if someone was going to drop a bomb on me and I was in Queens, this is where I would come to hide out.” That was enough. It should be said that Forest Hills attracts promoters with crazy ideas. Ron Delsen - er, the granddaddy of nattily dressed music sharpies, who inspired Bill Murray’s char - acter in Rock the Kasbah and who once said of his work-family balance, “I have a wife; I sacrificed her to this business,” cut his teeth at Forest Hills in the ’60s. In the ’80s, John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis teamed up for MusiCourt ’82, a charity event that mixed tennis and rock and yielded a sublime photo of McEnroe, Gerulaitis, Carlos Santana, and Meat Loaf shaking hands at center court. In the ’90s, reggae promoters threw festivals here that the tennis club thought were going to last an afternoon but instead lasted whole weekends. As for Luba, he couldn’t get the stadium out of his mind. The Phoenix gig fell through, but he kept telling bands about this incred - ible place out in Queens, a tennis stadium, where the Stones played, where the Who played. In 2013, he brought one of the guys from Mumford & Sons out. It was a cold, nasty day, but young kids were hitting on the club’s courts. Two of the Mumford guys are from Wimbledon. If you can get it function - al, Luba was told, we’ll come play. He raised money privately, including from his old high-school tennis teammates, hired a crew, and got to work. Ripped out the rotted benches, stripped the concrete to the rebar, made over 3,000 individual patches to the facade. He and his partners spent $5 million without any ownership transfer, just a licens - ing agreement with the club that they could hold concerts for a period of years. “It’s a complete passion-project boon- doggle,” Luba says. “But it’s been one of the greatest projects I’ve ever had the chance to be involved with. Because when the place gets going, it’s as good a concert venue as
Fans, after waiting
through the night at the Forest Hills Music Festival ticket office, are still on the sidewalk, on May 1, 1964, waiting for Beatles tickets to go on sale. ap photo
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