance of the separation of church and state, then check out what happens when it doesn't exist: Jesus Freaks http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/?artpiece_id=353

That does not say "separation of church and state" this has been covered in the posts above. It says govt cannot prohibit any religion or officially declare a "state religion". Of course morons like you go around yelling "separation of church and state!" of course, it's probably the phrase you were tought by your moronic public school teachers so FEH!

I find it more interesting that people really only seem to voice their issues of Church and State on semi-meaningless things such as this (in a larger scope that is) and not discuss the fact that our money says "in God we trust" and in pretty much every courthouse, behind the judge on the wall it says "In God we Trust"...not to mention you swear on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Swearing on the Bible is optional. If you don't want to, don't.

The Supreme Court has upheld using "In god we trust" on coins and other places because "lost through rote repetition any significant religious content".

I don't know why it was paid for when the organizers could have used an illegal official parking pass.

"isn't the structure taking away precious park space for religious purposes, and violating the constitutional separation of Church and State?"

a/ "They aren't "taking" they are RENTING, you Jew-hating SOS.

b/ It's not a "constitutional separation of Church and State" its a prohibition against state endorsement of a religion AND a prohibition against state DISCRIMINATION against religion.

Maybe if you read the Constitution as much as you memorized das kapital and mao's little red book you'd understand.

" Where are the tea-baggers, y'all?"

Now we know where you spent your civics glass - with your mouth in the toilet in the boys gym.

Why don't you chip in and rent space for your favorite religions: "recruiting" children, supporting jihad and helping communism.

Oh, I forgot, you already get all that WITH THE Ø administration, PAID FOR WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS YOU ARE STEALING

TEA = TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY..

Obvious troll is obvious.

I thought the First Amendment guaranteed my right to wipe my ass with The Bible. Words of Jesus in brown.

It certainly gives you the right to make an ass of yourself as you did in that post.

Why don't you show us how annoyed you are with the Christian Bible and do your little act after climbing on the bar at a Blarney Stone. Be sure and have friend bring a video camera.

When you are done REALLY grow a pair and do it with a koran in front of a mosque!

BONUS: Guess which video will get you an NEA grant?

A Blarney Stone? I'll only do it if they stop playing that one song over and over again. Yes, I know they keep telling me that those are all different songs but I know what I'm hearing.

As for the Koran? Only dimwits see Muslims as some sort of all-powerful bogeyman.

"As for the Koran? Only dimwits see Muslims as some sort of all-powerful bogeyman"

You are:

a/ a muslim who brags about using the Bible as TP.

b/ a coward who brags about using the Bible as TP but doesn't have the balls to comment on the koran.

c/ a leftist useful idiot for jihad, who thinks if he supports the muslims destruction of the Judeo-Christian west, he and his fellow commuturds can then swoop in and pick up the pieces.

there is one in Union Square as well, but it doesn't look as big as this one.

I have no problem with this at all. I will, of course, be putting up my atheist tent and display in the same spot in two weeks.