The shows will go on — but not in Asser Levy Park.
The city will move Borough President Markowitz’s controversial summer concert series out of the Coney Island bandshell even before there’s a ruling in a suit accusing the Beep’s events of violating city noise rules.
“We’re very pleased that the city [will] move the concert series out of Asser Levy Park,” said Norman Siegel, who is representing the two synagogues that are suing the city because the amplified sound from the concerts disrupts their services. “But we still have a long way to go to solve our issues.”
The city has not decided on a new location for the performances, which have been held in Asser Levy for 20 years, but the series is likely to remain in Coney Island, according to NY1.
And Siegel says he’s OK with that.
“My clients aren’t against the concerts, they’re against having the concerts in Asser Levy Park,” said the longtime civil rights attorney representing Temple Beth Abraham, the Sea Breeze Jewish Center and various other community members in the case.
Markowitz has been mum on the reported move, only saying that the concerts, which included performances by John Legend and the Beach Boys last year, are still in the works.
“All options are on the table, and the shows will go on this summer,” said Markowitz’s spokesman, Jon Paul Lupo.
This is the latest in a four-year long battle over Marty’s music.
The borough president has held his Seaside Summer Concert Series every year since 1991, but caused an uproar when he announced a $64-milllion upgrade to the Asser Levy bandshell, which is slated to be built by 2012. Synagogue officials and other local critics called the planned venue a “monstrosity,” that destroys parkland and would overwhelm their quiet corner of Coney Island with cacophony.
In hopes of blocking an expanded amphitheater, synagogue officials last June sued to shut down the Beep’s concerts on the grounds that amplified music is illegal within 500 feet of houses of worship.
Just weeks after the suit was filed, the city passed a law that overturned the decades-old ban — but only for that summer, pending a review of the law.
The concerts continued to create contention throughout August, when The Brooklyn Paper reported that Markowitz used Rikers Island prisoners to assemble and disassemble the 2,000 seats for the series’ audiences. Locals protested that the job to set up the concert went to inmates being paid $1 an hour instead of people in need of work in the ailing economy.
