By Sally Fahey
Cooler heads have prevailed.
Made in America, the annual Labor Day festival of music that’s been held on the Ben Franklin Parkway since 2012, has been renewed for this year, next year and beyond.
Mayor Kenney and reps from Jay-Z’s Roc Nation have made piece.
The event has forced street closures, irritated residents with profane language and excessive noise, and made the Parkway a mess that’s both expensive and time-consuming to clean up.
But it is also a big revenue shot for the city and it has raised our profile as a hip place to visit and spend money.
So the city agreed yesterday to continue to host on the Parkway “for many years to come.”
With names-in-lights headliners like Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Jay-Z himself, it’s put us on the music-festival map and transformed the streets of the city where America was made.
Since 2012, the festival has had a $102.8 million economic impact on the city, according to a fired-up commentary Jay-Z wrote that was published in the Inquirer and Daily News last week.
