How a park rooted in Astoria’s Greek-American history continues to bring the neighborhood together in new ways. 

NICOLAS STERGIOU

Producer, Social Media Manager, Labor Organizer, and Unofficial “Astoria Street Spectator.”

nicolas.stergiou@gmail.com

For most of its existence, Athens Square Park has been a place where Astoria gathers.

At the corner of 30th Avenue and 30th Street, the park is one of the neighborhood’s most visible reminders of Astoria’s Greek-American history. Its statues, columns and amphitheater-like design are difficult to miss, but Athens Square has never functioned as just a collection of monuments to the past. It remains a living neighborhood space: a place for concerts, holiday celebrations, cultural festivals and, most recently, a rave. In that sense, Athens Square is carrying on a tradition that goes back to ancient Greece: gathering in public, together.

On Saturday, Aug. 15, local dance collective Party Right Here, alongside Eclettica, turned Athens Square into a free outdoor dance party from 3 to 9 p.m. The all-ages event was permitted and open to anyone who happened to wander through the park. The lineup included Puro, Zem, VLNRBLE, Omer Mil, I’s, Docta Jimmy and Talk Shivi, with house and electronic music filling the square.

There is also a less glamorous side to making something like this happen: permits. As a producer myself, I regularly deal with city permits for film shoots and events, and the process can be tedious—especially when a park is involved, multiple agencies have jurisdiction or amplified sound requires additional approval. Anyone who produces events in New York knows that simply getting permission to show up can sometimes be half the job.

NYC Parks generally requires special-event applications to be submitted at least three weeks in advance, with larger events sometimes requiring 30 days or more. That is a much longer runway than many film permits, which can often be approved within a few days. For an independent organization like Party Right Here, successfully navigating that process makes the event itself a little more impressive, and it is encouraging to see the city giving independent groups room to experiment with public programming.

That willingness to make room for more varied public programming also fits with Tricia Shimamura, whom Mayor Mamdani appointed Parks Commissioner in January. At her appointment, Shimamura described parks as places where New Yorkers can connect through cultural events and programming, while Mamdani similarly emphasized creativity, music and community. Athens Square hosting a free neighborhood dance party feels like a fairly literal example of that vision.

Saturday’s event saw longtime residents, younger people who clearly came specifically for the DJs, families passing through and children dancing alongside adults. Nobody needed a ticket or a train ride into Manhattan or Brooklyn. Party Right Here and Eclettica managed to put together something that still felt like a rave while making it accessible enough that someone walking through the park with their kids could stop, listen and become part of it.

Party Right Here founders James Forcinito and Jacob Henry, who also perform as Talk Shivi, said affordability and organic growth have always been part of the project. Forcinito said that as the cost of festivals, clubs, drinks and even getting to nightlife destinations has climbed, they have tried to keep their events affordable. No drinks were sold at Athens Square, but at their venue-based parties, Forcinito said keeping costs reasonable is part of the goal.

“By having free parties at places with reasonable drink prices, our goal is to make a night out a little more affordable,” he said. Even as the parties have grown, both organizers say scale is not really the point. Henry said the scene has grown naturally through friends, DJs and people showing up, while Forcinito emphasized that they are just as happy throwing a small party at Shillelagh as they are doing something larger outdoors. “Growth and ‘scale’ are not really our main concerns right now,” he said.

As someone who is Greek and has lived in Astoria for most of my life, I’ve seen Athens Square used for plenty of traditional community events.

Its roots can be traced back to the 1980s, following decades in which Astoria became one of the most significant centers of Greek-American life in the country. Community leaders began planning the park around 1984, and construction started in 1991, with the project largely completed the following year. Its design incorporated elements celebrating ancient Greece while still functioning as a neighborhood park. Over the years, Athens Square added statues honoring Athena, Socrates, Aristotle and Sophocles, along with its distinctive granite Columns of Delphi.

Much of that cultural vision was made possible through fundraising within Astoria’s Greek community, while the park itself was developed as a city capital project. Neighborhood activist Dennis Syntilas, a longtime Community Board 1 member, spent years raising money and building support for its monuments and cultural features. George Delis, then district manager of Community Board 1, helped shepherd the project through city government and later served as president of the Athens Square Park organization.

And people kept using it.

Over the years, the park has hosted recurring Greek music nights, Italian cultural programming, dance performances, holiday events and its annual Christmas tree lighting. More recently it has also hosted Hanukkah celebrations and become a familiar gathering point for local political organizing, including DSA canvass launches and campaign events. Together, those uses reflect an Astoria whose Greek-American heritage remains visible even as generations, cultures and communities continue to mix around it.

One thing Astoria has never really been known for, however, is electronic music. If you want a rave or underground dance party in town, you might think Bushwick, Williamsburg or downtown Manhattan. Astoria nightlife is generally associated more with bars, taverns, restaurants and live “dad rock” bands.

Party Right Here has spent the past few years helping build a dance scene in Astoria and Long Island City.

The group traces its Astoria parties back to 2023, when DJ sets at Shillelagh Tavern grew from small gatherings into a recurring local series. Party Right Here is the project of local DJs Jacob Henry and James Forcinito, who perform as Talk  Shivi. In a Reddit thread, the duo recalled that the first Party Right Here event began with little more than one disco ball and a $30 fog machine before gradually attracting larger crowds and DJs from around the city. They have since thrown events at venues including Culture Lab LIC and the Melrose Ballroom.

Despite that growth, Forcinito said becoming the biggest party in New York was never really the goal.

“We really just wanted to bring the rave/club scene to Astoria,” he said, pointing out that keeping events free or affordable has also become an important part of what they do. Henry remembers the beginnings being considerably smaller:

“The first time James and I DJed there were five people there.” What started as another way for two longtime musicians to perform gradually became, as Henry put it, “this community party, which has been incredible to see.”

Coming to Athens Square was a a meaningful next step—taking a scene they had been building inside bars and venues and opening it up to the neighborhood itself.

Saturday showed what that scene can look like when it moves into a public space. It didn’t require transforming Astoria into Bushwick. Athens Square remained Athens Square. Families walked through. Kids danced. People sat along the edges of the park talking while house, techno, and drum & bass music played a few feet away.

James said Athens Square felt like a natural fit because it has “always been a centerpiece of this neighborhood” he explained, “the goal was to “use the backdrop that these spaces already provide” and build the party around it. Henry was even more direct: “Athens Square is a dream venue,” praising the statues, columns and energy of the crowd. Both also credited Dylan of Ecletticca with navigating the city permitting process that made the event possible.

For six hours, a public space shaped by Astoria’s Greek-American history continued doing what it was built to do: bringing people together in new ways.

So whether you’ve been coming here for decades or just discovered it because a DJ was playing, come back for the next one. You might hear something you didn’t expect, dance next to someone you never would have met, and be reminded that there is plenty of room in Astoria for the old traditions and the new ones.