A settlement between the city, Lincoln Center and community groups will force IMG Fashion Week out of Lincoln Center after Fashion Week in February.
The news was broken by A Walk in the Park, a website run by Geoffrey Croft, whose NYC Parks Advocate group was a party to the suit. Community groups have been protesting the use of Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center for the event for years, claiming it blocks off a public park to community use and has caused environmental destruction — including the destruction of 57 trees.
As part of the settlement, the city and Lincoln Center will plant trees and shrubs in the park within the next six months.
Judge Margaret Chan signed off on the settlement on Tuesday. It’s not yet clear where Fashion Week will go after the February show.
Lincoln Center sent us the following statement:
“Lincoln Center is pleased about the amicable resolution to the Damrosch Park litigation. This matter and its resolution have further solidified Lincoln Center’s relationship with City government, neighborhood groups, elected officials and the Community Board. We look forward to working closely with all concerned to envision the future of Damrosch Park, furthering its already active use as a public amenity for free and low-cost concerts and educational events.”
We’ve reached out to IMG for comment and we’ll have more on this story later today.
Security is often tight during Fashion Week and other private events at Damrosch Park, as seen in the photo below.
Clarification: This article originally implied that Fashion Week would be moving in February. It will have to move after the February shows.
In my opinion, this is great and good news. There are many events that take place in the city’s parks that require and make good use of their special qualities but Fashion Week was, for all intents and purposes, an event in a tent.
There are plenty of vast spaces around the city (the Armories come to mind) that would be very fine sites for the runway shows, leaving the parks free to be used for their intended purposes.
I own a company which offers fashion-related tours, including Fashion Week tours, so I see both sides of this. As an Upper West Sider, I’ve experienced firsthand the crowds and headaches that come along with Fashion Week (although in my opinion it is far less disruptive than, say, that climate march that took place a few months ago.) The upside is that it also brings lots of people to the neighborhood to eat in our restaurants and shop in our stores. My company alone brings dozens of people who stay to shop/eat/sightsee, including plenty who were previously unfamiliar with the UWS.
This move was due to happen eventually anyway, as the long term plan is to relocate Fashion Week to Hudson Yards on the far west side, but they’ll probably need an interim space until Hudson Yards is ready to go.
So sorry you found the ‘climate march’ disruptive. If we do not do something about ‘climate change’ Manhattan will fall into the rivers (East & Hudson) and your tour business will also be in the river(s.)
In fact the NYC tide gauge record located at Battery Park falsifies climate alarm quite bluntly, as does the world average of all tide gauges and nearly every individual tide gauge on the planet:
tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750
The song remains the same, no human signal is seen whatsoever, just boring linear trend continuation.
I am pleased about this. Fashion Week, like the Auto Show (which is held in the Javits Center) is a commercial event.
The West Side, even the Lincoln Square area, is essentially residential – still a neighborhood.
Hooray for trees!
Best comment in the whole thread.
Interesting. Apply for a permit and give the public ample notice of a potential inconvenience = bad. Break the law, assemble in the streets, block traffic and inconvenience the public without any notice whatsoever = good. This is some world we live in.
Preach Jason. Well said.
THANK YOU, Jason, for daring to speak the truth!
Especially when the ‘librul media’ condones the repetitious and asinine spectacle of almost nightly disruptive (and $$$-wasting) civil disobedience by a bunch of self-righteous, self-appointed, Twitter-facilitated, catch-me-on-YouTube ‘do-gooders’ with no clearly-stated goal (“no justice no peace” and/or “i can’t breathe” are really NOT goals).
AND, to amend what was sometimes said of Jackson (Jack-the-Dripper) Pollock, How Will They Know When They’re Finished?
New York taxpayers paid thousands to clean up and store the Occupy Wall Street mess – feces and all. I guess UWSers don’t mind that…..
totally agree…. I’m not up on all the politics involved here so I don’t get it
And Big Apple Circus, being a commercial event in the same space as Fashion Week is allowed because……?
well, it is a performance and it is open to the public. that is in keeping with the greater concept of lincoln center.
granted, it uses park space, but fashion week was closed to the public and did not sell tickets.
the park sees light use in winter, probably because it is cold, windy and barren. it would need a great design concept and re-development to become a ‘winter park’ or ‘winter garden’.
Exactly. Abused animals are ok?
you can read the big apple circus blurb on their animal welfare policy here:
https://www.bigapplecircus.org/about-the-animals
it doesn’t sound bad, and a lot better than the ‘old’ days.
i tend to believe them because performing in new york city makes them easy targets for criticism, observation and vulnerable to prosecution.
Love the Circus. And so do the Animals. Better then being locked in a zoo .. Here they get to entertain the world. Power to the Animals !
I will miss seeing ridiculous shoes roaming aimlessly through the streets. I’ll also miss the only time of the year a visible traffic cop presence keeps the 65th Street bowtie modestly safe. Other than that, buh-bye.
Yes! And especially noticeable at ridiculously-early am hours….. If I forgot @ Fashion Week, this was how I got reminded. And said a silent “thank you” that I was walking the streets in comfy shoes and not 6″ platforms.
Yay!! And don’t let the screen door hit you when you leave. No more anorexics, fash-holes, dead trees, noisy & toxic generators. Go back to Bryant Park.
This is great news for Lincoln Square. The park is an amazing place in the fall. And to see them rip out all the flowers, shrubs, and trees to erect a building for Fashion Week has been criminal. Plus the blocked streets, generators and construction equipment create an eyesore. Power to the people!!
One of major industries in NYC SHOULD be given all the the red carpet treatment.
Any other city would kill to have such a glamorous event that is also is a huge economic engine.
Welcome to the new era of new york city. hopefully only 3 more years until sanity returns.
No circus, no fashion week! Both are a destructive use of space, as well as creating the suffering animals for the entertainment of humans (e.g., fur and performance) that we should not support. Actually, both events are a form of circus show.
A loss for the neighborhood. We should WANT high-profile, globally-recognized events in our neighborhood. Make the UWS a talked about destination , rather than a grumpy bedroom community, which it is becoming. I’m sure local businesses will be missing that cash, too.