SUNSET
PICNIC CONCERT SERIES CANCELLED
Last year Gateway
National Recreation Area Park Superintendent Lisa Eckert requested that we
re-locate our Summer Picnic Concert Series to Riis Park since she wants
all special events to be held there. First the Bay 9 Mall was selected and
then the area in front of the Riis Park Bathhouse. But both sites were not
an option for our concerts with their concrete, beach traffic, and parking
facilities some distance from the sites proposed. If you have attended
the concerts for the past 20 years, you will agree that the quiet, cozy
Fort Tilden venue on the grass with trees as “on-lookers,” the kids
playing within a safe, area and convenient parking (including handicap
parking) far surpasses that of the Riis Park sites with their less
intimate conditions.
Because we did not want
to cancel our concerts, RMAC reluctantly agreed that the unfinished,
inside courtyard of the Bathhouse might do if it were cleaned up, the sand
covered or somehow made comfortable for the audience, free parking
arrangements worked out, and tne Wenger Wagon (portable stage) is able to negotiate
the turn into the courtyard. Unfortunately as of this writing nothing has been guaranteed.
RMAC should have
scheduled artists many months ago, but was not able to do so due to
Superintendent Eckert’s unreasonable request and the problems associated
with it. As the Superintendent cannot be convinced of the fact that Fort
Tilden is the only site for the concerts, RMAC has been forced to cancel
this year's Concert Series. We hope to, once again, present our concerts
next year in Fort Tilden.
