Justice Joseph Esposito has dismissed 5 out of 7 lawsuit claims against the historic Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.
Entrenched in Queens’ music scene and culture for just over 100 years now, the Forest Hills Stadium is a cornerstone of New York City’s live music scene. The only outdoor venue of its kind and size in the area, Forest Hills was designed with the ideal audience experience in mind.
With optimized acoustics and no obstructed views, the 13,000 capacity Stadium was originally designed to house the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Forest Hills began booking concerts in the 1960s, and the rest is history.
The venue’s lengthy history isn’t without its bumps along the way, however. The arena has been a topic of long-standing debate for folks living in Forest Hill. The general sentiment shared by people living in close quarters to the venue is a desire to at minimum alter the space’s practices and at most close its doors for continued complaints of noise pollution and littering.
Frequent complaints include excessive trash found strewn about in public for days after each show and volumes so loud that the windows on houses as far as three blocks away from the Stadium shake during performances. These concerns were met with cooperation from Forest Hills Stadium, with rectifying policies ranging from employing cleaners on the street before, during, and after shows to hundreds of thousands of dollars being invested in noise mitigation and controlled amplification.
A lawsuit filed by the Forest Hills Garden Corporation against Forest Hills Stadium and its parent company West Side Tennis Club filed in 2023 nearly spelled the end of the venue. The lawsuit outlined a total of seven individual causes of action, including claims of contract violation between the tennis club and the FHGC, trespassing, zoning violations with unjust profit, and both public and private nuisance claims.
However, on Monday, October 21, Queens County Supreme Court Justice Joseph Esposito issued a motion to dismiss all but two of the motions raised. A major win for those working with the venue and lovers of live music in New York alike, the Stadium’s final few shows of their 2024 concert season will go on. It’s likely that the venue will return with a new calendar of events in the spring given the remaining lawsuits conclude.
While a massive success, Forest Hills Stadium isn’t out of the woods just yet. The final two claims remaining are that of private and public nuisance. Justice Esposito stated that the FHGC had a claim sufficient enough to survive the initial motion to dismiss, which now must be proven with further evidence and testimonial.
Attorney Akiva Shapiro, representing the Stadium, stated that the venue’s legal team is “confident that the remaining claims will also be dismissed.”
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