Brooklyn's Prospect Park sits upon one of New York's starkest demographic divides. To its west, the rich, prosperous and overwhelmingly white Park Slope. To the east, the mostly black Lefferts Gardens, and on the south-east, Sunset Park contains a mix of both Asian and Hispanic communities. It is, in short, a gathering place used by a very diverse cross-section of the population of New York.
When a private company closes off part of the park, it's bound to attract attention. Such an event occured last weekend, when Superfly, the organisers of Bonnaroo Festival, held the second annual "Great Googa Mooga" music and food festival. Last year's festival, the first, was mired by huge lines and general organisational disarray. This year's festival had shorter lines, but its entire Sunday lineup was washed out after heavy rain.
So what effect did the festival have on the park? The New York Times has already tackled the issue of damage to the park, as well as the lack of profit for the Prospect Park Alliance. But I was interested in the diversity of the park, and how it might have been affected by the weekend event. Did it represent the city well?
Please note that this is absolutely not a scientific study, nor is it an attempt to expose horrible wrong-doing by any party- Googa Mooga never claimed to be creating a festival that perfectly represents the city it takes place in, so to a certain extent it's unfair to judge it on that criteria. But I was interested to know what it did and did not reflect, and figured that others might be too.
In order to answer the question, some data gathering was required. Of the eighty two food vendors listed on the Googa Mooga food page, seventy six had addresses listed on the Google Places business listing database. Cross-referencing that with demographic data from the Census show us what neighbourhoods were represented at the festival, and the demographic makeup of those areas.
There's no denying that Googa Mooga had a clear slant towards restaurants in predominantly white areas. Looking at the map, you can see this clearly- the predominantly black neighbourhoods to the east of the park are entirely unrepresented, while more distant neighourhoods in Lower Manhattan are far more popular.
So, does it matter? The Prospect Park Alliance earned money through the event, and that money will be to the benefit of everyone that uses the park- though exactly how much won't be known until the operation to clean up and repair the park is complete. It's certainly unfair to claim that the organisers excluded people based on race- Lefferts Garden has fewer restaurants, so maybe we should expect to see it repesented less. So, the issue is not Googa Mooga's restaurant selection, but that such a selective event took place in Prospect Park.
Is this all a fuss over nothing, or is it an inappropriate use of public space?