Jul 14, 2008 3:23 pm US/Eastern
Recyclables Collected From Bon Jovi NYC Concert
MLB: More Than 100 Volunteers Cleaned Up Central Park's Great Lawn
NEW YORK (AP) ―
About 50,000 fans packed New York's Central Park for a free Bon Jovi concert on Saturday, leaving 150,000 plastic bottles and aluminum cans in their wake.
Major League Baseball, which sponsored the event, said Monday that more than 100 volunteers worked into the next day collecting the recyclables.
The MLB collaborated with the Natural Resources Defense Council in the effort. They placed recycling bins all around the park's Great Lawn and dispatched volunteers among the revelers to collect the containers.
The show was billed as a prelude to the Major League Baseball All-Star game at Yankee Stadium. The game on Tuesday will mark the final season at the Bronx ballpark. A new stadium is being built.
The rock group gave the free concert on the park's Great Lawn, delighting the tens of thousands of fans who sang along with the lyrics on a glorious summer evening.
The New Jersey rockers' opened with "Livin' on a Prayer" and belted out songs including "Born to be my Baby," "Lost Highway," and "Runaway."
New York City officials gave away 60,000 tickets for the concert. Some 50,000 people were expected to attend. The free tickets were reportedly being hawked by scalpers on eBay for as much as $1,500 a pair.
Hundreds of fans lined up early—in some cases as many as six hours before the show's 8 p.m. start.
For some, it was a family affair. Josephine Ribaudo-McGrane, 34, of Queens, arrived at 1 p.m. wearing a well-worn Bon Jovi concert T-shirt she bought in 2006. She came with her mother, 12-year-old son, 8-year-old daughter, an adult sister and her best friend.
"They've gotten me through a lot of rough times," she said, adding that her iPod is stocked with 200 Bon Jovi songs. "I don't think there's a song that I don't like."
The show was billed as a prelude to the Major League Baseball All-Star game at Yankee Stadium. The game on Tuesday will mark the final season at the Bronx ballpark. A new stadium is being built.
The band joins other greats who have performed on the Great Lawn, including Paul Simon, Barbra Streisand and Pope John Paul II.
Bon Jovi performs at Madison Square Garden arena on Monday and Tuesday as part of its "Lost Highway" tour. Alas, those shows require paid admission.
The quartet has been rocking for about a quarter-century and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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