Seaside Shonda

Two Jewish temples are among the plaintiffs trying to block an annual concert series in Brooklyn.

Marty Markowitz, the president of the New York borough, has hosted the Seaside Summer Concert Series in Coney Island park for 19 years, and this season is ready to kick off June 15 with Neil Sedaka and Brenda Lee.

But Sedaka isn’t the only one with “Bad Blood.” Officials at Temple Beth Abraham and Sea Breeze Jewish Center, last July, were upset by a Frankie Valli and Connie Francis concert that disrupted services, according to the New York Post.

That led to a fact-finding mission that discovered a city law prohibiting the use of amplification within 500 feet of a house of worship or school.

“This illegal activity will not only continue but will in fact escalate,” plaintiffs attorneys said in court papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court June 17, according to the Post.

The argument refers to Markowitz’s intention to build an amphitheatre in Coney Island park, which has seen a number of detractors – some because they dislike the roof that has been likened to a potato chip.

Markowitz brushed off the lawsuit, saying not only that there will be concerts but that the lawsuit is invalid because no one has protested in the nearly 20 years of concerts in Asser Levy Park.

“[The 500-foot rule] is immaterial to me because the concerts have occurred each and every year,” Markowitz told the Post.
He said his detractors should be “ashamed” of themselves and said they were holding his popular concert series hostage.
“As we say in Yiddish, it is a shonda,” he said.

A hearing is scheduled for June 30.