Fed-up Forest Hills residents are taking their battle against the neighborhood’s namesake concert hall to a new level — suing the NYPD over what they claim is an illegal takeover of private streets, The Post has learned.
The Forest Hills Garden Corporation (FHGC) filed a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging that police “unconstitutionally” took control of the homeowner group’s property on more than 30 concert days this summer to help the Forest Hills Stadium rake in millions of dollars.
“It’s not really a dispute between the Forest Hills Gardens and the stadium,” explained Katherine Rosenfield, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, the firm representing the FHGC, told The Post.
“It’s about the city taking people’s property without paying for it to do whatever it’s doing.”
The FHGC and its nearly 4,000 members are seeking compensation for the takeover, which has yet to be determined, but lawyers theorize it could be up into the millions.
The NYPD allegedly took control of the streets to facilitate crowd control and traffic direction during concert days, as it has in years past, in May, despite the FHGC rescinding its approval allowing the police to do so.
The denial initially meant that the NYPD couldn’t give the stadium permits that would allow it to put on its dozens of planned shows — but the pair ultimately struck a deal that would allow the music to play without the cooperation of the FHGC.
“It’s just really problematic. If this were happening on a public street, the concert promoter would have had to apply for permits and pay the city these fees, but because it happens to be on our private street, the city isn’t getting paid and the city is not paying us, the client. Something is amiss here,” explained Rosenfield.
“The neighborhood has been pretty much devastated by this and this is a last resort, this lawsuit against the city. They don’t want to do this.”
Organizers typically pay $25,000 per day to shut down streets on a similar scale to what the NYPD was doing on FHGC property, according to the city’s permitting policy.
Plus, there are the fees for the cleanup for the trash left behind by the concert goers, who have been caught drinking, smoking and urinating on the private blocks during concert days.
But the main issue lies with the NYPD completely blocking off the private roads to traffic, which means even FHGC homeowners are denied entry to their own driveways, according to the complaint.
In one extreme case, an elderly woman suffered an injury when she tripped while carrying multiple bags and luggage for several blocks when cops refused to let her taxi drop her off at her home, the lawsuit states.
The NYPD, however, did not comment on the claims, but told The Post cops only stick to public streets.
Jenna Cavuto is one of dozens of residents who have simply chosen to spend concert nights at a family’s home or at a hotel room to avoid the headache altogether.
“To even just walk down my sidewalk to get to Austin Street and to have to go through security checkpoints and to have to go through 13,000 people, it’s laborious … Sometimes I decide that I don’t have the strength to go through all of that,” said Cavuto, 33, a Long Island public school teacher.
“Just to plan a trip, I have to keep these things in consideration. You have to plan your life around when the concerts are, and quite frankly, I’m really having trouble understanding why residents are being put in the position that a private business is dictating our day-to-day lives.”
Cavuto, who moved to the Gardens in 2018, hopes that the lawsuit will open the Forest Hills Stadium’s eyes to the nuisances its concerts pose to its immediate community, which shares property with the tennis club it operates from.
Not everyone in FHGC agrees with the escalation of the bitter battle between the homeowner’s group and the stadium, however.
Mitchell Cohen, the former president of the FHGC called the newest lawsuit “a shame” and claimed it was mostly pushed through by the board.
“As a Gardens resident, it is frustrating to see how our Board purposely blocked the NYPD from providing security to our neighborhood, and even more perplexing now that they are suing the City of New York for responding to the situation they themselves created. The vast majority of Forest Hills wants the Stadium to be successful, it is a shame how a few selfish members of the Community can waste so much time and money trying to kill something so many love,” Cohen told The Post.
Tiebreaker Productions, the production company that runs the concerts, declined to comment, and the Mayor’s Office did not immediately respond to inquiries.
The lawsuit marks the third by Forest Hills residents in their war against the Forest Hills Stadium and Tiebreaker Productions.
The previous two directly targeted the stadium and centered around alleged house-rattling noise levels emitted during concerts. The Department of Environmental Protection slapped the stadium with at least six violations from this past summer season, down from last year’s 11.
Tiebreaker and the stadium have repeatedly asserted that it follows the strict instructions put forth by FHCP — including cutting concerts off at its 10 pm curfew — and have a large support following in the community outside of FHGC, including from retailers who say the concerts bring in a major revenue stream.
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