What could possibly be the downside of a day-long festival celebrating Brooklyn culture, food and music in Fort Greene Park?
Just ask the community board.
On Saturday, July 14, three event organizers will hold “Fort Greene Fest,” which they have dubbed a “celebration of the cultures, cuisine, and artistic diversity of Brooklyn.”
The organizers expect anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 attendees to flood the park and visit the Fest’s 100 tents between noon and 10 pm.
Patrons will be able to indulge in food from 69 restaurants, watch locally made short films, and listen to the likes of Afro-Cuban percussionist Tracey Johnson, Fort Greene native and songstress Barbara Tucker, and soul singer Selan.
It sounds fun, right? Not to everyone.
“We have serious concerns about any event with amplified sound,” said Community Board 2 District Manager Rob Perris.
“Although Fort Greene Park, at 30 acres, is the largest in the district, it’s not so large that you can find a quiet place in the park if there’s an event going on with amplified sound. And, there’s housing very close on three sides, and [on the other side is] a hospital.”
But the community board’s problem with the festival isn’t limited to mere noise. It also feels that propriety has been breached — after all, members of the community board didn’t find out about the festival until after it had been approved by the Parks Department (you know, the city agency that actually operates, maintains and manages the park).
The due-process complaint wasn’t only the board’s complaint.
“We heard about it like everybody heard about it — after it had been permitted,” said Charles Jarden, chair of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy.
Indeed, there’s no good reason why community boards can’t be told about such things before Parks has issued a permit. Except one thing: The Parks Department doesn’t care. “CB approval is not required for event permits,” said agency spokesman Phil Abramson.
True, the Parks Department could have at least gone through the motions. We Brooklynites are a territorial bunch. If you’re going to hold a mini-Woodstock — or, as the Department of Education found with its Khalil Gibran Academy plans, open a new school — it would be nice to give the locals a heads-up.
That said, Jarden, a seasoned planner of Fort Greene Park events, is skeptical this event will attract anything like the numbers being thrown around by its organizers.
“We think they’ll be lucky if they get 3,000.”
Well, that won’t be too noisy, will it?
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