The Parks Dept. decided to throw in the towel on litigation that's been going on for three years and conceded to reevaluate its requirement that no more than 50,000 people could gather on Central Park's Great Lawn at one time.
Aside from six allotted exceptions (per year) that include four reserved for performances by the Metropolitan Opera and the NY Philharmonic, the city's rationale for crowd-size restrictions was that very large crowds could damage the 13 acres of well-maintained Kentucky bluegrass, preciously planted as part of a 1990s park revitalization program. Critics claimed that the rule was simply adopted to stifle free speech, and things came to a head in 2004, when the Republican Party came to town.
A huge protest was planned for the Great Lawn, but participants were forbidden from congregating on the Lawn and directed instead to a gathering point on the West Side Highway. That's when a lawsuit was filed against the city on behalf of the umbrella group Act Now to Stop War & End Racism and the National Council of Arab Americans.
The settlement now requires the Parks Dept. conduct a study to examine the optimum and sustainable use of the Great Lawn for large events. The crowd-size limit has been raised to 75,000, but until the study is completed, the previous regulations remain in place.
