“A lot of people made plans to come from Europe and other states in America to be there,” said Mr. Poulis, who added that he and his wife planned to leave town for the weekend. “I have no control over that. I will not be around.”
Smart move.
A Party Is Off, but Who’ll Stop the Guests?
By ELLEN BARRY
By sundown last July 9, the park police were running out of ideas. The permit allowed for 1,500 attendees, but the crowd had swelled to 40,000, nudging the person-to-port-a-john ratio to a vertiginous 2,200 to 1. Revelers pitched tents, hammering stakes into the asphalt runways of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. Several set up barbecues in the visitors’ center.
The event was Guyanese-American Family Fun Day, a yearly celebration that began 11 years ago with 30 people and grew exponentially, largely via word of mouth.
Lisa Eckert, superintendent of the Jamaica Bay Unit at the Gateway National Recreation Area, which includes Floyd Bennett Field, said she knew she was in trouble last year when buses started arriving from as far away as Ottawa and Washington, D.C.
Last year’s throng led to this year’s dictate: Guyanese-American Family Fun Day, which would have been held tomorrow, is off. Or so Ms. Eckert hopes.
The National Park Service took out advertisements in The Daily News and several local West Indian publications saying the event would not occur, and denied a permit to the men who organized it last year. Still, Brian Feeney, a spokesman for the park service, said he had no idea how many people would show up tomorrow.
“Word on the street is that this is going to happen,” Mr. Feeney said. When the park service offered its own contact number to people confused about the event, “our phones were ringing off the hook,” he said. Some callers “wanted it clarified. Others flat-out argued with us, and told us the event was on.”
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