Some neighbors call the 311 help line. Others say they now take a different route to walk their dogs. Parents complain of headaches. Children say they cannot sleep. A year after organizers announced that it was going green, Fashion Week has become an environmental worry for people living near Lincoln Center. As models in striking ensembles dazzle the crowds inside the tents day and night, residents outside fret over what they say is the constant noise and smell of the event’s diesel power generators.
“They got to do what they got to do, but they make people suffer for it,” said Hector Velez, 52, a painter and father of two who lives nearby at Amsterdam Houses, the public housing complex. “What can that pollution do?” he asked a reporter worriedly.
Fashion Week, which ends on Thursday and is also staged each September, moved to Lincoln Center last fall from Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. For over a week, nine portable generators scattered around the temporary fashion village erected at Damrosch Park have been burning diesel fuel to power the event’s lighting, heating and blow dryers.
Such generators have long been part of outdoor events in the city, like street fairs and movie shoots. City Health Department officials say they have not studied how much pollution they emit. But other health experts say the city already fails to meet federal clean air standards as a result of emissions from heavy traffic, boilers and other sources of pollution. Of particular concern with diesel emissions is fine particulate matter, airborne material that can worsen lung and heart diseases and cause developmental problems in children, among other health effects.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/nyregion/17diesel.html?_r=1
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