Central Park’s Great Lawn Closing For Six Months Due To Damage From Global Citizen Festival
Every year, the anti-poverty organization Global Citizen holds a music festival in New York’s Central Park. This year’s fest, headlined by Ms. Lauryn Hill and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (but not Megan Thee Stallion, who canceled to guest with BeyoncĂ© instead), took place during a rainstorm. The weather, the heavy equipment associated with large-scale live music, and about 30,000 people in attendance combined for such a negative impact on the park that part of it will now be closed until April.
As the New York Times reports, the Great Lawn, the popular 12-acre oval of green space in Central Park, is closed for the next six months. In a statement, the Central Park Conservancy said a third of the lawn was “fully destroyed” by the Global Citizen festivities. The statement continued, “The Central Park Conservancy is very disappointed that the iconic Great Lawn is now closed and unavailable for New Yorkers to enjoy this fall.” The NYT clarifies that the Great Lawn usually closes from November through April for routine maintenance, but the damage inflicted by the fest has caused it to close six weeks earlier than normal.
Councilwoman Gale Brewer, whose district includes Central Park, estimates that the damage will cost $1 million to repair. She sent a letter to Mayor Eric Adams Monday asking that the fest be moved out of Central Park next year.