Residents sue Forest Hills Stadium over concert series noise complaints

A group of nearby residents have sued the owner of the Forest Hills Stadium, saying the Queens concert venue has repeatedly violated the city’s noise code and created a huge public nuisance with loud concerts that shake their houses and prevent them from sleeping well at night.

Three neighbors of the stadium and Concerned Citizens of Forest Hills, a non-profit group of residents who are calling for noise restrictions on the concerts and a hold on shows, filed the lawsuit against the West Side Tennis Club on Monday.

It’s the third lawsuit over the concert series that’s been filed this year.

The residents charge that the noise shatters the peace of their quiet neighborhood, with concerts bothering their sleep and downtime at home, affecting their moods, disrupting work-from-home schedules and causing doors, light fixtures and windows to rattle and vibrate.

“We don’t understand why the city has been allowing the West Side Tennis Club to get away with this,” Andy Court, president of Concerned Citizens, said. “We are asking that the noise levels inside people’s homes be consistently monitored and that the West Side Tennis Club be ordered to comply with the law.”

The popular open-air concert venue hosted The Strokes, Maggie Rogers and Fall Out Boy during the 2023 season. Over the past ten years, it has occasionally drawn the ire of some residents. This year, backlash against the stadium has ramped up, with lawsuits flying.

Akiva Shapiro, the West Side Tennis Club’s lawyer, clapped back at the lawsuit in an email.

“The faux ‘citizens group’ that filed this baseless lawsuit is part of a coordinated money grab and doesn’t represent the actual residents of Forest Hills, who are avid supporters of the Forest Hills Stadium,” Shapiro said.

“Concerts and events at the Stadium have brought in jobs, revenue, and visitors since long before these NIMBY opportunists moved in and launched their misguided campaign to shut down the Stadium and harm the neighborhood,” he continued.

But residents say their concerns are supported by new noise readings that show just how loud the sound from the concerts was in their homes.

The band Cigarettes After Sex preform at Forest Hills stadium September 29, 2018 in Queens, New York. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

The lawsuit cites readings from Acoustilog, an acoustical consultant, that showed, on one occasion, noise levels in a home that were as high as 91 decibels when music was playing, which they charge is 2,425% louder the limits set by the section of the city’s noise code for commercial music.

One resident initially thought that electronic music superstar Fred Again’s DJ set at the stadium in October was an earthquake, according to the suit.

“Even 700 feet away from the Stadium, the vibrations have been so intense that they have caused items to fall off [a plaintiff’s] coffee table onto the floor and cause his record turntable’s needle to vibrate off the record’s grooves, making him unable to enjoy his own music,” the complaint reads.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection has met with the concert promoter a number of times to discuss measures they can implement that should reduce the noise neighbors experience before the 2024 concert season begins, according to a source at the department.

The concerts have drawn a handful of DEP violations mostly related to concerts going past the legal time limit of 10 p.m.

The residents are asking the court to crack down on the stadium’s noise further, and for a hold on events until a plan to mitigate noise, with the plaintiff’s approval, is set, to ensure a quieter concert season, as well as damages as determined by the court.

During the 2023 summer season, the 13,000-seat venue hosted over 30 concerts. Planning is still underway for next year, but they’re slated to run at least 25 concerts, with more potentially to be added.

This is the third lawsuit filed this year over the Forest Hills concerts.

Earlier this year, nonprofit Forest Hills Garden Corporation sued over the noise complaints and traffic headache the concerts allegedly caused — threatening to restrict pedestrian access from a key private access road to the stadium.

The West Side Tennis Club and its concert producer countersued in response, alleging extortion and interference in the concerts. The Queens Supreme Court judge granted an injunction, allowing the concert season to proceed as planned while the lawsuit was ongoing.