What to Know
- One of the Manhattan park's most popular spots for visitors will be off-limits for months to come due to damage stemming from a recent music festival
- The Great Lawn will be closed until at least April 2024 after the Global Citizen Festival on Sept. 23 tore up the grass
- The Central Park Conservancy said the "saturated conditions" combined with all the machinery and thousands of people tore up the lawn, with a third of it "fully destroyed"
As autumn brings changing leaves — and with the weather so unseasonably warm and nice out — many may be thinking of heading to Central Park to spend time outside before it gets too cold.
But one of the Manhattan park's most popular spots for visitors will be off-limits for months to come due to damage stemming from a recent music festival.
The Great Lawn will be closed until at least April 2024 after the Global Citizen Festival on Sept. 23 tore up the grass. The "combination of heavy rain, foot traffic, and machinery used for staging destroyed" about a third of the greenspace, according to a letter NYC Councilwoman Gail Brewer wrote to Mayor Eric Adams, asking him to have the festival be held somewhere else in the future.
"I write to request that the Global Citizen Festival no longer be scheduled in Central Park. The Global Citizen Festival has been held in the park for years, and this year, on September 23, it was full speed ahead despite torrential rain," Brewer wrote, adding that she has "never been a fan" of the festival but noted that it generally brings in $2 million each year.
The Central Park Conservancy said the "saturated conditions" combined with all the machinery and thousands of people tore up the lawn, with a third of it "fully destroyed." A spokesperson for the group said their team is "working to restore the lawn," which they hope is able to be open once again in the spring.
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The area around the Great Lawn is now sealed off with temporary fences until the fixes can be made.
News
"While we share New Yorkers’ frustration, we have had a positive relationship with the Global Citizen Festival producers and are confident any damages will be remedied expeditiously," a spokesperson for the NYC Parks Department said.
A city official said the organizers of the festival followed all permitting protocols and are responsible for all the costs associated with damages. The official added that the Great Lawn is generally closed to the public each year from November to April anyway for standard maintenance.
In a statement, the Global Citizen organizers said that they worked with a variety of city agencies and it was determined in the lead-up to the event "that this year’s festival should go ahead in the rain." The organizers added that any event held on the lawn that day would have resulted in the grass needing fixing, and that Global Citizen has always covered the cost of those repairs — an agreement that was "reaffirmed" both before and after the festival.
