"Real Brooklynites" Demand Fewer Williamsburg Waterfront Concerts

Photo by Jen Carlson/Gothamist

Here we go again! Community Board 1 (more like Complaining Board 1, eh?) is trying to strong arm the Open Space Alliance into cutting back on the number of outdoor concerts they're holding on Williamsburg's waterfront this summer. Last night the board's parks committee voted to limit the number of large-scale concerts at East River State Park, by cancelling five shows and reducing capacity from 6,500 to 5,000 people. That's a nice wish list, but it ain't happenin'.

As we learned from the last time around, the Community Board can vote on whatever they like, and hope that local politicians will hear them out (though up in Albany, they actually asked us "what's a community board?"). In this case the State Parks Department has already confirmed that they have a firm contract with the OSA for the summer, allowing them to have 15 shows. OSA's director Stephanie Thayer told the Brooklyn Paper this week, "I can’t comply with this.” This being the demands the Community Board has delivered, and that's because it wouldn't make sense monetarily to limit attendance.

So let's just try to be civil, everyone, and try not to act like animals—because local Bryan Somerville told the paper he has to "act like a security guard on my stoop so that people won’t urinate outside my house." And a lifer of the neighborhood says, “Whose idea was it to turn a residential neighborhood into a concert venue? We had no say about it. We are real Brooklyn and we’re sick and tired of being abused by people here.”

The next Community Board 1 meeting will take place May 12th (211 Ainslie Street, Williamsburg), if you want to get in on the action. Though we recommend saving your energy for Sonic Youth at the waterfront this summer!

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By Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on May 4, 2011 3:29 PM

Comments [rss]

kevinizon

Incredible how hostile some postings are about this. Its not fair to throw concerts into peoples' area without airing this first -- which is in theory part of a democratic process.These concert things are exciting and fun, but apparently without consideration to those who have lived there a long time. Its not clear to me that people who bought property there signed on for it to be an incredible hipster-tourist funtown. Life goes on, but they have a right to air their grievances.

All the people who are reacting with hostility towards the old-timers will see, 10 years from now, that they themselves will begin to whine in just the same manner about wanting peace and quiet, a nice environment for their family, etc. You don't see it now, but you will. Up the road.

Trustafarian

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

randomtransplant

“Whose idea was it to turn a residential neighborhood into a concert venue? We had no say about it. We are real Brooklyn and we’re sick and tired of being abused by people here.”

This quote is so depressing.

WHoose Idea was it to force a post-industrial wasteland into being a residential neighborhood in the first place? And then whose idea was it to bring in attractions which would help reduce crime and blight? And then whose idea was it to plunk down huge freaking condo's with no infrastructure to handle them but a couple narrow, century old factory-access roads which are already over used as residential streets?

You don't have to have grown up in the outer boroughs to understand that their zoning is imposed from the outside 90% of the time.

Real Brooklynites understand change, just like the rest of the country. They arn't developmentally disabled. They arn't unified on any one topic.

sleepswitheyesopen

You know, I don't get pissed off when I get woken up every Saturday and Sunday morning @ 9AM sharp by the street preacher with a bullhorn. I chalk it up to living in one of the busiest cities in the world. I don't think its too much to ask to have a cultural event go until 11PM. Even if it is loud. That is still relatively early.

mofo_from_dapoint

Well, if I lived next door to a concert venue (I've been in da point since the mid '70s) I wouldn't want it either...As for the pisser, he should go piss on his own house and see what his mama says...

And while we're at it, I'd like to take that dog poop you left on my sidewalk and smear it all over your bike seat.

oh wait, then you might just leave said bike chained to the pole forever and ever until it rusts into oblivion.

mdiesel

Gentrification Flow Chart: OG Immigrants > Different Ethnic Immigrants > Different Ethnic Immigrants > Art Studios > Coffee Shops > Hipsters > Anti-Christ > Real Housewives of NY.

Common Thread: I was here before it was cool.

sleepswitheyesopen

"act like a security guard on my stoop so that people won’t urinate outside my house."

Did this guy leave an address when he was interviewed?

I love how even the people who are "lifers" cant handle the grit of the city, even after its been cleaned up for the past decade. I think one would be hard pressed to find someone that would rather have a strung out heroine junky on their stoop instead.

luke_1

Heroin (please learn words) junkies are quiet. You yuppie kids are loud and obnoxious, and you consume so much shit that you can't even be bothered to put all of it in the trash so I end up having to do things like picking your paper coffee cups off the top of my garbage can lids and placing them in the trash for you. That wouldn't be a big deal if your parents' money didn't allow you to yell outside my apartment all night.

"the grit of the city..." What a friggin' joke. Cities are just another place people live, and we don't need your idiotic suburban ideas about how gritty a city should be ruining our quality of life. Go away.

sleepswitheyesopen

Wow, really sorry for that one spelling mistake. At least it was a homonym, so lets just settle down there.

"Cities are just another place people live, and we don't need your idiotic suburban ideas about how gritty a city should be ruining our quality of life."

They are also cultural centers. If you'd like a nice quiet neighborhood maybe you should reconsider where you sow your seeds.

Because I like to go to outdoor concerts I'm now a hipster and a yuppie? Well I've never had a trust fund, and receive no financial assistance from anyone. I have a full time job at a cultural institute here in the city and I live in Harlem. I don't litter or urinate publicly.Did I miss anything? Oh yea, I don't own a bike or a car.

Since we're generalizing, you, from what I can tell, are an aging, jaded curmudgeon that feels entitled because they have lived in a certain area for a certain amount of time.

Get over yourself. We're all human and all like to have fun, and probably all in different ways. I'm sure if Enya or John Tesh gave an outdoor concert you'd be there with fucking bells on, paying $200 bucks a pop.

brendan

"grit of the city" = 5,000 idiots nearing full depletion of their respective trust funds who don't know how to properly dress themselves and don't own a single comb between the whole lot of them.

It's hard for someone who moved here from the Midwest three years ago based on whispers of its hipness to imagine how much more fun Brooklyn was when it was a little less developed and a little more dangerous.