Brooklyn Concert Series Moves

A free concert series in Williamsburg – a neighborhood of New York City borough Brooklyn – will be at a different location next year after residents complained of noise, trash and rambunctious attendees.

Officials with the Open Space Alliance, the non-profit that hosts the series, hope that moving the events from East River State Park to a vacant, city-owned parking lot a few blocks away would appease residents’ complaints, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

“We think this is a better site, has a better impact on residents, and it uses an underutilized property,” Adam Perlmutter, OSA board member, told the paper.

Williamsburg resident Susan Fensten isn’t impressed. Fensten said she had to deal with rowdy, nitrous-oxide-inhaling concertgoers wandering around her neighborhood after a Sept. 17 Widespread Panic concert.

“They’re still going to have to funnel upwards of 6,000 people into the neighborhood – that doesn’t seem manageable,” Fensten told the Paper. “And we’re still going to be able to hear it. The era of quiet nights on the waterfront are over.”

Thievery Corporation, Kid Cudi, Stone Temple Pilots, Bright Eyes, TV On The Radio and Fleet Foxes were some of the other acts in the series that ran from June to September.

The concert series was originally staged inside an empty, Depression-era swimming pool at McCarren Park in 2006.

The series was moved to East River State Park in 2009 when the city decided to renovate the pool for swimming.