Heaping helpings of cash are served up to vendors and organizers of the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival each year – but mere peanuts are left over for the charities it’s supposed to benefit, a Post investigation has found.
The city’s second biggest street fair after the San Gennaro Festival is expected to draw a million visitors and 300 food and merchandise vendors on May 19 and 20 to a mile-long stretch of Ninth Avenue between 37th and 57th streets.
But out of the gobs of money at 2006’s festival, which bills itself as a benefit to the Hell’s Kitchen community, just $3,450 dribbled down to nine local charities. That was a paltry 1.4 percent of the $238,750 festival organizers collected from booth rentals, city documents show.
Last year’s charitable donations by the fair were $600 less than in 2005. And the charities’ share has shriveled over the years; in 1989, the festival provided $28,000 to local nonprofit groups. Other street fairs raise far more for their communities, records show.
The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce donated 57 percent, or $136,000, of the $236,000 it netted in 2004 from its two one-day street fairs, each spread over 20 blocks on the Upper East Side. The chamber says the fairs’ earnings are distributed to more than 30 charities.
And in 2005, the 11-day San Gennaro Festival, held in September in Little Italy, netted $212,000 for a slew of local charities.
The San Gennaro fair was only able to break even last year. Its lighting contractor was indicted in New Jersey and workers had to be replaced at the last minute by costlier city employees.
Organizers of the Ninth Avenue festival are oblivious to how poorly their event compares to others.
“We give more money than any other street fair. We give back to our community all year long,” insisted Lillian Fable, a neighborhood resident and president of the Ninth Avenue Association, the fair’s sponsor.
She cited the fair’s fund-raising for Hartley House and St. Paul’s House, two Hell’s Kitchen social-service groups. Last year, Hartley House got $700 from the fair, and St. Paul’s House got $400, records show.
Fable griped about the fair’s growing expenses, including the $47,750 permit fee collected by the city, which amounts to 20 percent of the fair’s receipts for booth rentals. “Except for the police, everything else we have to pay for,” she said. Fable herself drew a salary of $4,500, the Ninth Avenue Association’s IRS filing shows.
And some of her fair’s expenses exceed those of more profitable events.
Documents show that in 2005, the San Gennaro festival paid less for insurance and had a smaller payroll than Fable’s event – and San Gennaro’s officers were unpaid.
Though its fair appears profitable, the Ninth Avenue Association’s other expenses were so high last year, it ran a $6,600 deficit. In effect, the group’s charitable donations in 2006 were funded from previous years’ surpluses.
Vendors paid about $7.5 million to rent booths at the city’s 367 street fairs last year, with the city getting 20 percent, or $1.5 million, city figures show.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wants community boards to look closer at street fairs and their finances.
“Where does all the money go?” he asked. “There should be some benefit to the community besides just tying up traffic in the middle of the summer.”