Poor Bon Jovi :(

After all the hooplah over the Bon Jovi concert, less than 42,000 people showed. They gave out close to 70,000 tickets, expected as many people, Bon Jovi made a big deal about scalpers, and the media made up completely false rumors about an audience overflow section. Before the 10 p.m. finale, there was “a steady stream” of people leaving the Great Lawn.

EDIT (7/14): The reported number of attendees, 48,500, was intentionally exaggerated.  All parties involved (Bon Jovi, MLB, NYC, Ticketmaster, Central Park Conservancy, Parks, etc.) wanted the show to come off as a hit for their own reasons.  (Bon Jovi wanted to still seem cool, CPC wanted the numbers to be high so that next time around the city won’t push for a higher maximum capacity, etc.)

Speaking of hooplahs, the one opposing the maximum capacity restriction on the Great Lawn is absurd:

“In 2005, officials with the parks department limited gatherings on the Great Lawn to 50,000 people and capped the number of events at six each year, a controversial decision that officials said was designed to protect the lawn. In January, however, the parks department agreed to stop enforcing the 50,000-person limit, part of a settlement with two antiwar groups that sued the city in federal court after they were denied a permit to hold a mass demonstration on the lawn in 2004.

Under the agreement, the city was also to conduct a study about the use of the Great Lawn for large events. City officials said that while the study was being conducted, the maximum number of people allowed on the lawn would be increased to 75,000.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for the Partnership for Civil Justice, a public interest law firm that challenged the regulation on behalf of the two antiwar groups, the National Council of Arab Americans and the Answer Coalition, said the decision to limit the Bon Jovi crowd violated the spirit of the agreement.

‘That lawn has historically held half a million people,’ she said. ‘They have provided no basis to show why it should be so heavily restricted at this point.’” (NYTimes)

Those “historical” moments when the Great Lawn held 500,000?  The 80’s, when acts like Diana Ross and Simon & Garfunkel performed, and the lawn reached a state of being irretrievably compacted and led to erosion into Turtle Pond. The CPC was only just beginning to grow, and the park was a dump.  So sure, throw half a million people on there, just get used to calling it the Great Dustbowl.

What police raid?

Counterfeiters on Canal Street seem completely undeterred by this morning’s police raid, despite a noticeable increase in police presence.  While some stores were shuttered, some vendors still broke out suitcases stuffed with fake Louis Vuitton right on the corner of Broadway and Canal - a mere two blocks away from where they raided this morning.

Fake goods for the masses, right on Broadway and Canal.

Cops!

Shuttered stores on Canal…

DON’T

call numbers that people have scrawled on tables at bars just to be friendly and let them know that someone has done so. It will probably seem like a lot of fun, and a nice alternative from drunk-dialing friends, but it isn’t fun when they call you back over a month later from a Restricted number and sound old, lonely, and desperate.

Needless to say, I did this. The person whose number I found with some friends at Doc Holliday’s (and I called only once! just to say that someone had written their number on the table!) just called me back, and … wow. First of all, he remembered more about this phone call than I did, because, obviously, I was drunk. However, he didn’t seem to recognize the name of the bar or its location, which was my first indication that I should be TERRIBLY FRIGHTENED.

It only got worse from there. He asked if there was “anything he could do to help,” if DH’s was “a gay bar,” and if I was a student. FEAR FEAR FEAR.  In his offer to “help,” (which I had already declined…) he said he had friends who owned a restaurant on Park Ave. that I searched, only to discover that it DOES NOT EXIST.  I could have just hung up, but, being the narcissist that I am, I went ahead and entertained myself by lying about every aspect of my personality. (No worries, I didn’t let the conversation go too far. All he knows about me is that my name is Andrew and that I go to SVA for Graphic Design…)

Once the conversation began going in circles (he started asking if there was anything he could do again, he said it’s very hard to meet people in New York ), I went ahead and pretended like I had to go. Overall he seemed harmless, but creepy enough that I realized that it was entirely possible that he wrote the number on the table himself. You know, so that people would actually call him and he could converse with other human beings, since it’s apparently so hard to meet people here.

This is by far the creepiest thing to ever happen to me since coming here, which is saying a lot. I usually don’t answer calls from Restricted numbers, and now I remember why.