Put the Global Citizen Fest On Randall’s Island, not on the Great Lawn, Brewer Says

One year after a rain-drenched Global Citizen Festival inflicted $620,000 worth of damage on Central Park’s Great Lawn, which prevented locals from using it during the autumn season, Upper West Side City Councilmember Gale Brewer remains outraged and suggests it should be moved to Randall’s Island.

Brewer wrote a letter to Mayor Eric Adams on October 3, in which she requested that Global Citizen be moved elsewhere. She believes that Randall’s Island could be a prime candidate, she said in an exclusive interview with The Spirit.

“The Global Citizen Festival has been held in the park for years, and it invariably obstructs the flow of foot traffic, creates noise pollution, and appropriates large amounts of space from those who want to visit the park,” Brewer wrote to Adams.

After last year’s debacle, the letter continued, “approximately 12-acres of public greenspace remained unavailable to New Yorkers for more than seven months, an extension of the typical maintenance period by a month-and-a-half solely to accommodate a one-day event.”

The Great Lawn closes between November and April every year, due to routine maintenance. With the chaos that the festival caused last year, however, the space was effectively shuttered beginning in October. An extensive period of re-sodding was necessary.

Brewer told The Spirit that she has no bone to pick with Global Citizen itself. The advocacy group, which has a professed mission of “achieving the end of extreme poverty,” organizes its day-long yearly festival around contributing to charity. Chris Martin, the lead singer of the alternative band Coldplay, has been the festival’s curator since 2015. This year’s version, which occurred on September 25 and was hosted by the actor Hugh Jackman, featured performances by superstars such as Post Malone and Doja Cat.

Crucially, the festival led to the Great Lawn being closed for two weeks this year as well, starting on Sept. 22. This was both due to preparations for the festival being conducted, and for a much milder amount of clean-up afterwards. Brewer still finds this untenable.

“It wasn’t as rainy as it was last year, but even a small amount of rain creates a situation where the Great Lawn is closed,” Brewer said. “I think that makes my point, although I can’t get it across. There’s Randall’s Island. We want to have the Global Citizen Festival, just not in Central Park.”

She emphasized that Randall’s Island has dedicated “venue space,” a seeming reference to Icahn Stadium, which can seat 5,000 people. She also claimed that “a lot” of constituents support her position, and are grateful for her letter.

Randall’s Island has hosted tents housing thousands of asylum seekers for over a year, but the city recently said that it is beginning to dismantle some of them as new arrivals peter off. The entire complex, known as the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, will reportedly close at the end of February.

The Parks Department, for their part, currently have no interest in moving the festival elsewhere.

“We took several added precautions this year to protect the lawn including additional flooring, pre-seeding and conditioning, cordoning off vulnerable areas, and developing an updated weather management plan in coordination with our partners at the Central Park Conservancy,” a spokesperson for the department said. “The rain we saw at this year’s concert was minimal compared to last year and we are confident that any impact to the lawn will be minimal as well.”

“Central Park is not a museum; it’s an active space with a long legacy of hosting large cultural events like this one,” they added.