In a decision fraught in a bit of mystery, the Escape Music Festival, which was to bring two days of entertainment to the Columbia Waterfront District, at Pier 9a, abruptly pulled out of Red Hook and moved across the channel to Governors Island.
This came as somewhat of a surprise to people who attended a recent Community Board 6 meeting where the festival was a topic of discussion. While a few residents had complaints about an event that had taken place the previous Friday, there seemed to be general agreement that the show was on and would be evaluated by the community to see whether pier entertainment and its Columbia Waterfront District neighbors could peacefully co-exist.
Present at that meeting was John Liantonio, Senior Advisor, Government & Community Affairs for the Port Authority. He stood in front of the audience alongside concert promoter Merrit Quirk as they listened to , Greg Brayman, the pier operator, and his associate Mark Stamatis discuss and describe to the community the upcoming festival. There was absolutely no indication that it would not go on as scheduled.
Yet last Friday, the Star-Revue received an email from the Escape Productions, producers of the event, to say that their permit had been revoked and that they were looking for another venue.
By Monday they had relocated to Governor’s Island, with the same musical lineup. Their website touted free ferry service and an extra hour of music each day.
Craig Hammerman, CB 6 District Manager, met with the Port Authority that Friday, the 26th. He was told that the event was not going to happen at Pier 9, but any other information would come from the promoter.
Conversations Merrit Quirk and the Port Authority to find out what had actually happened were ultimately unsatisfying. Each side blamed the other for the cancellation. What has become evident is that something other than the few community protests caused the snafu.
An Absolut concert event at Pier 9A was kind of a surprise to the neighborhood, but garnered very few complaints according to the 76th Precinct. They received more calls about the lighting setup a few days before as people were wondering what the bright lights were all about. Absolut prepared a giant red vodka bottle as well as a shimmering white ball as part of the show, which was a disco dance party filmed for a TV promotion.
Hammerman said that the community board did receive some complaints.
According to Port Authority (PA) spokesperson Steve Coleman, the Escape festival was never approved by the PA. When it was pointed out that a Port Authority representative was right there at the CB 6 meeting and listened interestedly as the nuts and bolts of the festival were being discussed, and never once mentioned that there was any problem, Coleman insisted that no permit was ever given and that we should ask Quirk to see one. He did however say that it could be possible that they had received permission from the Red Hook Containerport LLC, who, as mentioned, runs the piers. He also mentioned that security requirements were not met.
Confronted with all this, Merrit Quirk, who founded Balearic Entertainment in 2012 after a career in financial services, said to us in an email:
“That’s entirely false. We met every single requirement. We had a 100 page operations plan that had been vetted for 5 months. I would like to know if they could cite any specific conditions. In our last meeting, the PA clearly stated they had “zero reservations” about our security plan. There’s a good 20+ witnesses to that.
I can tell you that we had the “green light” to book talent on June 17.”
We heard from others that the reason they lost Pier 9 was because they did not make certain payments as scheduled.
Quirk’s response to that was “I can confirm that this is 100% untrue. We did not miss any security payments. We were responsible for security costs. We were contracting a private security company and that obviously would not go through the PA. We had set fees for PAPD and also had to hire union guards. These payments were to occur after the event. Whoever mentioned this is not well informed and doesn’t understand the basic structure of our agreement with RHCT or the PA.”
He continued:
“When it became political (you’ve seen the letter), it was a much better use of our time to go to a well-known venue that wanted us and not have to deal with layers of inefficient bureaucracy, mindless regulations, and wasted costs. While we had a legal right to hold the event, my time is much better used on creating a great fan experience at an established venue.”
The letter the Quirk referred to was one written on September 16. It was addressed to Greg Brayman, RHCT (Red Hook Container Terminal) operator, and Patrick Foye, Executive Director of the Port Authority. It was signed by the following elected officials: Brad Lander, Joan Millman, Daniel Squadron, Jerrold Nadler and Carlos Menchaca.
The gist of the letter was to reaffirm government’s desire to maintain Piers 7-12 for maritime purposes, including shipping. It states “There are many uses that would pay more rent than maritime commerce; we hold the port in public ownership precisely because we want to protect those maritime and industrial uses.”
The letter went on to state that it was very important for these events to be vetted before the community at CB 6 meetings. “While events on Port Authority property are not subject to public review, we request that the application for Escape Music Festival undergo a Community Board approval process. We request that the operator work closely with us and Community Board 6 to ensure that, should the event be approved, community needs are considered, including utilizing local vendors and providing solutions for anticipated problems.”
In fact, the CB 6 meeting had already been scheduled for the 17th, and Craig Hammerman had earlier met with the Port Authority, the containerport, the promoter and the 76th precinct in an August meeting at the Containerport. At that meeting Hammerman adroitly expressed community concerns and asked for and got a fact sheet detailing the festival plans.
Quirk made the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative and Portside concert sponsors, and guaranteed the non-profits a financial contribution.
Dealing with the points made by the elected officials was a large part of the Sept. 17th CB 6 meeting. Greg Brayman explained the procedures for renting out the pier, and guaranteed that in the future the community would be well informed if such a situation arose again. Sound, control control and security issues were addressed and explained and questions were entertained from local residents who attended the meeting, which seemed to the Star-Revue reporter a conciliatory response.
Yet the following week an inflammatory front page article in the Brooklyn Paper panned the event. Reporter Noah Hurowitz wrote “The transformation of a Red Hook port facility into a booming nightclub for three nights this month and the next is a disruption that poses a threat to all of Brooklyn’s working waterfront, according to neighbors and local pols from around the borough.” Perhaps the PA was scared off by this negative publicity.
In fact, most people the Star-Revue spoke with were intrigued by the festival, and many locals were hoping to attend. Local bars, including Alma and MikNik, reported better than usual sales on the Friday of the Absolut event, and we noticed nothing untoward on our walk up and down Columbia Street the evening of the Absolut show. Victoria Hagman, local real estate broker and recent CB6 appointee, had publicly called the Absolut event a ‘shitshow’ and said that she noticed people vomiting in the street, and was quoted in the Brooklyn Paper article.
Louise Franqui, 71, a lifelong Red Hook resident currently living right across Pier 9 on Columbia Street, said about the concert, “if it bothers you, go somewhere else.” She thought it might have been a “cool” thing, and that nowadays people are “crybabies.”
The Red Hook LLC is looking for additional income from the waterfront due to a recent decline in shipping volume as well as the threat of reduced investment in the piers from government and the Port Authority. The main threat to industrial use of the local waterfront is reduced income, which rental from the Escape Music Festival would have mitigated.
It was generally agreed that the Festival would have been an experiment to see if cultural uses might co-exist with maritme use.
Councilman Menchaca’s response to the cancellation was positive. Speaking for the electeds, he stated “we were very happy to hear that the concert moved away.” He reiterated his concern for maintaining maritime use of Pier 9.
Quirk mused, “It’s too bad,” he said. “I think we could have done some cool things long-term in Red Hook.”
