FOCUS: THURSDAY AT THE SQUARE
Security becoming a concern at Thursday at the Square
Concert series is attracting more patrons indifferent to the music
For years, the Thursday at the Square concert series has served as a showcase summer event, luring thousands of area residents to downtown Buffalo each week for big-name musical acts.
But officials and veteran concert goers say the scene has changed over the past year, as the audience is getting younger.
And fans fear that complaints of public urination, drunken misconduct and rowdy fights — including a high-profile brawl captured on video and posted on YouTube — will hurt the popular summertime tradition.
“I would hate to see it ruined by people misbehaving,” said Theresa Dasey, 45, a payroll manager for Cannon Design who has been going to concerts in the square for 15 years.
Concert organizers say Thursday at the Square remains a secure destination for thousands of downtown workers, bikers, students and music fans, and violent incidents at the square itself are extremely rare.
“I think Lafayette Square, Thursday in the Square, has been a safe environment. Plenty of on-site security. We’ve never had any incidents at Lafayette Square, during the concert,” said Michael T. Schmand, Buffalo Place’s executive director.
But concerns that people who have no interest in the concert series are flocking downtown and causing trouble are growing.
And the Internet video of a brawl on a loud, crowded Metro Rail car after last week’s concert is casting a spotlight on security issues at the venerable concert series. (The video was removed from YouTube on Tuesday.)
“The City tries to have fun events like this and a bunch of people ruin it for everyone. Don[’]t be surprised if Thursdays in the Square are no more due to this stupidity!” wrote one YouTube user, “Vicky31mom.”
Thursday at the Square is in its 22nd year, wrapping up the last couple weeks of the 15 concerts scheduled throughout the summer for Lafayette Square in the 2008 edition of the series.
The concerts are known for attracting a wide-ranging crowd, including high school and college students, professionals in business suits, bikers and hippies.
Some come for the music, some come to hang out with their friends and co-workers, some come to drink cold beer and some come to enjoy a warm summer’s night.
The fringe of the square itself draws everyone from devout Christians handing out religious tracts to young people hanging out and playing hacky sack.
On a good night, the concert will draw 10,000 to 12,000 people downtown, Schmand said, and the vast majority are well-behaved and just interested in having a good time.
“Thursday at the Square has helped change, I think, the perception of downtown Buffalo,” he said.
Buffalo Place hires scores of security guards who work closely with Buffalo police and Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority officers to ensure the safety of the crowd.
Buffalo police on Monday couldn’t provide data on the number of 911 calls or police calls that originated from the square during and after the concerts.
So there’s no way to know, statistically, whether more problems have been reported this year than in years past.
Interviews with police officials and veteran square-goers and comments left on The Buffalo News Web site and You-Tube indicate the crowd in and around the square has changed in recent years. The audience has gotten younger, and there are more people at the concert and on nearby Main Street who aren’t necessarily there to hear the music.
“I think that was a bit of a turn-off,” said Dasey, who goes to about half the concerts these days.
Attendance is down this year at the concert itself, she said, though the rainy weather may have something to do with that.
But big crowds of young people are coming downtown, lining Main Street from Lafayette Square to Fountain Plaza, where a large contingent of young people has hung out this summer.
“A lot of teenagers are coming downtown to be seen” and to hang out with friends and schoolmates, said Chief Donna Berry of the Central district, which includes downtown.
Berry said Central District officers haven’t noticed a rise in problems related to the Thursday concerts this year.
Serious crime is rare, and police more often find cases of public urination, public drunkenness and open-container violations.
However, Dasey and others noted, you’ll find that kind of behavior at any outdoor concert, or major sporting event like a Buffalo Bills home game.
“I have no problem with safety,” said Dasey, who lives on Buffalo’s West Side.
Violence also is rare on the Metro Rail cars that carry many concertgoers to and from the square, said NFTA Police Chief Joseph Riga. The trains are always crowded, and often loud, as they carry people back to their homes and their cars.
The brawl that broke out Thursday night is an exceptional incident, Riga said.
While it’s not clear that everyone on the car in the video actually attended the concert, they were all downtown during the show.
The video was taken on an outbound subway car by Michelle Kleinfelder, who said she always has her camera with her and takes a lot of pictures and videos that she later posts on the Web.
Kleinfelder, a 23-year-old University at Buffalo student, goes to the concerts in the square pretty much every week to hang out with her friends and listen to the bands.
She said she started filming on the train at around 10:30 p.m., and soon realized something was probably going to happen.
It’s very loud in the video, with a lot of people crammed into the confined space.
The shouting, cursing and jostling went on for about seven minutes on the video, and it’s hard to tell what anyone is saying at any given time.
It’s not clear what sparked the fight, though one rider seemed to shove another and then punches started flying from every direction.
“It was kind of scary,” Kleinfelder said, though she continued standing on a seat in the car, leaning against a window and filming the brawl.
The fight didn’t appear to be racially motivated in its origin, Kleinfelder said. But the participants in the melee did seem to pick sides along black and white lines.
The fight stops briefly before starting up again.
One male rider in a tie-dyed T-shirt appeared to be trying to act as a peacemaker, but he ended up getting the worst of it and came away with a bloody nose.
The whole fight lasted about 90 seconds and most people got off the train at the next stop, the Amherst Street Metro Rail station.
Someone on the train called 911, but NFTA Executive Director Lawrence Meckler noted that if a rider had hit the emergency button on the train, officers would have been waiting at the next station.
The video also drew more than 360 comments, including many that are strikingly vile and racist.
Others said there are problems with security at the square and on the Metro cars.
“Before there were any punches thrown why weren’t the cops called in?” wrote a YouTube user named “Wyldbutterfly028.”
NFTA police continue to investigate the incident, Riga said. They’ve talked to several victims of the melee and they’ve reviewed the YouTube video as well as footage from their own surveillance cameras inside the Metro Rail car.
No arrests have been made, but charges could be filed if the fight participants can be identified, the NFTA police chief said.
In response to the video, Buffalo Place, Buffalo police and NFTA police officials met Monday to discuss security issues at the square and after the concert.
The NFTA doesn’t typically station officers on Metro Rail cars, Riga said, due to manpower issues. However, for the next three weeks of Thursday at the Square concerts, the authority will post more officers on subway cars and, most likely, at the subway stations as well, he said.
Mayor Byron W. Brown supports these efforts to boost security at the concerts.
“Any way we can help, we will. Because we want to make sure that those who visit the City of Buffalo are safe,” said Melanie Gregg, a Brown spokeswoman.
Fans say they want to see the concert series continue to thrive and they won’t let incidents like this one scare them off.
“I don’t think this is going to deter me from going on the subway” or to the concerts, said Kleinfelder, the videographer.
News Staff Reporter Sharon Linstedt contributed to this report.
