On August 14, 2003, the lights in New York City turned off. A rolling blackout across the Northeast — at the time the second most widespread in history — left New Yorkers stranded and plunged the city’s restaurants, bars, and theatres into darkness. In Manhattan, residents and tourists alike found themselves outside, walking towards Central Park. The crown jewel of the city’s public spaces was a natural meeting place.
On the east side of the park, at Rumsey Playfield, an indie rock duo from Atlanta was in the middle of a soundcheck when the blackout struck. The Indigo Girls were set to perform for the free concert series SummerStage that evening. And rather than retreat to their trailer or try to find their way out of the city, the duo decided the show would go on. They performed an hour-long, generator-powered set while the crowd continued to grow.
The show was the culmination of a project started in 1986 with the founding of SummerStage – and the community New Yorkers found there amid the blackout was a fulfillment of the promise of great public spaces.
The SummerStage festival started from a simple idea: what if we could revive a park that had fallen on tough times with a series of free concerts? In the first few years, the new festival played host to Sun Ra Arkestra and Ladysmith Black Mambazo; we’ve since been graced by Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Jon Batiste, David Byrne, Ethel Cain, Chance the Rapper, and hundreds of others. But as New York has changed dramatically in the past 40 years, the principles of the event have remained constant: this is a place where you can come, for free, and be whoever you want to be. It is the heart of New York, with newcomers to the city alongside New Yorkers by birth, people from Flatbush and the Financial District, Washington Heights and the Rockaways, Staten Island and the South Bronx. It was, and continues to be, a place of community — blackout or not.
The same spirit motivates all of our city’s great public spaces and the events, big and small, that fill them with life. It’s more than mere luxury. In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness a public health crisis – and community spaces can be an antidote. There is a significant body of research that shows that “third spaces” like public parks help to build the robust social networks that can counteract loneliness and isolation.
Historically, a major benefit of living in a city has been precisely this access to the kind of community and public art that flourish when creative people come together. But as rents rise rapidly, entertainment options balloon in price, and the cost of living makes leaving the house seem like a full-blown investment, even a city of eight million can start to feel lonely. The affordability crisis feeds the loneliness crisis. Our public spaces must be part of the answer.
When SummerStage began in 1986, it was in the tradition of resident-driven public works and projects like the Halloween Parade and the Studio Museum in Harlem. It was meant to be part of the city’s revival, a place for people to gather and listen to music from around the globe and from all kinds of musical traditions. Now, after decades of urban recovery, SummerStage and other musical performances in New York City’s public parks help us tackle a different type of hard times than the 1980s: combatting the affordability crisis and building the community we desperately need.
As it has become harder to afford living here in New York, people who are here hold on to their place in the city even tighter. Anxieties abound about how to define community and truly belong in the five boroughs. As our ever-opinionated city debates a definition of a “real New Yorker,” our public spaces and events like SummerStage refocus us all on a different task: creating a city where everyone belongs.
SummerStage and events like it—public and free, blending cultures and age groups and neighborhoods—are quintessentially New York.
They are what makes this city the place where people around the world dream of moving. But they’re also an answer to a universal human need, one that’s going unaddressed in too many parts of the country: how can I find my community?
Just like the first 40 years of SummerStage, the next 40 years will surely bring their share of challenges and change. There will be more tests of our resilience, whether they last for hours like a citywide blackout or stretch on for years like the crisis of affordability. During these hardships, we’ll rely on the communities we’ve built. A night taking in the park with your neighbors won’t just be a break from the challenges we face; it can be a solution. So amid the chaos, rush, and energy of New York City, don’t forget to stop by the park. You might find more than a free rock concert – you’ll find community.