Features
Hurricane Recap
Hurricane Sandy made her presence known in the concert business when she ripped through the New England and Mid-Atlantic states just before Halloween. But even though she forced cancellations and postponements all over the region, the superstorm appears to have caused minimal physical damage to venues at press time.
The most visibly hit of the large venues that managed to report out in the days immediately after Sandy made landfall was
Floodwaters filled the orchestra pit and inundated surrounding landscaping and concessions areas. A video posted to YouTube by the venue clearly shows mud and debris clogging the lower aisles and water pooled in front of the stage – which appears to have been submerged during the storm.
Fortunately, at least for concertgoers, the outdoor concert season is over at the popular Jones Beach venue, so no shows are lost. But there’s going to be repairs, and the extent of the damage is unknown.
A spokeswoman for Live Nation, which operates the amphitheatre, said the company could not comment on damage as it had not yet received a full report from the site at press time.
In at least one case, a venue remained closed at press time not because of damage or even flooding in basements, but because of what’s going on overhead.
New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall are near a West 57th Street construction site where a broken crane boom has dangled dramatically overhead some 73 stories up since Sandy began making its way to shore.
The 121-year-old cultural institution, which includes two smaller auditoriums, is closed until city officials give the all-clear, according to the New York Times. But the disruption comes as Carnegie Hall is in the midst of its season.
“Until somebody tells us a timeline, we can’t do anything except to work on a daily basis,” Carnegie Hall exec and artistic director Clive Gillinson told the Times. “There is no plan at the moment.”
The hall sustained no reported damage, but the city has cordoned off surrounding streets and cut off utilities to the area, the paper reports, making it impossible for anyone to enter the building.
Sandy made landfall down the coast near Atlantic City, N.J., but the city’s casinos were mostly spared, except by government regulators. The biggest hit is on business: the casinos are prohibited from reopening until state regulators complete inspections of all 12 gambling halls. Otherwise, only minor water leaks and a few broken windows were reported.
And despite reports that the famed Boardwalk had been washed to sea, only a section that had been previously damaged and already closed was destroyed.
Other iconic venues in the path of Sandy seem to have survived the storm little worse for wear, such as the famed Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., and Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md.
The lights were back on Broadway by Halloween, as all but five productions were to resume regular performances Oct. 31. Lincoln Center went dark as well, and some performances continued to be canceled at press time though there are no reports of significant damage.
And in Brooklyn, the new Barclays Center took Sandy in stride – but the mass transit lines feeding it didn’t fare as well. With flooding in parts of the city’s subway system, the venue’s long-awaited NBA season opener between the Brooklyn Nets and N.Y. Knicks would have to wait a little longer.
The decision to postpone the opener to Nov. 3, announced Oct. 31 by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was itself slow in coming. Officials initially announced the game would go on as scheduled, but the postponement decision was made necessary by transit stoppages and continued power outages that still affect much of the city and region, and may continue to do so for some time.